It seems now that night has fallen on Texas with a kind of finality. The man turns from the grave and briskly heads across the dry grass towards his waiting car. As he goes he wonders if this is what it feels like to the snake when it sheds it's skin. A kind of relief, a pleasure that is almost sexual.
Humming off-key, a little tune about little lists written by good old Gilbert and Sullivan about 3 years before another Joseph Chandler stood in the damp London night gazing down at the mutilated remains of Ripper victim Annie Chapman, the new Joseph Newton Chandler III speeds off into his new life.
When one talks Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac Killer there as many theories about the killers identities as there are stars in the sky.
I have even written elsewhere of my feeling that at least one double murder in California last year may have had some kind of Zodiac connection, my thinking being that if Zodiac were still alive, the re-emergence of the BTK Strangler in the press set the aged killer off on a little mission to remind folks what it is serial killers truly do "best."
But after examining doenetwork case # 454umoh closely, after discovering the name of Joseph Chandler buried in the story of another mysterious killer from history, it is hard to not wonder if perhaps the Zodiac's final vanishing didn't ultimately take him to Ohio.
If he didn't, in the end, turn the same kind of gun he'd used on those innocent young adults in California all those years ago on his own head, and do what serial killers tend to want to do the most - take control.
Psychological profiling says it's atypical for serial killers to commit suicide, and that's true...but when they do, another component of many serial killers makeups should be taken into account. Their need for domination, manipulation, and control.
Say the man calling himself Joseph Newton Chandler sat in that Ohio apartment in the summer of 2002 surrounded by memories of emptiness. His final truth was embodied in the still air of his apartment. In the absence of human voices. Say he could feel, that he knew a slow death was being born in the depths of his colon, as the medical examiner later discovered.
All his years of cleverness, of dark victories over those who would have him rotting in prison on the west coast, meaningless now that he was alone. Unknown.
If he was the Zodiac, then his last act was the most moral of his life.
His last act embodied the spiritual fate of the serial killer. The Hollow Man.
Article comments
1 - Embersage
Steve, As usual I am impressed with your work. Your right about the fact that we have been discussing Dennis Rader's obsession with the Zodiac Killer. I have been working along side you as well as the others on these cases for a while now. We may never know the face behind the mask. Yet he has left us with some answers, as Rader tried to do. Hiding them in puzzles and codes. We may never have all the answers to who and why. Yet we will keep on searching. For in knowledge there is power.
2 - kat self
I have been blogging on crime rant.com. I have compiled a massive file linking B.T.K. tot the unsolved Zodiac murders. I have uncovered interesting tibits such as a Zodiac letter and a map made by B.T.K. both sighed with the initals r.H. and a Japanese connection on two Zodiac writings. There's plenty of more solid connections too. I'd like to see B.T.K. prosecuted for all his crimes. I'd like to blog with like minded researchers.
3 - intelligert
It's a mnisconception to think that it takes a genius to pose such ciphers. A 7 year old would be capable of doing this. If you have only a couple hundred of letters it's very difficult to break it.
How can you claim his letters had an intellectual appeal? they are more like from a smart annoying boy.
And btw, the cipher was solved by a teacher-couple. Imagine, the wife had a profession herself - crazy times those 60ies!!!
best wishes.