AGATHA CHRISTIE & THE ZODIAC KILLER

THE  MURDERER  AND  THE  CLOCK
Post based on a work by Agatha Christie: THE CLOCKS (1963)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHITPZ_Zbck


REVISED APRIL 2015

  "It's ridiculous that so much evidence can exist and so many clues can exist and yet we still don't know this guy's name"   says Tom Voig (He runs the popular website ZodiacKiller.com — an online destination for amateur sleuths who are fascinated by the bizarre murders that terrorized the Bay Area in the late 1960s and 1970s.)


Too bizarre murders, right?
 When I read the novel by Agatha Christie I thought I had read this plot before

INSPIRATION/IDEA


 Like Agatha Christie's Novel "The Clocks" the watch is an object to incriminate a person with a bad reputation:

"One thing is certain", he (Poirot) pronunced,"It must be a very simple crime".
"Simple?" I demanded in some astonishment.
"Naturally"
"Why must it be simple?"
"Because it appears so complex. If it has  necessarily to appear complex, it must be simple. You comprehened that?".
 (Chapter 14).

Solution in Chapter 28:
http://www.magusosauane.yolasite.com/resources/Agatha%20Christie%20-%201963%20The%20Clocks.pdf

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THE ANOMALY IS:

WHY THE MURDERER  WANTS  OR  WISH  TO BE IDENTIFIED WHITH THE NAME AND SYMBOL OF A CLOCK?
More about The Killer Zodiac Watch of the Zodiac Killer :
http://watchismo.blogspot.com.es/2007/08/killer-zodiac-watch-of-zodiac-killer.html

SYMBOL,  WATCH,  COSTUME  &  PINS........... WHY?

__Because as Mark Twain wrote: "If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?"
http://www.twainquotes.com/Killing.html

__Thus the murderer should hide his tracks and not show their identification, except that he wants to deceive us because it is too obvious who has reason to kill.

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THE  obvious  SUSPECT

THE BEST SUSPECT:  THE CLOCK´S OWNER
Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac advanced Arthur Leigh Allen as a suspect based on circumstantial evidence:  He owned and wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch. 

Did suspect Arthur Leigh Allen really wear a watch with the Zodiac's symbol on it?
__Yes. The movie (ZODIAC) shows Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen wearing a watch that bares the killer's symbol and the brand name Zodiac. The real Arthur Leigh Allen wore an identical watch, the Zodiac Sea Wolf watch. Robert Graysmith commented on this in an interview, "To use the symbol ... to wear that watch, and to be at the crime scenes and to know the victims ... he would have to be the Zodiac."

Arthur Leigh Allen was the prime suspect in the Zodiac murders and the only suspect served search warrants by police.

He was never charged with any Zodiac-related crime, and his fingerprints did not match those left by the killer of taxi cab driver Paul Stine.

In 1991, 23 years after the shootings, survivor Michael Mageau identified Allen as the man who shot him, from a photo lineup of 1968 driver's licenses.  Allen, who suffered from diabetes, died in 1992 from kidney failure.

 
While Arthur Leigh Allen was the prime suspect, all of the evidence was against him being the killer:
Allen lived in Vallejo and worked minutes away from where one of the first victims (Darlene Ferrin) lived and where one of the killings took place.  A letter sent to the Riverside Police Department from Bates' killer was typed with a Royal typewriter with an elite type, the same brand found during a February 1991 search of Allen's residence...... and MUCH more: http://www.zodiackiller.com/AllenFile.html

Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin posing with a coworker and another friend  at the International House of Pancakes (I-HOP), where she worked as a waitress in 1966-67. The I-HOP is located less than one-tenth of a mile from where Arthur Leigh Allen lived in the 1960s.
More: http://www.zodiackiller.com/Cheney.html

