Unsolved '66: Bill Thoresen Matches Descriptions of the Zodiac Killer
Further reason to believe that Thoresen was the Zodiac Killer are descriptions made by witnesses to the final confirmed Zodiac attack.
This recent video https://tinyurl.com/yeyhabre reveals that Bill Thoresen, the violent scion of a rich Chicago-area family and presumed killer of three, owned a mansion that was within walking distance of the scene of the final Zodiac murder, the one that took the life of cab driver Paul Stine.
Thoresen’s mansion was also in the direction that Zodiac walked in after he shot Stine. And it was the exact distance from the park that police searched for Zodiac, as the killer mentioned in his notorious “Bus Bomb” letter. (The park was also in the direction from Thoresen’s house that Zodiac mentioned in the letter).
No less incriminating, prior to Stine’s killing, Thoresen was photographed while wearing a pair of glasses that had wide frames like witnesses to Stine’s murder saw Zodiac wearing. And it’s documented that Thoresen employed Melvin Belli, the lawyer who Zodiac wrote to at Christmas, 1969.
Given Thoresen’s criminal record, any two of the above would have made him a prime suspect in Stine’s murder and, by default, a prime suspect in the Zodiac case. What’s more, two MOs from Zodiac’s mailings to the press disappeared at the exact point in the mailing’s timeline that Thoresen died, which are two more reasons that reveal that Thoresen was Zodiac.
Nonetheless, authorities declared the later mailings to be genuine. This is reason to suspect that a cover-up began on June 10, 1970, the day that Thoresen reportedly died. But there’s more, including detailed information supplied by witnesses who saw Zodiac no more than a few minutes after he murdered Stine.
On that evening, Saturday, October 11, 1969, two of the witnesses, ages 13 and 14, observed Zodiac from a window above a street that was between fifty and sixty feet from Stine’s cab. They told police that Zodiac was white, in his early forties, and was about five foot eight inches tall with reddish blonde “crew-cut” hair. The youths did not hear a gunshot, though the killer is believed to have shot Stine no more than a minute or so before the teens saw him.
Their young ages, and downward vantage point, may have affected their perceptions of Zodiac’s age and height. Either way, what’s important is, hair colors that can be described as reddish are rare.
Minutes later, a third witness, San Francisco patrolman Donald Fouke, saw Zodiac. About a month later, Fouke submitted a report that provides a street level description of the killer. Fouke wrote that Zodiac was approximately five foot ten inches tall and was walking while slightly bent forward and with his head down.
At six foot one, Thoresen was three inches taller than Fouke’s description. But as the patrolman documented, Zodiac wasn’t standing upright, and he had his head down. So the three inch difference would be expected when a man who stood six feet one was walking in such a way.
Fouke further described Zodiac as being 35 to 45 years old, weighing between 180 to 200 pounds and “barrel-chested.” At the time of Stine’s murder, Thoresen was 32 years old. But all of the Stine witnesses saw Zodiac at night, which may have made the killer appear to be older than he actually was.
Authors Michael Delleher and David Van Nuys noted, after analyzing Zodiac through his letters, there’s reason to believe that the killer was in a downward spiral by October, 1969. This is reason to believe, if Zodiac looked older than he was, it wasn’t just the years but the milage.
Zodiac shot Stine. But the witnesses at the scene did not hear a gunshot. According to news reports, among the weapons found at Thoresen’s house eight months after Stine’s murder was at least one silencer. But there’s more about the descriptions of Zodiac made by the October 11th witnesses here that reveals that Thoresen was Zodiac: https://tinyurl.com/y9jtsjrz
The full story: https://tinyurl.com/5e38busw