Real talk here: Take the title with a grain of salt. I don’t know if Ross Sullivan was the Zodiac Killer.

Some of the usual things brought up against him are germane. 1) He might have been too big. Sources put him at 6’2″ 220-300 lbs and he died in 1977 from Pickwickian Syndrome which indicates he was heavy when he died. 2) Although we can place him firmly where Cheri Jo Bates was killed, we don’t know where he was for any of the canonical murders and cannot place him at the scene. He’s hard to track down. 3) He might be hard to track down because of mental illness and being institutionalized at points. There have been some unsubstantiated claims he was institutionalized during some crimes. There is also speculation that Zodiac could not have been on that level of mental illness and did what he did. 4) The reporter who solicited the Jo Ann Bailey letter, Dave Peterson, had a dialogue with some law enforcement about Ross in which they said they compared to Ross’s fingerprints to the Stine cab. He was told by Toschi that they didn’t match. Peterson was unsatisfied with what was reported because palm and partial prints weren’t compared but it’s unclear what happened next.

So, I really don’t know. And I wouldn’t be surprised that if this case is ever solved that it wasn’t Ross Sullivan. But it feels like right now is the time to try to compile a compelling circumstantial case that Ross Sullivan killed Cheri Jo Bates and went on to become the Zodiac Killer. This is my blogs magnum opus, combining everything I’ve talked about before and some I haven’t into a cohesive story. I’m not attempting to do everything here, there are better sites out there for that, more just combine insights I don’t see much discussion about. Still be prepared for it to be long.

CONNECTIONS TO THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE APPEARANCE OF THE ZODIAC KILLER

These are the classic drawings of Zodiac.

Ross Sullivan looks EXTREMELY like the suspect’s facial drawing. Yes, there were a lot of guys in that era that sported the same hair style and glasses but the drawing shows more than just that. Ross’s bottom lip protrudes out like the drawing. He has the same widow’s peak. The same ears. The same facial dimensions. He has a Welsh look like Fouke stated. The eyes are the same with the same stare and slightly more closed left eye. The Wassail picture above is the best for me. It looks like the same guy down to the cheek dimples.

(EDIT 10/28/24 – Watch found at CHB’s crime scene for comparison)

Ross Sullivan’s body shape matches the Berryessa drawing exactly. Stocky with a bit of weight but not classically fat. Clothes fit the same way. Arm length is the same. In both pictures he’s wearing the same style shoes, the same style of watch as the CJB crime scene, and the same style pleated pants with the cuffs folded up (they are down in the bottom picture but it’s clear from the crease they are usually up and the 2 other guys in the picture I cut this pic from wore them up too). Hartnell said “they were outdated .. almost to the waist .. pleated .. ” and that he had a “big stomach.” Same here. Go up to the previous picture and put the hood on him and it sure does match up.

Fouke said he was “slightly bent forward .. shuffling lope“. Same as above in the Ren Faire and an olive branch to the varying descriptions to Zodiac’s height. If you look at that picture, because of the bent over way he walks, head down, long stride, and relatively short arms in comparison to his width, I originally thought that couldn’t be Ross because the guy looks under 6 feet there and around 200. But if you imagine that guy standing up straight, he’s probably 6’2”. Measures of height influence our measure of weight.

If these pictures are indeed Ross, and there is good reason to think they are, he’s got similar style shoes and baggy rust color pants in this but also looks like he is wearing aviators, which Hartnell indicated. (Fouke’s description of his pants was that they were pleated rust brown wool pants that were baggy in the back.)

Yes, yes – I know eyewitness descriptions are unreliable and there has been a lot of skepticism about matching someone to them. However, 1) GSK, among others, ended up looking exactly like the drawings and 2) Ross not only matches the one but both sketches right down to the details. The matches to the clothing and the way they fit – these are easy things to replicate in a sketch without much error and Hartnell, in particular, remembered a lot of details about Z’s appearance. Ross is not just a guy in the ballpark of the eyewitness sketches, he matches them nearly exactly, in every way, and in places less subject to witness error.