 
In 2002, SFPD developed a partial DNA profile from the saliva on stamps and envelopes of Zodiac's letters. SFPD compared this partial DNA to the DNA of Arthur Leigh Allen. A DNA comparison was also made with the DNA of Don Cheney, who was Allen's former close friend and the first person to suggest Allen may be the Zodiac Killer. 
More about this friendship and betrayal: 
 http://www.zodiackiller.com/CheneyTranscript.txt


Since neither test result indicated a match, Allen and Cheney were excluded as the contributors of the DNA, though it cannot be stated definitively that it is DNA from the Zodiac on the envelopes. 
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer#Suspects


Deductions
+ In a rural area it's very hard to keep secrets+ The murderer is very familiar to Arthur Leigh Allen 
+ The murderer tries to incriminate Arthur Leigh Allen


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EVIDENCES


The Zodiac murdered seven people between December 1968 and October 1969.

WE HAVE EYEWITNESSES,  LETTERS, WINGS WALKER BOOTS PRINTS, BLOODY FINGERPRINTS,  DNA .....   AND TWO PORTRAITS
 
BUT......NOTHING.

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THE CLASSIC MOLD OF A SERIAL KILLER ?

In looking at what may have been the motivation behind the Zodiac killer, Voigt suggested that his habit of writing taunting letters to the press may be a critical clue, since the actual murders do not fit the classic mold of a serial killer.

"He only had a handful of victims, but he had 20 letters,"  Voigt said,  "it tells me that what was really important to him was what he put in his letters."  As such, he observed that these letters served to mock the police, frighten the public, and, ultimately, create  "a whole big mess."  While this motivation may suggest that the Zodiac was merely an egomaniac driven by the desire to gain perverse notoriety for his crimes, Voigt was skeptical of this theory.

Conversely, he surmised that the killer stood, somehow, to gain from both occupying police resources and attention as well as making law enforcement look inept. 
More: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2012/04/22


&  LOCAL  SEX  
Many of the confirmed victims targeted  (6 of 7) were couples in popular make-out spots who were gunned down IN A CAR or stabbed by a man. 

And having  a spot popular with local teenagers cruising after dark like Lake Herman Road (Benicia), the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs, a golf course in Vallejo, & Lake Berriessa (Napa).


After brutally stabbing two lovers at a local lake one survivor described him as wearing a black executioner’s-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes wearing a bib-like device on his chest that had a white cross-circle symbol on it. 

The murderer  was also observed by three teenagers across a street of San Francisco, who called the police while the crime of the cab driven was in progress.

+ Like most people who grew up in California, my first make out session was in a car. In a bright orange Ford panel van with big huge tires and obnoxiously loud headers, we parked under the guise of, “let’s just go somewhere and talk.” It didn’t seem to matter where we were, as long as it was private. Time flies, windows steam and love blooms. That’s the G-rated version anyway. +
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/parking-in-cars-with-boys--a-list-of-lovers-lanes.html  

CAR & LOVERS
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs43/f/2009/132/e/a/lovers_point_by_Demonic_kirby229.jpg

THE VICTIMS
1  Who wants to kill two teenagers?
2  Who wants to kill an adulterous wife and her lover?
3  Who wants to kill a couple of young lovers?
4  Who wants to kill an unknown taxi driver?


1  NO ONE because they are too young. The first murders widely attributed to the Zodiac Killer were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen (16) and David Faraday (17).

 The couple were on their first date and planned to attend a Christmas concert at Hogan High about three blocks from Jensen's home. The couple, instead, visited a friend before stopping at a local restaurant, and then driving out on Lake Herman Road. Faraday parked his mother's Rambler in a gravel turnout, which was a well-known lovers' lane. They are chosen randomly.


2  THE CUCKOLD  Just before midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau drove into the Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site, and parked. The killer directed the flashlight into Mageau's and Ferrin's eyes before shooting at them. Both victims were hit, several bullets passing through Mageau and into Ferrin.  


