"ZODE" from Pacific High School in San Bernardino

Ever seen Dateline with the pedophiles? Too many creeps in this world. But...you never know.

Frank Dryman/Valentine lived in Rialto...right next to San Bernadino...at the same time as KJ...for what it's worth. Avery's HC card is right up his alley--artistically.

TF I googled Stilleben and it seems to be a Danish shop. Does the word translate from Danish to English to "still life" perhaps? A "still life" in the art word is a composed picture usually depicting fruit or flowers.

The guy's photo is certainly composed!

Here's the link to the shop-

http://www.stilleben.dk/index.php/

Seagull wrote:

TF I googled Stilleben and it seems to be a Danish shop. Does the word translate from Danish to English to "still life" perhaps? A "still life" in the art word is a composed picture usually depicting fruit or flowers.

The guy's photo is certainly composed!

Here's the link to the shop-

http://www.stilleben.dk/index.php/

You're so smart.

Seagull wrote:

TF I googled Stilleben and it seems to be a Danish shop. Does the word translate from Danish to English to "still life" perhaps? A "still life" in the art word is a composed picture usually depicting fruit or flowers.

The guy's photo is certainly composed!

Here's the link to the shop-

http://www.stilleben.dk/index.php/

Yes "still life" is what I ment. It was somthing I called it, the guy had not added any text with the picture. Sorry for the confusion.

tahoe27 wrote:

Ever seen Dateline with the pedophiles? Too many creeps in this world. But...you never know.

Frank Dryman/Valentine lived in Rialto...right next to San Bernadino...at the same time as KJ...for what it's worth. Avery's HC card is right up his alley--artistically.

Thanks Tahoe:)

Theforeigner wrote:

Seagull wrote:

TF I googled Stilleben and it seems to be a Danish shop. Does the word translate from Danish to English to "still life" perhaps? A "still life" in the art word is a composed picture usually depicting fruit or flowers.

The guy's photo is certainly composed!

Here's the link to the shop-

http://www.stilleben.dk/index.php/

Yes "still life" is what I ment. It was somthing I called it, the guy had not added any text with the picture. Sorry for the confusion.

Thank you TF! I was confused. I thought, wow, this guy is using Danish and TF is Danish, is she digging too deep? It made me scared for you! Glad to hear it was your words and not his.

I'm guessing that it's a pun on words and that he is just having a laugh at his own expense. Still-life art is centred around "dead" objects such as fruit so he's probably including his penis as an object with no life any more!! Bit odd to put that on facebook though

PS: Morf: If it's ok, would you mind sending me his name, etc by PM so I can try and do some digging? Thanks.

Quagmire wrote:

I'm guessing that it's a pun on words and that he is just having a laugh at his own expense. Still-life art is centred around "dead" objects such as fruit so he's probably including his penis as an object with no life any more!! Bit odd to put that on facebook though

PS: Morf: If it's ok, would you mind sending me his name, etc by PM so I can try and do some digging? Thanks.

As I explain, in a previous post, this guy did NOT, in any way, add anything about "Still-life " or "stillleben" to this penis picture of his , it was me who called it "stilleben" (the danish wording for Still-life) because that was what it remained me of, even though a VERY sick stilleben/still-life.

Quagmire wrote:

I'm guessing that it's a pun on words and that he is just having a laugh at his own expense. Still-life art is centred around "dead" objects such as fruit so he's probably including his penis as an object with no life any more!! Bit odd to put that on facebook though

PS: Morf: If it's ok, would you mind sending me his name, etc by PM so I can try and do some digging? Thanks.

Sure, I will send it to you. In the meantime, I am still working to get more info on this guy to see if he is a viable Zodiac suspect. He was definitely in the Vallejo/Benicia area in 1970. But in 1969, 3 days before Berryessa, his wife gave birth to their son in San Bernardino, so 1969 is a mystery. Also of note, he is a skier, and has lived in the Mt Shasta area. I recall Darlene Ferrin was a skier, and also had been in Mt Shasta, although I dont know if this guy's ties to Mt Shasta were in place back in 69.