Ross was 27 on the date of LHR killing. 28 for Stine. He had reddish brown hair that looks lighter or darker in his pics depending on the lighting. This matches well with the hair color descriptions of Zodiac. He died in ’77 after moving back to Santa Clara in ’74 (as surmised from his death certificate) which would rather neatly wrap up Z’s lack of communication post ’74. (If it hasn’t happened yet we should be looking at Santa Clara newspapers from 74′ to 77′) About a year after Stine in 1970, Ross’s brother John applied for a conservatorship for Ross which may explain when he went into some assisted living situation and matches up close to when Z stopped killing. Ross being out of Santa Clara at the end of ’68 (indicated by him no longer being listed in the residence he was previously in the ’69 Santa Clara white pages) and likely with or around his brother Tim in San Francisco may have included having access to a car. Very convenient timing for the killings over the next year. And Tim and Bonnie are said to have fled suddenly up to Canada in late ’69 to avoid the draft which, if Ross was Zodiac, account for the changed MO of driving out to secluded lover’s lanes to instead kill Stine in a cab. His transportation might have dried up.

Before I get to the next topic, let me repost this for good measure:

The first picture is a Berryessa sketch of a POI who was “rather nice looking … thin lips .. small ears .. well built .. straight eyebrows .. round face“, according to the witnesses. The second and third are Ross’s brother Tim. According to Katz, Tim moved to Canada in late ’69. The Berryessa attack happened 09/27/69 and Stine 10/11/69.

CONNECTIONS TO THE DESCRIPTIONS OF ZODIACS PERSONALITY TRAITS FROM WITNESS AND ZODIAC’S SKILL SET.

1. Voice

Slover said he had no accent. His voice was mature. Soft. Perhaps a teenager doing a deeper voice. Hartnell said he had a drawl but it wasn’t southern. Moderate. Not stupid or smart sounding. Both of them thought they would recognize the voice if they heard it again and ruled out “Sam”, the famous caller who claimed to be Zodiac. In short, Zodiac’s voice was memorable.

A little while back I interviewed someone who knew Ross from high school in California from drama productions. This is what I wrote about that call:

“I learned that, from his perspective, Ross was a likeable, funny guy. Smart. Sweet, even. It really humanized Ross.

One thing sticks with me, though, that I want to share. I can’t get away from it.

I’ve been curious is Ross had an accent. He moved from New York to California, so it follows. When I asked this guy if Ross had an accent or a peculiar way of talking, he got thoughtful and said:

‘.. no .. no .. I don’t remember an accent.’

I pressed a touch.  ‘Maybe a cadence to how he talked or something?’

Then, like a lightning bolt:

‘Well, I don’t remember an accent, but I can tell you this: when Ross Sullivan was talking to you, you knew it was him.’

The way he said that told me it was a clear memory.”

2. Media and Theatrical connections

Slover, in relation to the voice, also said the caller seemed to be reading from a rehearsed script. This brings us to the next subject.

Ross Sullivan was an avid actor. He is confirmed to have been in 3 different productions. In each of these he played .. a villain. The first character was Bad Billy, apparently a cowboy villain from the picture of the play. The second was a knife wielding Beatnik in the student movie Deja Vive. This project got newspaper coverage but ran out of money and was never finished. The third was at Riverside as Sepp Schmitz in Firebugs: Biedermann Goes to Hell. The play itself was covered in the school newspaper as “a terrifying experience” and “the type of play that people with weak hearts should not attend or come only with their nurse.” Schmitz is a charismatic, menacing arsonist in the play. “A crude, slovenly wrestler” as the student reviewer put it. At the end of it, in the afterlife of hell, the Schmitz role plays Beelzebub. This character gets control of the victims who end up in hell like they are his slaves. Ross apparently excelled in the roll because the student newspaper reviewer singled him out as stealing the show. His performance was “the highlight of the evening“. “All eyes were on him“. “… perfectly providing some comedy mingled with the fear they instilled.” “Later as Gottliebe was lighting candles on the dinner table, Sepp’s eyes were glued to the flame, and a low wicked rumble (of) delight crept out of his throat.” As Beelzebub and Schmitz, Ross had lines like “once again, nothing but teenagers“, a lament that juicier souls didn’t end up in hell; “And they feared me in every village, for i was stronger than them all, because I was possessed by the devil“; and “it is unworthy of God, unworthy of man, to call a Fate Stupidity simply because it happened. The man who acts so no longer deserves God’s earth .. nor the air he breathes .. nor the sun“. This last one rings strongly with the Confession Letter’s “Miss Bates was stupid. She went like a lamb to the slaughter.”

So, Ross literally played a crude, slovenly, murderous, fear inducing, yet comedic man who allows himself to be possessed by the devil to set the world on fire and eventually goes on to be Beelzebub, a pontificating and poetic ruler in hell over the souls sent to him.

