Unsolved '66: How to Spot Zodiac Killer Propaganda Part II
Recently, I examined the reasons to believe that a circa 2020 series of books on the Zodiac Killer case called the Zodiac Revisited, is propaganda designed to steer people away from William Thoresen, who in my book (Zodiac Maniac), I reveal to have been the Zodiac Killer, who was responsible for 47 murders that were covered up.
So much about the “Revisited” series tells me this, from its release date (it was released just after my book), to its online reader reviews and ratings (they seem too high and the praise sounds phony for work that appears to break no new ground, or name a new suspect), to it being released as a series (there are too few pages to warrant it), to the awards it has purportedly won (they sound bogus). The economics of publishing such a work on such a case at this time also seem not to make sense.
But there are other reasons to suspect that the books are propaganda. The blurbs for them mention Zodiac’s ciphers, the coded messages that Zodiac sent the press. As someone who’s written a book on the case, I can tell you that any author, or for that matter news story, that spends much time on the ciphers is suspect.
What progress has been made in decoding them in the last half century reveals that they are little more than gibberish. In other words, anyone who wants to distract you from the things that actually are used to solve murders (like facts, evidence and witness statements), in the Zodiac case will lead readers down the dead end street called ciphers. This is not to mention that, unlike my Zodiac book, so many books on the case (including apparently the “Revisited” series) seem not to explore the possibility that the case involved a cover up. I’m far from the first person to believe this.
But there’s another reason to suspect that these books are a government manufactured, big-tech promoted sham. Their author, Michael Cole, who purportedly won (and nearly won) a number of bogus-sounding book awards did so with true crime titles that appear not to break new ground, or even involve a new theory. Moreover, there’s nothing about them that I’ve read that indicates that Cole did any new investigative work, or has ever done so regarding a crime, or worked as a reporter.
I’ve never won a true crime book award but I received documents and saw evidence (shared with me from four sources—three of them police) while researching the first murder that I wrote about, which began while I was working as a freelance reporter. This is reason to believe the story of the “Revisited” series does not add up. And these aren’t the only things about Cole that are suspect.
I’ve already noted how the Twitter files story confirmed what many suspected. Big tech companies have been censoring Americans and, in some cases disfavored media sources, for years online at the behest of the US government. So what does Michael Cole do when he’s not writing award-winning, true crime books? According to his (Amazon) bio, he works for Intel.
Something’s telling me that a guy who is smart enough to have “contributed to the design, implementation, and validation of numerous GPUs, CPUs, and chipsets over the last quarter century”, as his bio states, wouldn’t be selling (for peanuts) re-hashed information about an old case that’s available online for free and about which dozens of books were already written.
Meanwhile, in my recent piece about the Revisited books, I mentioned the reasons to suspect that a video by True Crime Series on the Valerie Percy murder case is propaganda. I noted, given what the Twitter Files story revealed about how the US government pays big tech companies to censor on its behalf, it is suspicious that the True Crime Series video is horribly written yet boasts major production values (like having actors reenact scenes from the case) and the top of its comments section looks to be filled with phony-sounding praise. That it rocketed to the top of YouTube (owned by Google) searches is also a giveaway.
Another fishy thing is that the video’s host, “Ty Knotts”, uses a funny, fictitious name. (There’s nothing funnier than murder, eh?) This is something you might expect from propagandist. Something about him seemed familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I realized it.
He reminds me of another online video personality and podcaster, a political commentator who I am aware that critics have called a propagandist, a phony progressive who tries to sheepdog young voters into supporting the Democratic party candidates, Mike Figueredo.
It’s not just that both Figueredo and Knotts have beards and wear glasses. They look like they could be related. Are they brothers in propaganda as well as life? That would be motivation for Knotts to use an alias. Is one acting as cover for politicians while the other is covering up for government? I wouldn’t be surprised.