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Zodiac Killer Analysis

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Zodiac Killer Analysis
Zodiac Killer
In 1960 a cartoonist-turned-writer, Robert Graysmith became highly involved in trying to unmask the case of the Zodiac killer and all the murders. He worked for the SanFrancisco Cronicle and spent a good amount of his time trying to decode zodiac messags. Becoming nearly obsessed with the stories and following them all, Graysmith investigated into Arthur Leigh Allen being the Zodiac killer and considered him to be the prime suspect.

Graysmith jumps back and forth in the chronology of this decades-long murder case. The number of players involved including the suspects, police, witnesses, Zodiac's victims and possibile victims, journalists, relatives and friends gave the novel a dynamic structure with various points of view and left space for individual interpretation. Although Arthur Leigh Allae was Graysmith’s prime suspect, Graysmith did not always feel that way. The initial focal suspect of the Zodiac killings was Rick Marshall due to the point that his handwriting had assured resemblances to the handwriting of the Zodiac murderer (Graysmith 2002). Over time though, Graysmith’s point of view firmly changed.

There are 5 extremely significant pieces of evidence that especially helped lead Graysmith to believing that Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac. The first was the 10.5 Wing Walker boots that Arthur Leigh Allen had access to when only very few people would have access to the boots “wearing the exact size of the killer’s unique flight line Wing Walker boots,” (Graysmith 2002). The second significant piece of evidence is the Zodiac watch that Arthur Leigh Allen had and wore often, which had an embossed Zodiac’s symbol. A third piece of evidence was the fact that Arthur Leigh Allen and Zodiac used many similar or the same sayings and phrases in the letters and he, “He had spoken of an ‘electric gun sight’ and ‘picking off kiddies,’ used phrases like ‘Happy Christmas,’ and ‘trigger match’ before Zodiac had,” (Graysmith 2002). More contributing

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