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.

And I can’t help but notice for what it’s worth that these 3 rolls neatly contain villains who kill and terrorize “by rope, by gun, by knife, and by fire“.

It also gels with why Z felt the need to send a correspondence commenting on The Exorcist “the best saterical comidy I have ever seen” and not on any of the Zodiac inspired films out there. He felt a special connection to that one. As if he’s saying, “That’s not what being possessed by the devil is like, silly people“.

(Excerpt from the article above: “A psychological study, the drama revolves around a college student, Harvey, who is shown in deep concentration, envisioning his future. In the finale, Harvey is destroyed as the result of his own thoughts.”)

Ross was a part of his Binghamton, NY high schools acting and orator’s clubs and, in a Glendale High School yearbook, was included as a performer in a variety act show.

So, let’s go back to Slover saying she was given the impression that Z was reading from a rehearsed script. Let’s also remember that Z showed improvisational skills and rehearsed cover stories when he talked Hartnell and Shepard into letting themselves be tied up all while bantering about escaping a prison in Montana to Hartnell. Z was also cool under fire when he told Fouke and co. as they pulled up that he saw a guy running with a gun the opposite direction. These are marks of a good actor.

People in plays learn how to alter their appearance and make costumes, all things Zodiac indicated he knew. Putting Ross at the Renaissance Faire also adds this little possibility:

The first picture shows how to make clothing including your own hood. Instruction came with the playbill handed out to guests. The bottom picture is from the Ren Faire and shows a guy on the right with a similar looking tabard to Lake Berryessa).

The Berryessa costume is theatrical to say the least. Z’s letter writing is also fanciful at times, like he is playing a villain with his taunting “better catch me soon” kind of comments. There are also the Mikado quotes in ’70 “Little Lists” letter (even if it’s likely the Groucho tv version) and the ’74 Exorcist letter. Go back and look at the Exorcist letter. This doesn’t get brought up much for some reason and it’s very compelling. Zodiac likes to add little trolls in the format areas of the letters and envelopes. You have the weird symbol in the return address of the Avery letter. The trouble he took to physically type out a “By __________________ ” at the top of the Confession letter. The crosshair symbols in the normal spot for a letter signature. The Z13 “signature”. There are many more. He loves to troll in these spots. In the Exorcist letter he finishes by saying “Signed, yours truley:” Take special notice of the colon there. He put it there for a reason. A colon indicates that what is following is directly connected to what is before. In this case, the colon tells us the following is the identity of the signer. Who wrote the Mikado? Gilbert and .. Sullivan. That’s a heck of a coincidence.

As for media in general, it stands to reason that a theater guy would like other mediums in the artistic field. An acquaintance of Ross and his brother Tim, Gerald Katz, described Ross as a “writer, poet, and painter but also a psychotic .. he was extremely passionate, love starved, jealous, and resentful“. He also said Ross “could be depressed or very agitated” and that Ross had once threatened him and was Katz “more scared than I have ever been of someone else“. Another acquaintance said he was always singing Beatles songs, painted feverishly, and threatened someone in the house with a knife while he was drunk.

Librarian and co-worker Jo Ann Bailey who wrote about Ross to Dave Peterson (I believe) surrounding CJB’s death (and I’m not sure she knew Z was in the picture when talking about Ross) said: “He remarked to one staff member about being cooped up in that tiny little room at the Y that he needed to write continually to keep from doing harm to himself or others.” This gels with the dripping pen card’s “I feel awfully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my thing!!!!!!“, the Belli letters urgent pleading 3 times “please help me” and saying “I am drownding .. I cannot remain in control for much longer”, and the general bent Z has on continually telling the media to catch him like the Confession letters admonishment to beware because he was stalking their girls, and it would be on their conscience not his if they were killed or giving them time to find the bus bomb or many others. “He really took pride in being threateningly off beat and capable of doing anything.” “He liked to enroll himself in literary/and psychology type courses even though his spelling and grammatical skills were somewhat limited.” Bailey also indicated Ross did a project on different writing styles for a class, (Riverside College had a lot of Police classes for those wanting to go into that field), his job was to write very exactly with a white stylus on the spines of books, and, an interesting tidbit, he wrote a poem and submitted it to a poetry contest on campus which must have been published because the librarians read it and were put off by it. Ross, in other words, was known to submit work to publications. (BTW, I’ve searched for that poem, and it appears that it wasn’t an official school publication that held the contest, but a club on campus, because the normal school poetry publication didn’t happen that year. It’s probably lost to time.)

