Profiling the Zodiac Killer

I was recently asked by an unknown character to profile Zodiac; specifically, I was asked what I thought Zodiac's work background might have been. Having absolutely no formal training (but being a semi-frequent viewer of “Criminal Minds” and other entertaining yet unrealistic cop dramas), I naturally agreed to render my opinion. This analysis (although it is a complete fabrication) is at least as accurate as something that any other untrained person could come up with, so I feel vindicated already.

Zodiac could have been rejected for employment by the Montana Dept. of Corrections due to unknown factors and creeping suspicions still not spoken of by anyone in hushed tones, not even the regulars of the the Death-Delay Club near Missoula. He could’ve always wanted to be a correctional officer at Deer Lodge, and the rejection was rumored to have been a precipitating factor in his crimes. Long hours spent hauling bleating sheep to the rendering plant while listening to Jim Eason on the radio fueled his addiction to driving and forged in him a  mental connection between piloting a vehicle and causing death.  This was back in the celluloid age, of course, and his skill set reflected the times. He was an avid student of football strategy and was the first high school coach to pioneer the West Coast Offense, decades before anyone ever heard of Bill Walsh or his brother Joe. The warm smell of colitas did nothing to allay his suspicions that he was the beast and that steely knives would one day be driven home decisively. For this reason, he took up the cudgel and the mace and the longbow. I am certain there is some possibility  that he used his considerable skills in Kyūdō to fish for carp in his estranged father’s pond under the cover of darkness and that this had very little to do with the eventual death of his father at the hands of a vagrant at N. Houston and Main in Dallas. It is also possibly likely that the Panamint Mountains held great allure for him or that he once coveted the jar that held the head of the legendary outlaw Joaquin Murrieta, shot by Harry Love. Knots were not his thing especially. He mastered only the half-hitch and balked at the granny.  He was ambidextrous and ate beans from a can, worried open with a key to an old Karmann Ghia and time, lots and lots of time. He worked in highway construction and event planning and was, for a fortnight, a renowned surgeon who specialized in the excision of pilonidal cysts from the backsides of worthless hate-mongers. In short, as many others have previously concluded, he could have been anything or nothing or even an expert cartographer or USDA inspector or an organic bull testicle trader.  Or maybe he was just a guy who built jet boats in his garage next door. The possibilities are not endless, but almost.

© Pseudocognitive