Fingerprints

[metaltomato]

I did not know this, but fingerprints were found on page 2 and 3 of this letter.

[Bullitt Profile]

Obviously, LE had plenty of known or suspected Z prints to compare to suspects in this case, not just what they got from Stine's cab.

[metaltomato]

Obviously, LE had plenty of known or suspected Z prints to compare to suspects in this case, not just what they got from Stine's cab.

lol...not to me it wasn't!

[metaltomato]

Here's a little something I've been fiddling and farting around with; The US Navy initiated their fingerprinting protocols all the way back in 1904, with the Marines and Army quickly following suit. According to my research, in 1973 a St. Louis fire destroys almost 80% of the Army and Air Force finger print records of individuals serving with those services between 1912 and 1960. Nothing is mentioned about Navy records, so I assume the damage to Navy records was nil to up to almost 80%. It seems to me that the FBI had plenty of time to run the prints from the PS crime scene as well as the letters long before the complete military record was compromised. Wouldn't this be enough to EXCLUDE military personnel from suspicion? If the Zodiac served in the Navy, Air Force or Army (Marines and Coast Guard included as these services are under the operational umbrella of the Navy) his fingerprint records would have been available for comparison before 1973.

If this is true, that the Zodiac was not in the military, then what can we deduce from his wearing military type gear (Wing Walkers). I'm not certain, and I will check, but was he wearing a web belt at LB? According to an FBI report I read, they name the murder weapon used at LB as a bayonet, not a carving knife. Military gear.

What kind of person in the late 1960's would have used military gear in what I would consider to be a "heavy use" scenario, ie camping, heavy labor, etc?

[Bullitt Profile]

Checking the prints of criminals was one thing, but I don't know if LE had a reason (or the authority) to check military prints. And there were millions of prints to check...

[Menecrates Profile]

The subject of fingerprints and what was checked back then can get complicated. Military prints were not included in the FBI's criminal index, which is the one that latent crime scene prints were checked against. Military prints were stored in repositories all over the country until about 1972 when they all started to move to a storage facility in West Virginia, and I'm not sure there was an easy way to run a latent print thru the different military records systems in the organized way of the FBI criminal index print file. To be sure, the catastrophic 1973 St. Louis fire didn't help things and to this day, I don't know if the government knows exactly what is missing.

That said, plenty of military and veteran's prints were checked, as a reading of the FBI files show. But that was usually because of a tip, where they had they had a name and often a branch of service.

I think it would be a mistake to presume that Zodiac was not in the military just because the latents could not be matched to military prints. Everything I've read on the subject leads me to conclude that military prints were not routinely checked in criminal latent exemplar cases. Again, that said, I think you might be on to something as I've always thought Zodiac might be a "wanna-be" military type, possibly a guy who couldn't make the cut. Hence, military surplus shoes and the like. But that's only my opinion, and not what we're talking about here.

On a related note, a lot of people presume that the current AFIS system of running prints thru the computer should pop up matches if anyone has ever been in the service. Not so. The first military prints to be digitized were some officer ranks' prints in 1990, with enlisted prints starting in 1993. Given the staggering numbers of people in the service before this, that's a lot of prints that don't get checked automatically. If ever.

Fascinating site on fingerprinting, with a great forum section:

http://onin.com/fp/

Lots of info, including the history of the various print databases and AFIS.

[metaltomato]

Very clear Mene, thank you.

[Menecrates Profile]

You're quite welcome, metal. And I added an edit to my above post that briefly touches on the point you raised about the the military surplus type gear.

[metaltomato]

You're quite welcome, metal. And I added an edit to my above post that briefly touches on the point you raised about the the military surplus type gear.

I completely agree with you on the notion that speculation, although tempting, is not the flavor of the day here. The only way this line of theory would be worth a damn would be if a vast preponderance of military men HAD had their fingerprints checked off against the prints from the crimes. Since there is no way of telling, beyond the specific searches mentioned, what that percentage may be, and assuming that it has to be fairly low, I cannot make the assumption that the Zodiac was not military based on that speculation.

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