Ross’s family life did not appear to be happy. Sometime in his high school years or possibly just after when his mother died, he and his brother lived briefly with the Siliphant’s. Ross was connected to Allan Silliphant through high school and from Deja Vive and Allan was a relative of the prolific writer Stirling Silliphant. What did Silliphant mostly write? Pulpy detective stories. By the scores. Check out his IMDB profile. Silliphant wrote the 1960 Village of the Damned script during approximately this time about killer blond children who act maturely but show no emotion and are cold to others. A tagline of a poster reads “Behind the blazing eyes of this fair-haired child lurk the demon forces of another planet!“

Again, you can’t make this stuff up.

In my opinion, the Zodiac had artistic vision and a talent for the theatrical. Ross Sullivan did too.

3. Martial, Athletic, and Outdoor Training

According to his relatives, Ross Sullivan regularly hunted with guns in his New York adolescence. He swam for his New York school’s swim team. His dad was a celebrated YMCA youth director in New York and later in Glendale and was attributed to outdoor camping trips in the desert, among other things. Ross was apparently involved in these activities and the Y in general as he was once appointed their youth chapel leader. His grandfather was a WW2 veteran. Ross Sullivan had outdoor experience, youth skill training experience, access to military expertise and gear, and experience with guns.

Ross apparently also had some other unusual skills. According to Gerald Katz, he went over to the house of Noelle Jette where Ross was staying and found sheep skins hanging up around the house drying. Ross had butchered and skinned these animals himself and Katz remarked that it was very unusual, and that people didn’t do that kind of thing. Ross Sullivan had skill with a knife.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONNECTIONS TO ZODIAC

The psychological profile of Z is understandably a matter of a great debate. I’m going to touch on some things that make sense to me. This stuff is obviously tenuous but certainly an educated guess and a story of how Ross might psychologically fit the Zodiac Killer.

1. Relationship with Authority

Zodiac is trolling towards authority, yes, but oddly polite at points, eager to show off his knowledge of the systems the authority use, and even encouraging to them. It appears to me that he wants to be accepted as an equal to them more than destroy them.

First, Z takes the time to properly format his letters and the envelopes. He does things like double stamp the envelopes to make sure they get there. He makes sure they get to the right place by placing things like “Please Rush to Editor“. Notice the “Please“. Weird courtesy from a serial killer. In the letter itself he often started with “Dear Editor“. Again, notice the “Dear“. He generally adheres to an opening address line and ends with a traditional signature line. He loves to continue the format with P.S.’s.

In the meat of the letters, he revels in instructing how he did things and correcting things they got wrong. But just as soon as he does, he takes pains to censor his cussing (“fk I’m crackproof“) and commiserate with them. “I thought you might need a good laugh” or giving them time to dig up the bus bomb. Yes, he goes hard on police, but that seems to be an escalation. The cussing censorship and the “Christmass” spelling tell me he possibly had a religious upbringing.

From this, I surmise that Zodiac probably had a strained relationship with an authoritarian father and that he was not in a position of power in society at large. Zodiac’s desire for respect and recognition by the authorities and society at large shows a deep need for validation. The father was probably a civic leader of some kind. Zodiac is trained in formatting and other things including the cyphers even though he has grammatical and spelling issues. That lends itself to a disciplined family with organization who gave him the opportunity to learn those things and maybe expected it in their family life. Z does not appear to be wealthy, however, which likely means his civic leading father, if he was one, had a lower paying position like police officer, military officer, or religious figure.

Ross Sullivan’s father Harold was a religious figure. He directed the YMCA youth (a religious position at the time) as well as pastoring a church and leading bible studies. Ross was named a junior chaplain. He had a religious upbringing.

Ross’s father was also estranged to him. Bailey said that his father had nothing to do with kids after their mother died. The family had an odd, sudden move as far across the country as they could move from New York to California right around early high school time for Ross. It does not appear that they had relatives in California. After Ross’s mom died in ’60, it does not appear that Ross continued to live with him, although Harold’s house is listed on his Selective Service card at 18. As stated before, he and the boys went to live with the Siliphants at one point, as recalled by Allan Siliphant. Ross stayed in a YMCA at Riverside (according to Jo Ann Bailey) or friend’s houses like Noelle Jettes. He worked occasionally as a dishwasher according to records as well as for the RC library to I assume pay the bills. Bailey says he never changed his clothes and had previously been in the Patton medical institution. He probably didn’t have money to change clothes. This all points to him not having a relationship with his dad. It helps connect him to Hartnell’s shabby, cheaper clothes comments about Z in Berryessa. This, to me, all fits with what I’m seeing in Z’s communications.