As Foreigner said, he is a terrible speller. Also, the reason I looked at him in the first place is because his last name started with a Z like Zode, so I thought that Zode would remember him and that they were possibly friends. Zode did not remember him and in fact, this man was a high school wrestler, and was likely the type of person that would have been involved in picking on Zode. This guy gives me the creeps, as I think he also gives Foreigner the creeps. But being creepy and being a dirty old man doesnt make him Zodiac. I will try to get some writing samples, along with his military record(he claims he was in Vietnam)

Theforeigner wrote:

As I explain, in a previous post, this guy did NOT, in any way, add anything about "Still-life " or "stillleben" to this penis picture of his , it was me who called it "stilleben" (the danish wording for Still-life) because that was what it remained me of, even though a VERY sick stilleben/still-life.

Sorry Foreigner - I somehow missed that you had added the still life explanation. This makes the photo even odder although I did notice this guy is a member of a naturist/nudist group so perhaps he is used to flashing everything in photos??

Morf: Thanks very much for the info. It's a long shot but every road has to start somewhere so anyone who went to school down San Bernardino way at the time of Zode and ended up having ties to Vallejo/Benicia 5 years later is worth a look. His vital statistics seem to match Z's build and he certainly is a little odd with his love-life and explicit photos. He obviously has a twisted sense of humour and that certainly is something that Zodiac had.

The photos I have seen of him from 1963-1964 don't jump out and say Zodiac but many guys change a lot between 17 and 22 years of age and the eye-witness accounts do vary from scene to scene so it wouldn't surprise me if Z looked nothing like the Stine composite when he was a kid half a decade before. Must say though that the older photo of him wearing glasses looks a lot like an aged version of the Stine composite IMO. His initials fit in perfectly with the Halloween symbol as well...

Quagmire wrote:

Theforeigner wrote:

As I explain, in a previous post, this guy did NOT, in any way, add anything about "Still-life " or "stillleben" to this penis picture of his , it was me who called it "stilleben" (the danish wording for Still-life) because that was what it remained me of, even though a VERY sick stilleben/still-life.

Sorry Foreigner - I somehow missed that you had added the still life explanation. This makes the photo even odder although I did notice this guy is a member of a naturist/nudist group so perhaps he is used to flashing everything in photos??

Morf: Thanks very much for the info. It's a long shot but every road has to start somewhere so anyone who went to school down San Bernardino way at the time of Zode and ended up having ties to Vallejo/Benicia 5 years later is worth a look. His vital statistics seem to match Z's build and he certainly is a little odd with his love-life and explicit photos. He obviously has a twisted sense of humour and that certainly is something that Zodiac had.

The photos I have seen of him from 1963-1964 don't jump out and say Zodiac but many guys change a lot between 17 and 22 years of age and the eye-witness accounts do vary from scene to scene so it wouldn't surprise me if Z looked nothing like the Stine composite when he was a kid half a decade before. Must say though that the older photo of him wearing glasses looks a lot like an aged version of the Stine composite IMO. His initials fit in perfectly with the Halloween symbol as well...

No problem Q:)
And the nudist thing, well yes that might explain it to some degree, but still it is IMHO TOTAKY sick to put such a picture on his Facebook, where all relatives incl his children can see it. And the nature of the image is just twizted IMO.

This guy , as I undertsand it, went to the very same class as ZODE, he is on the very same page as ZODE in the yearbooks. So he would know all about the bullying of ZODE, and ZODE calling himself Zodiac and saying "I´m going to kill you all" (or somthing to that effect, its all in post #1 in this topic)etc thing. So this guy indeed could have been inspired to the Zodiac Killer concept.
The YB photo from 1965 IMO looks more like Zodiac sketch that the YB photos from 63 and 64. I sure would like to see a photo of him from 1969.
Not trying to sell this guy to you, though it's starting to sound like it, I have my own great POI

Quagmire wrote:

Theforeigner wrote:

As I explain, in a previous post, this guy did NOT, in any way, add anything about "Still-life " or "stillleben" to this penis picture of his , it was me who called it "stilleben" (the danish wording for Still-life) because that was what it remained me of, even though a VERY sick stilleben/still-life.

