"By Fire" - Clayton, 1968?

[justasking]

I'm just going to put this here, since it's something I've been thinking about for some time. It's only speculative (but so is pretty much everything with the Zodiac...)

I know his "By Fire, By Knife, By Gun, By Rope"-postcard has been connected to the Tim Holt comic.

But leaving that aside, Zodiac actually did write "by knife" on that car door after committing a murder "by knife". This would suggest (in addition to the "gun") that he actually followed this "doctrine" to some degree. From this we could derive a hypothesis that he should have attended to the "Fire" and "Rope"-parts also.

It was the "Fire" that got me searching for unsolved arson murders in California at the time.

There was a one in Clayton, 1968, where five children died.

Z's "map" and cipher about the location of a bomb was likely BS (at least if taken explicitly), as was his threat to kill school children (at least in the manner he claimed he would).

But the "is to be set to Mag. N." map has exactly Clayton at North - 0. What if he was hiding something in plain sight there? (The "ground zero" for where he killed those kids "last year"? Or; providing this piece of information could be considered figuratively as "dropping the bomb"? Or; A previous crime to be "dug up"? Or; Was the "device" which caused the fire a "bomb" of sorts? etc. etc. -- added to all his talk about "killing children")

The police have had a suspect for the 1968 Clayton fire (only due to his other similar activities), but he has denied his involvement in this particular crime to this day.

 claycord.com/2018/09/08/five-children-were-murdered-in-clayton-50-years-ago-today-case-remains-unsolved/


San Francisco Chronicle, Sep 9, 1968:

[woofytreats]

I think that the "terror vs. actuality" thing with the Zodiac is a tough row to hoe depending on what you're speculating about...the terror element of a future "checklist" ( by fire, by knife, etc. ) might have the same probability as a scorecard of what happened. Like you mentioned, a fertilizer bomb is definitely doable but the method of burying it he described might be much less so in terms of detection and/or operation. Put that idea against something like the proclaimed "37-0" record from one of the letters and maybe the literal concept of this might be all over the map. I would think that "those kids" in context would almost certainly refer to Faraday and Jensen. Similarly, the ground zero aspect of Clayton probably has as much to do with Mt. Diablo as it does with any specific relation to Clayton proper. I don't know if you're a local but Mt. Diablo's territory is split between Clayton and Danville.

I'd probably be swayed by the fact that Walker was a City Councilman and a judge lived next door as promoting a vendetta vs. being a specific Zodiac crime whether Sapp was involved with it or not. I think it's interesting that Sapp buried bodies on Lime Ridge as areas around Morgan Territory Rd., a couple miles away near Clayton, have a history as a body dump. A couple bodies found at that location seem to have been tied to the Zodiac only by Graysmith ( meant in a bad way ), as a murderer was convicted in one of those and strongly suspected in the other and was serving time several years before Graysmith's first book came out. I have no idea if this arson is a Zodiac crime but unfortunately, "Six degree of Zodiac separation" can probably encompass a lot of unrelated, unsolved crimes in the search.

[andrew]

john sapp was a suspect but not zodiac he would have been too young

[justasking]

Jun 15, 2019 23:01:59 GMT andrew said:

john sapp was a suspect but not zodiac he would have been too young

Well, Zodiac certainly wouldn't have been "too young" for the 1968 crime. But, just to clarify: my thinking wasn't that Sapp would be the Zodiac, but that Zodiac might have committed the crime of which Sapp has been suspected of.

Anyway, due to the reasons presented by woofytreats, I agree it's more unlikely than likely that Zodiac committed this crime.

It's just these moments at the crossroads of something akin to a thought disorder, when there's this "vision" you gotta share (referring to my sharing of this theory).

[woofytreats]

Jun 16, 2019 15:18:30 GMT justasking said:

Jun 15, 2019 23:01:59 GMT andrew said:

john sapp was a suspect but not zodiac he would have been too young

Well, Zodiac certainly wouldn't have been "too young" for the 1968 crime. But, just to clarify: my thinking wasn't that Sapp would be the Zodiac, but that Zodiac might have committed the crime of which Sapp has been suspected of.

Anyway, due to the reasons presented by woofytreats, I agree it's more unlikely than likely that Zodiac committed this crime.

It's just these moments at the crossroads of something akin to a thought disorder, when there's this "vision" you gotta share (referring to my sharing of this theory).

Please feel free to post more potential "thought disorder" and "visions" like that because I think this section needs rational examples like yours and subsequent discussion more than it needs being hell bent on a particular suspect or idea.

[justasking]

Jun 16, 2019 15:56:36 GMT woofytreats said:

Jun 16, 2019 15:18:30 GMT justasking said:

Well, Zodiac certainly wouldn't have been "too young" for the 1968 crime. But, just to clarify: my thinking wasn't that Sapp would be the Zodiac, but that Zodiac might have committed the crime of which Sapp has been suspected of.

Anyway, due to the reasons presented by woofytreats, I agree it's more unlikely than likely that Zodiac committed this crime.

It's just these moments at the crossroads of something akin to a thought disorder, when there's this "vision" you gotta share (referring to my sharing of this theory).

Please feel free to post more potential "thought disorder" and "visions" like that because I think this section needs rational examples like yours and subsequent discussion more than it needs being hell bent on a particular suspect or idea.

Ah, I don't feel restrained by anything else but my own hesitations. It's more like a note myself to not stray too far to the "Wild West" side

[dave1]

This is very interesting