2. Zodiac’s Mental Health

Was Zodiac actually mentally ill or did he just play at it? Were the misspellings purposeful or a clever ruse? There is a lot of debate about this. Whether it was ruse of not, his letters indicate to me he had had therapy of some sort. He starts it in the Confession letter he goes out of the way to say “I am not sick. I am insane.” And it gets more pronounced when we get to the later letters like The Badlands “citizen” letter which drips with feeling like a person who knows triggers because of therapy wrote it and the final one he is officially attributed to, the Count Marco letter, has him alleging Marco had a “personality disorder – always needs to feel superior” followed by “I suggest you recommend him to a shrink“.

The letters certainly seem to have been written in different states of mind and/or agitation. There is a lot of slanted writing and volatility. Ruses? Maybe, but it’s hard to pull that off for as many communications as he wrote.

Jo Ann Bailey said Ross told them that he had been in Patton State Mental Hospital in San Bernadino from ’61 to ’64 before he climbed over a wall and escaped. One guy who lived with Ross said he visited him at Agnews about a year before the Lake Herman Road killing. His brother John, who filed for conservatorship over Ross, later described him as “a very large, imposing schizophrenic who was lost in delusions for periods of time“. He died in ’77 at Live Oak Res Home which appears to be a mental health facility. Ross had mental problems.

But wouldn’t that stop him from being the Zodiac? Well, I don’t know. But as we just talked about before, he came out of Patton in ’64 and was excelling in theater just a year later as well as holding down a job and living on his own. That seems highly functional to me.

Gerald Katz said that Tim told him “that he was sure his brother Ross was the Zodiac killer .. He left Riverside after Cheri Jo Bates was killed and moved to Northern California where he would alternately be committed to mental hospitals and be released. He resided at times in San Francisco and Santa Cruz.”

Mental Health treatment went through a volatile time in California in the 60’s. The governor decided to radically cut down the cost to the people of the state by changing how the state handled treatment. One of those ways was a push to get patients into smaller outpatient clinics they could visit weekly rather than stay in actual institutions. There was a letter compiled by the leading mental health care doctors of the time crying out against this that included the names of several hundred people that had been put into this new system that they felt were a danger to society. I often wonder if Z’s name was on that list. There is a Santa Clara news article from ’69 that mentions reductions in patient populations particularly at Agnews.

Jo Ann Bailey said that Ross disappeared for a couple of weeks after the murder before returning with new clothes. The January ’69 Inside Detective published a 6-page article about the Cheri Jo Bates killing with this interesting little tidbit: “A mental patient at nearby Patton State Hospital made a confession of sorts by telling a hospital psychiatrist that he ‘thought he had killed Cheri Jo Bates.‘ The psychiatrist determined from exhaustive interviews that the patient was subject to delusions and hallucinations, and was apparently not even acquainted with Cheri Jo Bates.” This interview apparently happened before Nov. 13th, less than two weeks after her murder.

3. Apparent Lack of Sexual Motivation in the Murders

It’s been noteworthy to people since they happened that the murders didn’t show signs of sexual assault despite being carried out mostly on lover’s lane type victims. This doesn’t rule out a sexual motivation – perhaps he got off on it in another way – but the content of the Zodiac letters and calls have him calling his victims non-sexualized descriptors like “kids” and don’t really have the bent of being sex addled. The exception is the Confession Letter, perhaps, but the way he communicates it in seems so clumsy and forced it’s hard to take it seriously. The cringey breast line, for example. He seems more interested in being considered a menacing girl stalker than the girl itself. And that is another tie to the later killings because the cipher has him cringely state killing “is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl“.

All of this led to law enforcement questioning Zodiac’s sexuality and Paul Avery putting out an article in ’69 saying he was “a clumsy criminal, a liar, and possibly a latent homosexual” adding that those were the opinions of detectives on the case.

I have a different reading on this. Zodiac shows a lot of signs to me that he was molested as a child or witnessed sexual violence. It probably happened around late elementary school to middle school and probably wasn’t ongoing into high school. This is because ongoing molestation sometimes ends in over sexualization and the closer the victim is to sexual maturity when it happened the more chance it awakens sexuality in them, causing them to want to pursue healthy sexual encounters to blot out the bad ones. Low frequency or single events early in childhood sometimes cut off that feeling toward sex completely and it can be hard to come back from. They end up not feeling anything in sex, even if they have it.