Sorry Foreigner - I somehow missed that you had added the still life explanation. This makes the photo even odder although I did notice this guy is a member of a naturist/nudist group so perhaps he is used to flashing everything in photos??

Morf: Thanks very much for the info. It's a long shot but every road has to start somewhere so anyone who went to school down San Bernardino way at the time of Zode and ended up having ties to Vallejo/Benicia 5 years later is worth a look. His vital statistics seem to match Z's build and he certainly is a little odd with his love-life and explicit photos. He obviously has a twisted sense of humour and that certainly is something that Zodiac had.

The photos I have seen of him from 1963-1964 don't jump out and say Zodiac but many guys change a lot between 17 and 22 years of age and the eye-witness accounts do vary from scene to scene so it wouldn't surprise me if Z looked nothing like the Stine composite when he was a kid half a decade before. Must say though that the older photo of him wearing glasses looks a lot like an aged version of the Stine composite IMO. His initials fit in perfectly with the Halloween symbol as well...

You are 100% correct,didnt even think about that!

morf13 wrote:

You are 100% correct,didnt even think about that!

Do we know what his middle initial is? Can't seem to find it anywhere myself and was just wondering if this might fit in with some of Z's codes/symbols?

EDIT: Scrap that - just found it!

I know this is a stretch (probably thousends of street combinations like this), however Zodiac did place the mysterious halloween card symbol as the "sender" address on the envelope. And even with a Z under it and this guys last name start with a Z.
And yes even his intials fit the symbol.

Quagmire wrote:

morf13 wrote:

You are 100% correct,didnt even think about that!

Do we know what his middle initial is? Can't seem to find it anywhere myself and was just wondering if this might fit in with some of Z's codes/symbols?

His middle name is Gordon.

Theforeigner wrote:

Quagmire wrote:

morf13 wrote:

You are 100% correct,didnt even think about that!

Do we know what his middle initial is? Can't seem to find it anywhere myself and was just wondering if this might fit in with some of Z's codes/symbols?

His middle name is Gordon.

Thanks Foreigner - I found it just after I posted the question! Can't see "Gordon" fitting in to anything Z related though unfortunately.

Haven't got the 1965 photo of him - would you be willing to PM this to me to check out? As a note of interest, one of the girls in the Pacific High class of 65 went on to be a professional signer - apparently she performed in the Mikado. A clue to Z's school origins...?

This guy has enough going on to be worthy of his own thread(until he can be ruled out),so I am starting athread about him in the SUSPECTS section called 'Zode's classmate'. Please move anything of value over to that thread. The thread about him is here:
https://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com/t1120-zode-s-schoolmate#25403

Is it me or do lately all these interesting POI have the middle name Gordon ?

BUMPING, only because the story sounds so rich, and amazing. If only all of it were true(I know alot is true but I some is made up I think or exagerated) I was just cleaning out some of my favorites and came across this again. Police in the Z case do in fact know Zode's name & info

It is with great reluctance that I post this article, re-written
from a note I wrote in 1985 and sent to several police
departments and to the author of "Zodiac", all of whom ignored
it. I am still concerned for my personal safety, and for
the possibility that this may not be taken seriously, hence
I must remain anonymous.

A series of random murders in both Los Angeles and San Francisco,
and the television broadcast of a composite sketch of the killer,
strongly suggested in 1985 that the Zodiac killer, who was
never caught, may have been involved. Zodiac committed his
initial crimes in San Francisco, and later was traced to the LA
area. The San Francisco night stalker, some ten years later,
followed a similar pattern.

I attended Pacific High School in San Bernardino, California and
graduated there in 1964. Among the students at that time was one
the other kids called "Big Bad Zode". They called him that
because he was puny, wierd, and called himself ZODIAC. "Zode" was
an extremely odd person. He was seriously disturbed, angry and
violent. He was teased mercilessly, and often
threatened the students that someday he would kill them
all, and that someday he would be a famous person.

