Unsolved '66: How to Spot Zodiac Killer Propaganda
I recently noticed that there is a three book series on the Zodiac Killer case called The Zodiac Revisited.
It was published in 2020, or a few months after my Zodiac book went on sale. But this isn’t the only reason to suspect it’s propaganda designed to keep my suspect, William Thoresen, who I have named as the Zodiac Killer, buried in the past.
I’ll admit it. I have not read any of the “Revisited” books. But I have read some of their reviews, ones purportedly written by readers who bought the books at Amazon dot com. And I’ve read the pitch for the final book in the series, one titled Tying It All Together.
What struck me is, there’s nothing in either the reviews, or the pitch for the books, that tells me that there’s anything new or revelatory about the Zodiac case in the series, not even in the final book that claims to tie it all together.
Another reason to suspect that the series is propaganda is that none of the books exceed 250 pages in length. In fact, two of them barely break the 200 page mark. In other words, this “series” could easily have been one book.
So if it is propaganda, why was it published as a series instead of as one book? The answer appears to be simple. Because a series of three books would seem more authoritative and comprehensive than my single book. It, in roughly the same number of pages as the average length of one of the “Revisited” books, explains how Thoresen murdered no less than 47 people, was Zodiac and the feds covered it up. It only took a couple of hundred pages to do that.
Another apparent giveaway of the “Revisited” series is, with a sea of books already out on the Zodiac case, it would not make sense to add another without coming up with something big, like a good new suspect or evidence that solves the case unless it was propaganda. It also doesn’t make economic sense to break up six hundred some odd pages into three books, and try to hawk them for as little as $4.99 each on Kindle.
Perhaps more importantly, appearing with the “Revisited” books on Amazon’s pages are no less than a dozen logos for purported organizations and awards that could not sound more bogus including the “Reader’s Favorite” award, the “Book Excellence Award Winner”, and one called “International Book Awards Finalist.” They sure look (and sound) like BS to me.
Speaking of which, a number of videos have popped up on YouTube in recent years about the unsolved Valerie Percy murder case, which I have argued proves that William Thoresen was the Zodiac Killer.
Some of these videos mention information in my book on the case. Others mention the book but suspiciously ignore facts in it that indicate Thoresen murdered Percy.
Although some of them have been around for years and racked up over sixty thousand views, one appeared four months ago that instantly shot to the top of YouTube’s list of videos on the case—this is despite the fact that, four minutes into it, there are so many inaccuracies that I stopped counting them.
The video’s host, “Ty Knotts” (of True Crime Stories) tells viewers that the Percy murder took place in “the small community of North Shore”. Later he says “it would be 2002 when the case was given back to the North Shore community.”
(The Percy murder took place in a Chicago suburb called Kenilworth. There is no town in the area called North Shore. The area, which contains sixteen suburbs, is known as the North Shore.) Such inaccuracies appear to be deliberate. After all, how can you call someone a liar when they can’t even keep even the most basic facts of a story straight? The point would appear to be to attract clueless viewers and feed them lies.
Suspiciously, Knotts (ironically the same name as the actor who played the notoriously inept police officer Barney Fife) fails to mention the only book on the Percy case. Even the production’s name, “True Crime Stories”, sounds like propaganda because it rings so generic.
Despite the atrocious writing, the top comments that appear under the video (purportedly from viewers) are glowing and the production values are significant. This does not add up. Who would be able to lay out the kind of money such a production requires while getting so much wrong and yet somehow be able to have it turn up at the top of YouTube searches, complete with phony-sounding praise in its comments?
A good answer would be the US government, whose suppression (by way of the FBI) of truth in online media was recently revealed in the Twitter Files. Keeping the truth about Thoresen under wraps appears to remain a priority.