Molested kids, especially when it happens at a young age, sometimes take on a different name, including fanciful nicknames they want to be called that endure into adulthood. It disconnects them from their origins and the difficulty of dealing with the terrible emotions they were forced to endure at an age they weren’t equipped to handle (as if you are ever equipped). It gives the feeling that it happened to someone else, not you. Further, it’s alluring to chase away that awful feeling of victimhood by recreating the situation and being the victimizer. It gives you power back. You’ve redefined yourself. This is why some tragically go from being molested to becoming molesters.

Perhaps Zodiac liked women and wanted to be with them but couldn’t get the sexual things right because of the barrier from a molestation or witnessed sexual violence incident and it was frustrating to him? It seems pretty notable that the killings are lover’s lane kind of things until Stine. It’s like he’s killing the act itself.

Ross Sullivan, in my opinion, is a good candidate to have been the victim of a sexual assault due to the circumstances of his life. He was a big kid who looked older at a young age. He participated in YMCA things. The YMCA, unfortunately, like any place committed to helping kids, has had its share of predators associated with it. He was on his school’s swim team (complete with photos of himself with just a speedo on). He was artistic but isolated. He struggled with spelling and grammar but had a keen intellect. His father had a big social network. There are indications of troubles at home. These all make for a vulnerable kid.

Something happened to make the Sullivan family suddenly move all of the way across the country to a place where none of their relatives lived. His father went into another YMCA directorship but that doesn’t seem to have lasted very long before he was doing home bible studies according to the papers. In fact, his dad bounced around period. His religious training was all over the place. Relatives interviewed in the 2010s were tight lipped about the move and indicated there was some kind of family secret. There is no indication that Harold pursued his sons or that they pursued him back after their mother’s death in ’60 which seems incredibly odd, especially since his life work was working with kids at the Y. Placing the boys in another home with the Siliphants during that time also seems very very off although perhaps it was to give a break to their ailing mother.

Ross’s father Harold died on 8/30/68. The Lake Herman Road murders were just under four months later on 12/20/68.

Let me be clear: I’m not accusing anyone specifically of anything here. But from what I can see, I don’t know the specifics, but something happened in the Sullivan family life. As they used to say in the Midwest where I grew up:

“I’ve didn’t see the tornado. But I saw the effects of one.”

ROSS SULLIVAN CONNECTIONS TO THE PHYSICAL LOCATIONS OF THE MURDERS

Let’s talk about possible connections to the murder locations.

First, Cheri Jo Bates. We can definitively place Ross Sullivan at Riverside College with intimate knowledge of the entire murder scene. Jo Ann Bailey said that Ross was always on campus “like a statue” and was employed by the library, the last place Cheri Jo was seen alive. He had access to the desks where the desk poem was found. The alley where Cheri Jo was murdered was directly in-between the “Harvard” annex to the library (where they kept the periodicals, I might add) and The Little Theater where Ross performed in Firebugs. Bailey said Ross often parked a motorcycle near a colleague’s car. A motorcycle was heard revving up that night.

Katz said that “Cheri Jo was a sophomore when I was a senior and was close to Bonnie Bartlett who was dating and later married Tim Sullivan, who was one of my best friends.” Tim went to Ramona High and John did as well. His brother John’s foster father was alleged to be the pastor at Cheri Jo Bates church, according to Bailey. Ross very likely knew Cheri Jo Bates in some capacity.

A video of the 1966 parade in Riverside, a parade featuring Ramona High cheerleaders of which Cheri Jo had previously been a part of, gives us a blurry scene of what looks like Ross and Cheri Jo sitting next to each other. The man is Ross shaped, blond crew cut hair, with black glasses and possibly aviators on them. The jacket he is wearing is the same one Ross wore in Deja Vive and the black shoes look like the ones he had in his high school drama photo. The girl is wearing the same outfit that Cheri Jo had on when she was murdered. She has red capri pants on and a black and straw striped purse behind her on the step. He’s leaning toward her, and she is leaning away.

