Well, i guess that if they could stop, or were really afraid of getting caught, they most likely wouldn't have started killing people in the first place.
Besides, as someone else pointed out, we don't know why they stopped. For all we know real Zodiac might have died in a car crash or something.

We will never know, Zodiac was never apprehended so he could have died or was in prison for other crimes. Most of them do not stop until something stops them. Also some are more impulsive than others and have shorter "cooling off periods." There are organized and disorganized, the organized tend to have higher IQs and are more in control of their crimes and better at covering their tracks.

Yes, when I said "most folks" of course I meant "every single person without exception." Oh, hold on no I didn't
Philo's Law: To learn from your mistakes, you have to realize you're making mistakes.

That's ridiculous. Could be wrong, but pretty sure married couples in their 40s and 50s and certainly 60s are a bit less excited to have sex than in their 20s and 30s. They simply have other responsibilities and things that fill their head and are in a different place in life.

The theory is that the urge to kill is like the urge to have sex. Just like most folks really want to have sex most of the time, and will definitely pursue the urge when they have the opportunity, a serial killer has the urge to kill and wants to scratch that itch.
But this doesn't mean we all go around jumping on women all the time - our brains govern our impulses. And there are times when there's no opportunity so we don't even pursue it.
Philo's Law: To learn from your mistakes, you have to realize you're making mistakes.

Except you are missing the notion that, if we assume the Zodiac to be Arthur Leigh Allen, I believe he in fact did stop, and tried to lead a potentially more normal life.

Ooops! duckking2001 has forgotten to activate his
ignore
button.
You go to every site that I'm a member of and save all of my posts?
Further evidence of your appalling English comprehension and logic skills, let alone any ability for cipher analysis and objective, substantiated "debunking."
I don't need to save all of that crap Archive.org will take care of that humiliation for you. You'd like to think it's "every" site, wouldn't you? There you go again with your almighty, sanctimonious ego trip. You've certainly posted years of quacking blather around Zodiac case websites.
Do
you
have friends & family that ever let you outside of the box, Wescott? you know so you'd realize that neither the world, nor public Truths in the Zodiac killer case revolve around you?
Enquiring minds want to know! Everybody is asking duckking2001 Why you won't even acknowledge the additional vehicle evidence that may well implicate Arthur Leigh Allen as the Zodiac killer? WOW! Imagine that! Even
MORE
circumstantial evidence
ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE
pointing to Allen.
You don't fear me Duckky; you're afraid of losing your smarmy cronies at ZKF and ZKS and the approval of Butterfield and Morford.
Now that is just so sad.
Quack Quack I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

Why are you so angry? You go to every site that I'm a member of and save all of my posts? That is not normal. Do you have friends and family to support you?
Now I don't want to ignore you because I'm scared about what you will do. I really believe that you would harm me if given the opportunity. You have serious problems. You need to get help.

Enough already with your sanctimonious,
"care about justice for an unsolved murder"
You're sounding ever-more like your idol, Butterfield. How come you barely post on his site anymore, David Wescott? You ever ponder what a sorry state
ZKF
is in? Looks like you haven't helped out much with that condition!
Argued with me years ago? When? You made sure no rejoinder was permitted. That's why outside of
IMDb
you've sought (and continue to seek) safe haven for your vapid "criticism" on smarmy closed in-groups that play softball toss with you and won't challenge the hollow claims you broadcast over the Web. In the past, you've consistently used Butterfield's site to post sarcastic, unsubstantiated "debunking" one-liners while providing
ZERO
evidence to back your ass up. Be a man, Duckky why don't you log on to ZKF now and type a little postscript about how you don't know what the **** you're talking about?
I've gone easy on you. Do you recall how many times over the last several years you've lifted thread topics and current discussions from other Zodiac forums, then paraphrased them on
IMDb
within the same week if not daywhile providing
ZERO
attribution? And please don't start with your fatuous excuse that netiquette prevents you from crediting other posters' ideas and topic threads. FOOL!
See I'm not so
"hung up on"
you, duckking2001 as focused on
Truth, Justice, and The American Way to Crime-Solving
! Will your Mummy knit a wool cape for me as well?
My few posts here are not for your benefit, little man with his sweaty
ignore button
, but for others to see what a shallow, self-righteous moron you are.
The only reason I am responding to you now is because you created a new account to get around my "ignore". Don't do that. You will just continue to be put on my ignore list.
Don't tell me what to do, especially in the language of a five-year-old girl who just dropped her lolly in the grass. Do you think Butterfield and his site are in the sorry state they are in just because of Grant and Voigt? Think again, chump!
You're next.
It doesn't bother me, I don't mind being wrong because it means I've learned something.
Yep! Keep that hedge-betting sad excuse ready you'll continue to need it! BTW, you still haven't addressed the NEW compelling vehicle evidence pointing to Arthur Leigh Allen as the Zodiac killer. I'm worried about
your
emotional health duckking2001 you've incessantly claimed to want to inform the public about this serial murder case in a non-partisan, unbiased, transparent manner what's changed in you
Waiting for Butterfield & Morford to give you the O.K. and a pat on your duckky-feathered back?
That's really all I'm trying to do, help people learn here.
I'm sniffling hanky, anyone? Stop the Insanity! I'm verklempt! Can't we all just get along? sob sob sniffle blow.
Quack Quack I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