After firing five shots, the man turned and headed back towards his car. Michael Mageau screamed in pain, and the suspect returned and fired two more shots into each of them. Michael was hit four times, Darlene five. He wants to kill them. Darlene Ferrin & Mike Mageau, they must be killed and so the murderer  shoots them again.  

Obviously Ferrin's husband, Dean, was initially a suspect in the murder, however was ruled out once it was established he was working as a cook at Caesar's Restaurant at the time of the murder. Ferrin's first husband, James Phillips Crabtree, was also briefly a suspect.


3   WHY? Conversation between the victims and the man with glasses approaching them wearing an VERY unusual costume and holding a gun occurred...He stabbed the couple.... and left them alive : Bryan Hartnell (20) had remained conscious throughout Cecelia's (22) attack,  The couple began yelling for help. He began to crawl for help. However, he had lost so much blood that he could barely move.

He survived but Cecelia Shepard passed away three days later as a result of her injuries from the Zodiac's knife. Does he really want to kill them?


4  A Thief because he steals personal items.
A chosen randomly cab driver is sent to an address and is tricked. 
One shot & one died instantly.  
Soon  Zodiac will send pieces of the bloody shirt of the driver in the letters.


Deduction:
+ So there is ONLY PERSON one good reason for killing Darlene Ferrin and her lover: THE HUSBAND but he has an alibi. So he needs an assistant, someone who wants to do the same....but WHO?

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WE KNOW THE FACE OF A MURDERER

The murderer  was  observed by three teenagers across a street of San Francisco, who called the police while the crime of the cab driven was in progress.

The composite sketch of the Zodiac Killer
Detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned to the case
FROM   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zodiac_blog_2100x147.jpg

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LAST COMMENT
+ This is the story of how two people (husband & friend)  killed a woman ( adulterous wife) , and others to cover up his crime.

+ Like Agatha Christie's Novel "clocks" the watch is an object to incriminate a person with a bad reputation: Arthur Leigh Allen. 

+ Arthur Leigh Allen as a suspect based on circumstantial evidence:  He owned and wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch.

+ The person responsible for the first two murders was a "friend" of the husband, and the penultimate & last murder were carried out by the husband. He robbed & killed the cab driver because he  need to send messages without murders because the goals have been met.

+ Logically, Arthur Dean Ferrin is the murderer and then his helper is .... or is  his master? ....  is another person who also wants to kill as in the novel "Strangers on a Train".

From Wikipedia(1950)
is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith about two men who meet and agree to "trade" murders so that neither will be a suspect in the death of their respective victim.

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I REMEMBER
 

Page from 1917 Mark Twain Calendar published by Sully and Kleinteich of NY
by arrangement with Harper & Brothers
from the Dave Thomson collection
http://www.twainquotes.com/Killing.html

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future ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA IN  PINK.
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MORE  SOURCES

"THE CLOCKS" 1963
http://www.magusosauane.yolasite.com/resources/Agatha%20Christie%20-%201963%20The%20Clocks.pdf

‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’: ‘The Clocks’ review
http://www.cultbox.co.uk/reviews/episodes/agatha-christies-poirot-the-clocks-review


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TO BE CONTINUED here:
AGATHA CHRISTIE & THE ZODIAC KILLER 02: HOW BRYAN HARTNELL & ARTHUR FERRIN KILLED CECELIA SHEPARD & DARLENE FERRIN WHILE ALSO CREATING A MONSTER CALLED THE "ZODIAC" (whodunit)
 http://prophecyexperimentalzone.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/agatha-christie-zodiac-killer-02-how.html

GOODBYE FROM SPAIN
JSP
March 2014
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The rabbit has a pleasant face
His private life is a disgrace.
I really could not tell you
The awful things that rabbits do"  

"Things that your paper never prints 
You only mention them in hints. 
They have such lost, degraded souls 
No wonder they inhabit holes; 
When such depravity is found 
It only can live underground."

+ Anonymous piece of Doggerel 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poirot%27s_Early_Cases

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOE1LlxDdvY
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