Bailey said Ross disappeared for a couple of weeks after the murder and showed up with new clothes on. This was noteworthy to her because she said he nearly always wore the same thing. Katz said that Tim told him Ross ” … left Riverside after Cheri Jo Bates was killed and moved to Northern California where he would alternately be committed to mental hospitals and be released. He resided at times in San Francisco and Santa Cruz.“

For all the talk about how detracting it is to Ross Sullivan as a person of interest because of lack of details to his whereabouts during the killings, you won’t find many POI’s for Zodiac with more connections to a specific Zodiac murder.

The canonical murders all happen perfectly within the 10ish month ’68 – ’69 timeline of Ross disappearing from Santa Cruz to him being placed under conservatorship in ’70. The letter writing also lines up nicely with him leaving San Francisco in ’74. And the gap in killing between ’66 – ’68 lines up nicely with witnesses putting him at Agnews for at least portions of those times. Tim and Bonnie going to Canada in late ’69 lines up with Zodiac using a cab instead of his own transportation.

Tim and Bonnie had a residence that lies on the line between the Stine pick up spot and end point. First image below is to 1370 California Street where Tim and Bonnie lived. Second image below is the full taxi route.

Harold worked at YMCA’s. Ross was active at YMCA’s. Bailey said Ross lived in a small room at a YMCA while in Riverside. Turns out that there is a YMCA close to this route and close to Tim and Bonnie’s home.

This is made more interesting because if you match up the weird symbol on the Avery letter to a map, it lines up almost exactly with the San Francisco map. The Chronicle would be the terminus on the right with the shorter second line lining up perfectly to where postal letters were received at the building. The terminus on the left is .. the YMCA. If you draw line up through the dots on the left and right side they are where north would be oriented on the normal San Fran map. Notice how the left side is shorter than the right and matches up with the streets. Notice that the symbol is in the return address portion of the letter (Zodiac and his love of formatting again). And notice the ominous hidden threat that he was indeed very close to Avery and could do him harm.

Pictured above is the YMCA at that location.

Further, that area of San Francisco also had plenty of outpatient clinics located around it.

In Santa Clara, Ross lived near a store called Palace Stationers. Check this out:

While we don’t know exactly where Ross was, the timeline is actually pretty tight. One possible snafu is that Tom Voigt said he was told by Dick Lonergan that Ross was in a mental institution on 9/27/69 when Hartnell and Shepard were attacked at Berryessa. However, he couldn’t find the specific notes he took on it, the interview was distant in time from when he first mentioned it, and Mike Morford said he brought up Ross Sullivan with Lonergan and Lonergan said nothing about him. At any rate, Bailey said Ross had told them about escaping from Patton before so I don’t see why he couldn’t have again. Mental Institutions in California at that time did not exactly have tight security. If you look up Patton articles in the 60’s you’ll see lot of articles about escapes, some of which they didn’t even know the person was gone for several days.

Ross died in ’77 after health problems due to mental illness and weight gain, not too long after Zodiac disappeared off of the scene.

ZODIAC KILLER VS. ROSS SULLIVAN TIMELINE

POSSIBLE ANSWERS TO THE ISSUES WITH ROSS AS A PERSON OF INTEREST

I covered the mental illness issues and the location issues above. Ross’s timeline lines up eerily well with the flow of the Zodiac case from top to bottom. We can place him definitively in all kinds of ways with the Cheri Jo Bates murder. We can place him loosely in San Francisco during the almost yearlong killing spree ’68 – ’69. All of the other parts fit pretty well. We also saw that Ross could excel as an actor and live on his own despite his mental illness. Bailey sure seemed to think Ross was capable. So, let’s look at the ones that are left.

1. He was too big and heavy.

None of the known photos of Ross Sullivan make it look like he was huge. He’s not small. He’s barrel chested and beefy which fits well with a lot of the eyewitness descriptions. But he’s definitely not huge in any of them. The Ren Faire photo, as I illustrated before, actually offers an olive branch to the discrepancy between the height and weight in the Zodiac descriptors. His lumbering head tilted down walk makes him look shorter than 6′. When he stands up straight, he looks well over 6′. Weight is guessed at often by how tall we think someone is so it would help account for the differences in weight descriptions.

But what about the description of Ross in the latter half of the 60’s that he was heavy and maybe 240 – 300 lbs? What about his weight at death?