You care more about proving me, and some guy from a website that I barely know, wrong than you care about justice for an unsolved murder, just because I argued with you like three years ago. That's really sad.
If it wasn't true, then every one of your posts would not be gloating about how I think that I'm right. You would just say what you needed to say and leave me out of it. It doesn't bother me, I don't mind being wrong because it means I've learned something. That's really all I'm trying to do, help people learn here.
I truly wish you luck in your research against Allen. I've never had a problem with that. But your bad attitude and the way that you are so hung up on me really has me worried about your emotional health and it's not good for either of us for me to respond to you. I don't want to talk to you anymore, so don't bother talking to me.
The only reason I am responding to you now is because you created a new account to get around my "ignore". Don't do that. You will just continue to be put on my ignore list.

**
CRICKETS
**
from the Zodiac case
EVER-INFORMED
,
ALL-KNOWING
,
ALL-INFORMATIVE
, duckking2001 ??!!
Quack Quack I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

This message has been deleted.

This message has been deleted.

Babu wrote:
Did they "tail" him while he was driving his dirty old 1952 Kaiser with 58" front wheel track and which happens to resemble the body of a Studebaker of similar vintage?
Wait! You mean there is new, additional circumstantial vehicle evidenceon top of everything else to datepointing to prime suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen?!
I think this deserves its own topic thread, please provide more info!

Oh yeah and they wasted a lot of time tailing Arthur Allen, and not really looking into anyone else. An idea that it seems a lot of IMDB posters would employ today if they had the chance.
Did they "tail" him while he was driving his dirty old 1952
Kaiser
with 58" front wheel track and which happens to resemble the body of a Studebaker of similar vintage?
I guess law enforcement (and the Fincher crew) knew nothing about
that
particular car of Allen's out of the many he had access too, did they, Westcott?
You appear to be absolutely mute about this revelation on your favorite Zodiac case "facts" sites.

That's not entirely accurate.
You are correct that the agencies did not directly work together in a task force, as they would now, but they did share information.
They did work with the FBI who examined the letters under their mail fraud jurisdiction exactly as you suggested, and they ran their own additional fingerprints and handwriting analysis. The case was eventually all put together under the jurisdiction of the CA DOJ after it went cold and they reinvestigated it from scratch, but didn't have much to add.
They did check into the boots and the rope and found that they were very common items with no singular point of origin to investigate. I don't know about the ammo, that would be a good idea if they didn't check into that.
They also were very proactive in trying to communicate with the killer. After his first letter they asked for more information and the Zodiac responded. After that they mainly made antagonistic statements calling him out for incorrect facts in his letters, and having the chronicle write an article that criticized him as "the clumsy killer" and "latent homosexual". That tactic didn't really work so well as it did in the first place, but he did keep writing.
They didn't really employ profilers until later since they weren't in common use, but they did employ psychics who pretty much told them the same thing.
Oh yeah and they wasted a lot of time tailing Arthur Allen, and not really looking into anyone else. An idea that it seems a lot of IMDB posters would employ today if they had the chance.

