Dr. Dave and the Zodiac

Shrinkrapradio takes on the issue of the Zodiac Killer in show #99. Dr. David van Nuys has co-authored a book about the Zodiac: "This Is the Zodiac Speaking." In show #99, he interviews Doug Oswell who also wrote a book on the subject: "The Unabomber and The Zodiac." Oswell marks the similarities between the Zodiac killer and the Unabomber and suggests this could be one and the same person.

Dr. Dave doesn't very much challenge that idea, but does push Oswell to completely try and make his case. I must admit I haven't read the book, nor anything about the book. I do not think I am going to make much of a study of either the Zodiac or the Unabomber. So I am not really entitled to criticism, but based on this interview here goes anyway.

It is a very interesting expose and it is definitely a compelling analysis of the types of serial killers that are about there. It is a step too far though, to emphasize the similarities between the two cases and when finding that the Unabomber has no alibi for the Zodiac killings that they might be the same person. Once you have set the typology, you actually make a case for a category, hence there being more of a kind. How large was California in the sixties? Large enough to contain both a not yet active Ted Kaczynski and a, still not caught, Zodiac killer? One cannot rule it out.

Dr. Dave also doesn't seem too convinced. He is impressed by the study Oswell has done and is magnanimous in admitting Oswell has noted things David van Nuys himself overlooked, but he also points out the seeming differences between what we can surmise about the person of the Zodiac and about Kaczynski.