Wednesday Weirdness
Welcome to Wednesday Weirdness, a recurring theme where we post something truly weird and wacky in adoption or child welfare.This one shows the search of an adopted man reveals the Zodiac Killer!
“Is this the face of the Zodiac killer, the serial murderer behind one of America’s most notorious unsolved crime sprees?
A mugshot of the man said to be the Zodiac Killer by his son bears a remarkable resemblance to the police sketch of the murderer who slayed at least five people in the late 1960s.
Gary Stewart, who was adopted at birth, claims his search for his real father, Earl Van Best Jr, led to the discovery that the antique bookseller was the serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the 1960s.
His years of painstaking research are now revealed in the blockbuster book published today, The Most Dangerous Animal of All.
The Zodiac killer killed at least five people and injured two more between 1968 and 1969 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Stewart claims to have ‘legally sound’ and ‘forensic evidence’ that proves that Van Best is the man responsible for one of America’s biggest unsolved crimes.
Stewart’s father died in Mexico City in 1984.
Stewart claims that his main breakthrough came when he solved one of the Zodiac killer’s ciphers sent to the newspapers during his spree.
The Zodiac boasted at the time that if police cracked the code then his identity would come out.
The killer sent cryptograms to media outlets, some of which remain unsolved.
In a letter written to the San Francisco Examiner he had written ‘in this cipher is my identity”.
Stewart found the words ‘EV’, ‘Best’, and ‘Jr’.
After his discovery he also claimed that another expert found ‘Earl Van Best Junior’ written backwards in another code.
The book claims that the chances of his father’s name being in two ciphers is ‘astronomical’.
Stewart then went onto match fingerprints taken from his father’s arrest and those from the crime scene. Both have a diagonal scar on them, he claims.
He then had a handwriting expert match the writing from the letters with his father’s signature from his wedding certificate.
Again he claims that he has an expert who would willing to stand up in court that they were a match.
Stewart claims that all this is enough to solve the case but that the San Francisco Police Department may be reluctant because it would cause embarrassment
He is now dead but Stewart is convinced that this would upset the department and that it may have caused them to try to ‘shut down’ the investigation into the case.
‘The fact remains: Judy married Van, the Zodiac. Judy married Rotea, the homicide detective,’ he concludes.
He claims that he is still awaiting the results of DNA tests to see whether his matches fragments taken from the crime scene of the Zodiac’s killings.
‘It will be interesting to see what happens,’ he writes.
Stewart, who was brought up in Louisiana after being abandoned by his real father, said that he discovered the truth while looking for his biological father’s identity.
According to the book, Stewart looked for Van Best after his birth mother contacted him, 39 years after she gave him up for adoption.
Stewart claims that ‘forensic evidence’ helped show his father was responsible for the Zodiac crimes.
The book’s publisher, Harper Collins, told New York Magazine that the claims in the volume were found to be ‘legally sound’ by its lawyers.
The publisher did not contact the San Francisco Police Department for review because they ‘knew more than they’re willing to admit.’
Best had a criminal record for rape and fraud, and his mug shot, found by the author, clearly resembles the Zodiac Killer’s police sketch, down to the eyeglasses.
‘If you look at Gary’s photo next to the sketch of the Zodiac next to his father’s mug shot, you can see that there is very clearly more than just a passing resemblance,’ a spokeswoman for HarperCollins told New York. ‘They look alike.’
Stewart ‘didn’t want to believe it,’ she added.
‘I don’t think most people want to know that their father is a notorious serial killer.’
According to the book, Van Best was brought up by a Methodist minister and his wayward wife, who he would eventually divorce on grounds of adultery.
Van Best was 27 and already divorced once when he met Stewart’s mother Judy Gilford at an ice cream parlor in San Francisco. He fell in love with her even though she was only 13 and they eloped to Reno to get married.
Judy had her son in Louisiana and Van Best soon abandoned her and his child. She eventually gave Stewart up for adoptio
Stewart, according to the book’s description, looked for his father after his birth mother contacted him for the first time ever. It claims that ‘forensic evidence’ helped show his father was responsible for the Zodiac crimes.
The Zodiac killer killed at least five people and injured two more between 1968 and 1969 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The killer sent cryptograms to media outlets, some of which remain unsolved.
‘If you look at Gary’s photo next to the sketch of the Zodiac next to his father’s mug shot, you can see that there is very clearly more than just a passing resemblance,’ she told the magazine. ‘They look alike.’
‘He didn’t want to believe,’ she added. ‘I don’t think most people want to know that their father is a notorious serial killer.’
A San Francisco Police Department spokesman said that they would take any new leads seriously but they had yet to hear from Mr Stewart.
But he refused to comment on speculation that the department had deliberately shut down any investigation.
‘There would be no one happier than the San Francisco Police Department to have closure on this case,’ said spokesman Albie Esparza.
‘It has been open for more than 40 years. We urge the anyone with any new information to contact the police.'”
Revealed: The true face of the Zodiac Killer – adopted man whose search for his real parents led him to discover his father’s NAME in secret code that was sent to newspaper after killings[Daily Mail 5/13/4 By Richard Alleyne]
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