MHS, no disrespect intended, i certainly don't want the Mob after me, and i don't doubt you are sharper than me, i'm basically a mental butterknife, but i think the cops did about as much as they could, in that era. if he had kept on attacking couples the way he started out, yes, he would have been caught. but the guy faded into the woodwork. police stuff was primitive then.
what you said about getting away with murder was true then and somewhat true now - but i'll tell you what: SK's in the future will have have a much harder time sustaining long careers. not just DNA, but also the electronic surveillance culture. i have no love for the damn american police state we are now living in. but one positive effect is that it will be more and more difficult for serial criminals - at least on a "street level", to get away with crap for long.
of course, the problem with that is that the more crime they stop, the more it legitimizes the whole stinking system. welcome to the true life science fiction american dystopia.

The police agencies of the various jurisdictions were all competing with each other and not sharing information. Nobody reached out to the feds for help (using the mail to terrorize and facilitate crimes is a federal beef btw). Nobody reached out to behavioral psychologists for insights into the killer's mindset and motivations (it was a few years before "profilers" became a thing, but still it seems like common sense to me; then again I'm a bit sharper than any cops or feds I've ever met or read about). Nobody thought to chase down the manufacturer or seller of the rope or where the ammo might have been purchased, etc. They did nothing with the unusual boots lead (again, the feds would have come in handy here to check the military base stores). The killer kept taunting the police. That's how they finally caught BTK; he kept taunting them and they finally tracked him down. So they didn't even open up lines of communication to get the killer comfortable talking to them. None or obvious surveillance of suspects/persons of interest. True story: I once planned on becoming a professional assassin (big money in whacking organized crime figures and crooked cops and politicians), and as I looked into it one of the very first things that struck me was how easy it was to get away with murdering somebody in the United States if you didn't have any connections with them/apparent reason to kill them. Because cops are lazy and dumb and unimaginative and accustomed to sweating confessions out of people who knew the deceased instead of following the evidence and using deductive reasoning. Investigative methods and procedures might have improved in the 45 years since the Zodiac, but not much else.
"Ass to ass. Ha ha ha ha. ASS TO ASS!"; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa5z77EI8y0

I agree of with your assessment of the killer, but not the investigation. What exactly would you say they did wrong or could have done differently? Other than the incorrect NMA/BMA APB, and that was just a simple, although very costly, communication error.

I would say it all depends on the individual killer in question. Zodiac wasn't some crazy loner anonymously murdering hookers all over the country. He did it for the attention and was driven primarily by narcissism and anger at society, not bona fide sexual sadism. Hence the silly codes to prove what a genius he was. He even took credit for crimes he didn't commit, which any respectable serial killer will tell you is against "the serial killer code." I don't even get the impression that the Zodiac killer(s) particularly enjoyed the act of murder and in fact had a distaste for it. For one thing, the attacks were mostly hands-off and too many of their victims survived. They were merely amateurs who lucked out and never got caught after doing everything to get caught because the cops screwed up at every step of the investigation.
"Ass to ass. Ha ha ha ha. ASS TO ASS!"; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa5z77EI8y0

I don't prescribe to the notion that social conditioning and control are by definition manipulative or dehumanizing, as they are necessary for function. A society that produces serial murderers and more importantly does nothing to curtail them cannot be described as healthy, so doesn't a real health require those mediated effects?
I think that you are promoting the ClockWork Orangelike idea that dehumanising people in the name of stopping violence only propagates violence, and I agree with that, as well as that social control plays a part in the way that violence is exercised.
I also agree that media and culture have created a mythological view of serial killer behavior, but to prescribe to the idea that it is completely baseless is unfounded.

Of course they can stop. They want the notion that you can kill a bunch of people and go on with your life squashed. They want to instill fear of losing control in the murder curious. They want to assure the public cause a fiend that cant stop will be caught eventually. Its all propaganda and mind control for a healthy society.

Hi-
I think that the question of whether or not a serial killer can stop is a function of what is motivating him to kill in the first place.
Mike

There are many many serial killers who were never caughtones who became famous and then there are ones who operated with no traceable MO, stopped and were never caught. Look at how many people go missing daily in the US alonethey all end up somewhere.

"That's a hell of a Caucasian Jackie" -The Dude