Unsolved '66: Proof
Unsolved '66: Proof
Valerie Percy's killer murdered sixty-nine others, and it was covered up. (9th in a series)
Anyone wondering whether there’s proof that William Thoresen was the Zodiac Killer should consider the following facts.
After June 10, 1970, when William died, there were no more Zodiac sightings, attacks, or phone calls.
When William died the envelopes containing “Zodiac” mailings changed in two ways: Their second stamp disappeared (Zodiac affixed double postage to the previous letters), and notations containing the word “editor” disappeared.
Mailings sent after William died lacked proof they were sent by the killer.
William had red in his hair like the witnesses to Paul Stine’s murder said Zodiac had.
The same witnesses saw Stine’s killer walk north after the murder.
Police searched for Zodiac in the southeast corner of Presidio Park minutes after he murdered Stine. Zodiac mentions the search in a letter where he states that while they were looking for him, police never got within two blocks of him and were to the west.
William’s San Francisco home was exactly two blocks east of the area of the park that police were searching.
In December 1969, Zodiac wrote to San Francisco attorney, Melvin Belli, pleading for help. In the mid 1960s, Belli helped William avoid extradition to Arizona, where he faced bombing charges.
In Zodiac’s notorious “Bus Bomb” letter, the killer describes his plans to detonate a large bomb.
San Francisco police officer Donald Fouke saw a suspect who fit William’s description walking east and then north near the crime scene minutes after the murder.
William lived twelve blocks northeast of where Stine was murdered.
Fouke said the suspect walked while bent slightly forward and with his head down. A photo of William in his wife’s book was taken on a US military base. In it, he is walking bent slightly forward and with his head down.
Some persons have long suspected that the killer had a connection to the military. Most of William’s weapons were military weapons that he bought from arms dealers who supplied militia groups.
Valerie Percy, whom the FBI believed William murdered, and two Zodiac victims were stabbed with bayonets.
Bayonets being used in attacks on civilians is an all but unheard of scenario.
Valerie Percy’s killer scored a circle with cross hairs (a plus sign) over it into the glass of a door at her family’s home. The Zodiac Killer signed his letters to the media with a circle and cross hairs (the “circle cross” symbol.)
Three of the four Zodiac attacks were shootings. Federal authorities confiscated over seventy tons of weapons, most of them guns, from William’s San Francisco home in spring 1967.
When he was shot dead in Fresno, California, William’s house was full of guns.
Witnesses saw vehicles at the the first two Zodiac crime scenes, but were not able to describe the make or model of the vehicles.
William owned a Ferrari, a rare car. The witness who saw Zodiac’s car during the second attack described a car whose size and color were consistent with William’s Ferrari.
Three female witnesses who were at Lake Berryessa minutes before Zodiac attacked there described a suspect. The description they gave could not sound more like William: the height, weight, build, age, hair color, hair length and style, eyes, ears, and face shape all sound uncannily like William.
Many of those who have studied the Zodiac case believe that the killer did not wear glasses. Zodiac explained that he wore disguises.
The witnesses to Paul Stine’s murder said the killer was wearing glasses. William did not wear glasses.
In early May 1969, Michael Morrison and Debbie Means, two high school students, were murdered in a case that features numerous unique Zodiac MOs. For instance, the killer called police and mailed a letter confessing to the murders.
Morrison and Means were murdered between the first two Zodiac attacks, a time when many believe the killer was up to no good somewhere. The teens were murdered in William’s home state of Illinois.
Like Zodiac, who mailed portions of Paul Stine’s shirt to prove that he was Stine’s killer, Morrison and Means’s killer mailed Morrison’s IDs to Means’s mother to prove he murdered the teens.
William’s signature bears unique similarities to the handwriting on an envelope believed to have been sent by the killer of suspected Zodiac victim Cheri Jo Bates and in a letter written by Morrison and Means' killer.
Though basements are uncommon in California, Zodiac revealed that he had one in his home. In her book, William’s wife wrote that their Pacific Heights mansion contained a basement.
Kathleen Johns said that the sketch in a Zodiac poster looked like the man who abducted her, and the interior of his vehicle contained children's clothing. William’s son was seven and three quarters years old at the time.
Johns said the interior of the suspect’s car was messy. In a letter, written in 1964, William’s brother calls him “a slob”.
Zodiac wore glasses with thick frames that some believe were part of a disguise. William owned a pair of glasses with such frames, the lenses of which may—or may not—have been removed the night of Paul Stine’s murder.
These facts prove that William was Zodiac.
In her book, William’s wife tells a story that does not make sense and is full of lies, if only by omission, in order to hide that William was Zodiac.
However, in it she reveals numerous things that implicate him in murders unmentioned. Why?
In 1974, when her book was published, no one was aware that the World Wide Web would arrive, and people would use it to access news articles, police reports, crime scene photos, forums, and publications that allow anyone to link crimes via facts and evidence.
My work is no different and builds on the work of many others. The only difference is I investigated the murder William committed in his hometown and found sources who had his letters, police record and a document that contains his signature.
BELOW: A comparison of William’s signature and the address on an enveloped believed to have been mailed by the killer of suspected Zodiac victim Cheri Jo Bates.
BELOW: A page from letter mailed by the killer of Michael Morrison and Debbie Means. Compare it to William’s signature and the handwriting on the the Bates envelope.
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