Thread by @ThePaulOfHaynes

Paul Doerr—the #zodiackiller suspect developed by author Jarett Kobek (in his remarkable book HOW TO FIND ZODIAC)—is the best Zodiac suspect that's ever surfaced.

Here’s an absurdly long thread outlining why.

1. It's not any one data point that sells Paul Doerr (b. 4/1/1927, d. 8/2/2007) as Zodiac, but rather, all of them combined that make it appear probabilistically impossible Zodiac was anyone other than Doerr.

2. Let's start with Doerr's favorite pastimes: writing letters to the editor (mostly to zines), which he'd been doing since his youth. To the extent his letters—and the many mimeographed zines he made himself—are archived digitally, they offer a wealth (understatement) of info.

3. In issue #9 of his zine PIONEER, Doerr describes a formula for a homemade ANFO bomb. It is virtually identical to Zodiac's bus bomb formula, and features the same crucial omission (a starter).

And both Doerr and Zodiac knew this bomb must be kept dry.

4. In a 1974 letter to GREEN EGG—his favorite zine—Doerr admits having killed people. (And in his zine PIONEER, he advocates killing your enemies.)

5. In a letter to TIGHTBEAM (#65 Winter 1970), Doerr complains about rising postage costs and proposes using only 1¢ stamps—which postal workers must cancel by hand—to spite the post office. On 12/20/69, Zodiac had sent a letter to attorney Melvin Belli using six 1¢ stamps.

6. In April 1972, Doerr wrote a letter to the editor of the @sfexaminer making reference to methods of torture, and people as animals and slaves.

7. In a letter to VONULINC, Doerr informs readers that "a letter to sf examiner, sf will reach it without street address."

All of Zodiac's mailings to the EXAMINER and other recipients were sans street address.

8a. Doerr was a role-playing fantasist (who was into Dungeons and Dragons in his 60s) who liked to play dress-up—the below photo was likely taken sometime between 1969 and 1972—and attended renaissance festivals, where an executioner's hood would not appear out of the ordinary.

8b. In fact, there was a renaissance faire happening in the Bay Area the day of the Lake Berryessa attack.

9a. There are visible similarities between Doerr’s knife and scabbard, and the knife (double rivets) and scabbard (wood-colored) Zodiac used at Berryessa.

9b. Zodiac's knife was also described as looking homemade.

In a letter to TIGHTBEAM #56 (May 1969), Doerr writes about casting his own metal.

10a. Doerr was the right age—42 in 1969, when Zodiac was described as early 40s/35-45—often sported a crew cut (like Zodiac), and closely resembled the highly reliable Presidio Heights composites, which were based on eyewitness descriptions from cops who got a good look at him.

10b. Doerr’s height was 5’9”—also consistent with descriptions of Zodiac.

11. Doerr was stocky in the late 60s/early 70s, and dropped to 150 lbs. in 1972 (per a letter he wrote to FAPA)—after descriptions of Zodiac as stocky had circulated—then regained the weight in the late 70s, and later dropped it once again.

12. Doerr was into cryptography and published a cipher in his Tolkien zine (HOBBITALIA) three days after Zodiac sent his "Z13" cipher.

13a. Doerr put out a "Filk" music zine. In the 60s, a substantial portion of Filk songs were based—lyrically + musically—on Gilbert & Sullivan tunes. Zodiac references G&S in at least 3 correspondences.

(& there were 2 G&S Filk performances at the '68 ren faire Doerr attended.)

13b. Zodiac’s G&S references all quote or paraphrase THE MIKADO. His “Little List” letter transcribes the lyrics of the Groucho Marx version, released on LP in 1960—which Doerr’s daughter remembers him playing around the house.

14. Doerr owned, in the 2000s, a sky blue '63 Chevy Nova. Although it's still undetermined when he acquired it, this fits the description of a vehicle (sky blue or silver blue late-model Chevy with rectangular tail lights) seen at Lake Berryessa the afternoon of Hartnell/Shepard

15a. Doerr's zines are full of hand-drawn diagrams, exhibiting stylistic similarities and a similar level of drafting proficiency to Zodiac's bus bomb diagrams.

15b. Both Doerr and Zodiac draw, in addition to standard arrows, a feathered directional arrow.

16i. An anonymous 1972 handwritten letter published in GREEN EGG—on a page opposite a Doerr letter no less—exhibits many parallels to Zodiac letters.

The sender was likely Doerr (as he’d written a longwinded diatribe about puritanism and nudity in a previous issue).

16ii. Parallels include: a) Use of a constructed voice; b) Intentional misspellings; c) Use of the phrase 'Doing your thing’; d) A gratuitously crossed-out word; e) "Dear Mr. Zell" not followed by a comma or colon; f) Signature is a symbol...

16iii. g) Author’s use of cut-and-paste collage art.

The “Daniel Boone” lettering was possibly clipped from an earlier ('60s or '70s) iteration of the below Kentucky tourism brochure. The coonskin hat appears hand-drawn. Zodiac pasted clipped elements into some of his mailings.

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