Mental health treatment was going through a big change at that time not just with the funding of institutions but also with the medication that treated it. In many ways, California in the late 50’s into the 60’s was the epicenter of effectively using new medications to treat severe mental illness. This success probably encouraged the governor’s stance of getting patients out of the institutions to cheaper alternatives provided by in neighborhood clinics. While these medications were proven to be effective, the side effects included rapid weight gain and losses. This could certainly account for fluctuation in his weight and actually makes sense of the differing weights given by the eyewitnesses. It’s important to note that no source that puts Ross at 240 or over is closer than 6 months before or after the canonical crime spree from late ’68 to late ’69.

We have no pictures of him post ’65ish and the nearest eyewitness to the late 60’s was a friend who put him at 240 at Agnews in the early spring of ’68, more than half a year away from the first attack.

Does this guy look that much bigger than the people around him? I don’t see it.

2. What About the Fingerprint Comparison to the Stine Cab That Toschi Told Dave Peterson Was Negative?

Peterson wasn’t happy himself with the comparison. He didn’t like that they didn’t compare palm prints. Zodiac claims he wore airplane glue on his fingers to alter his fingerprints or gloves and claimed directly that he was leaving red herrings in cab. Because it’s a cab, or course, other people’s fingerprints were sure to be in there. A lot of people out there are dubious about the Stine cab prints in general. I don’t think it’s a deal breaker.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ross Sullivan looks like both Zodiac sketches down to the very details of them. He had the same clothes, in the same quality, and wore them in the same way. The timeline of his known movements synchronize closely with the flow of the Zodiac murders and correspondence. He especially fits well with the details of the Cheri Jo Bates murder. He had the skills and personality of the Zodiac. He knew how to use a gun and a knife. He was known to submit artistic endeavors to publications. He had skills in acting and theater. He was violent and threatening while also being funny and charming at times. He had mental issues that line up with Zodiac’s methodology. The circumstances of his life profile well with Zodiac’s personality. There are clues in the letters that point to him. Katz said Ross’s brother Tim told him “… that he was sure his brother Ross was the Zodiac killer.” Bailey said that she and many others, including the head counselor at Riverside College, thought that Ross Sullivan killed Cheri Jo Bates, and even called the police to tell them that.

Friends, Ross Sullivan might very well have been the Zodiac Killer.

…

I want to shout out the many researchers on forums and out there who have done amazing leg work on the Zodiac Killer and Ross Sullivan. I oft use the zodiackillerciphers.com timeline for help keeping Ross’s movements straight. Most of what I learned about Ross Sullivan came from Mike Morford’s previous Zodiac site that has now been replaced. Alas, a treasure trove of knowledge is gone. That was a welcoming site for speculation. Voigt’s site is, of course, another treasure trove of knowledge as he is himself. Zodiackiller.com has a great and easy to use archive of the letters and envelopes in good quality as well as a lot of good, archived discussion on all Z topics. Zodiacciphers.com has a ridiculous amount of good stuff on it as well. Also zodiackillerfacts.com is a good one. Reddit has even been handy in archiving these things as it’s kind of a crossroad for the different sites. Poster JeffP did some incredible personal digging into Ross as did Morf who even hired a private detective at one point, I believe. Oranchak and his crew have done amazing things with the ciphers and is always worth it to hear what he has to say. A poster named Chaucer made a very useful witness description spreadsheet. I’m missing a ton more but let me just say in conclusion that it has been impressive what the community has done for this case. Let’s hope we can someday finally find that definitive thing that will give peace to the victims and their families.

I don’t want to go into specifics here because I don’t want anyone inundated with people trying to contact them but I tracked down a high school acquaintance of Ross’s a little while back and managed to get him on the phone. Really nice guy and pleasant to talk to – I could’ve talked for hours with him just about California in the late 50’s and 60’s! I’ve always been fascinated by that era of California.

Anyway, nothing too groundbreaking came out of this call but I learned that, from his perspective, Ross was a likeable, funny guy. Smart. Sweet, even. It really humanized Ross.

One thing sticks with me, though, that I want to share. I can’t get away from it.

I’ve been curious is Ross had an accent. He moved from New York to California so it follows. When I asked this guy if Ross had an accent or a peculiar way of talking he got thoughtful and said:

“.. no .. no .. I don’t remember an accent.”

I pressed a touch.  “Maybe a cadence to how he talked or something?”

Then, like a lightning bolt:

“Well, I don’t remember an accent but  I can tell you this: when Ross Sullivan was talking to you, you knew it was him.”

The way he said that told me it was a clear memory.  

I’ve decided to leave Z and CJB research alone (mostly) for a while but I gotta admit that little bit of conversation and the way he said it comes to mind every so often to me.