A typical scene:

"Hey, Zode, are you going to kill us all?"
"You are so stupid. Someday I will be very famous and you will
all be dead."
"Oh yeah? How are you going to do it?"
"You'll find out, and they'll never catch me. And then when I
finally die you'll all be my slaves".

Details

"Zode" referred to himself as Zodiac, wrote "Zodiac" on classroom
chalkboards and told
everyone to remember that name. He said that his victims would
become his slaves in the afterlife. He resembled
the televised police composite sketch of the San Francisco
night stalker. He was highly intelligent, made a point of
telling everyone how stupid they were, and achieved high
scores on the SAT, a fact that one would not have suspected given
his odd behavior, dress, and handwriting. He flapped his arms
around the schoolyard and cawed like a crow, and masturbated in
the urinals. He preferred to use wide soft pencils, and printed,
rather than wrote, in a childish scrawl. The handwriting
found on a desk at San Bernardino Valley College, closely
resembled that of "Zode", which I saw once in a paper he
wrote about one of the girls in the class, and which outraged the
instructor to the point of threatening him that "if he ever wrote
anything like that again, he was going to call the police".
Several other teachers were similarly outraged at the content of
his manuscripts, though they never revealed them to the classes.
Given his disturbed personality, "Zode" probably should not have
attended public school. In fact, there was speculation that his
parents held some sort of powerful political influence and thus
were able to keep him in the school.

The investigators in charge of the Zodiac investigation in San
Francisco at the time received this information, and within a few
weeks the Zodiac crimes ceased.

"Zode" was of short stature, and may have had a
hunchback. He wore thick glasses, dressed in dark clothing, had
dark curly or wavy hair, and may have been from the middle
east. His picture may not have been included in the High
School annual, at his request. However, "Zode"
was well known to the students, particularly members of
the Key Club and student council. It is certain that his
instructors would not have forgotten him.

In 1964 Pacific High School graduated over 1200 Seniors, the
largest class in California History. Given "Zode"'s blatant
nature, it is surprising that his connection to Zodiac was never
made public. It seems that he was right in his assessment of our
stupidity. Certainly, "Zode" struck a blow against the society
that persecuted him.

By the way, if you care to identify yourself and can prove that
you have the means at your disposal to use this information
to eliminate Zodiac, send me a response via this anonymous
mail server and I'll contact you with "Zode"'s real name.


I dont think this guy had anything to do with the z crimes besides possibly being the inspiration for Zodiac's name that he picked out, but again, what a story

While glancing through "The Zodiac Killer" by Jerry Weissman, I found the name "Zode" used on the last page # 238.
Reads "Your friend Zode was here to meet you...but he got distracted"
"How do you know?"
"He left one of his notes...on another victim's body."

Zamantha wrote:

While glancing through "The Zodiac Killer" by Jerry Weissman, I found the name "Zode" used on the last page # 238.
Reads "Your friend Zode was here to meet you...but he got distracted"
"How do you know?"
"He left one of his notes...on another victim's body."

Yes it does and good find Zam and you did find something useful out of that book. It's funny Zode name has been popping up lately with the movie Call Northside related to Keeler and now this.

So I 've spent the last few hours reading about all of this.

Yes this is the first time I have. I've seen it mentioned a lot but just assumed it was one of those things that happened then something definite was uncovered that brought it to a conclusion. I was even started reading it from ZKF then followed it over and finished reading the stuff here.

Glad I did, what a ride lol. All very compelling and well done Morf for taking the plunge and not getting sued or killed.

I don't really have much to add having just caught up on this but just a few thoughts.

I 'feel', as most of you have expressed, that there are avenues to be explored leading off from this. I seen that had already kind of happened with the short thread on Zode's schoolmate. I think if there is a connection it may not be that close I mean Ashman was aware of Zode's story and that's another level removed from a fellow student but even at that and taking it back to the same peer group it could easily be fellow students saying to people they that know in conversation- oh there's this guy at our school and he calls himself Zodiac, he's weird - if the conversation happened to be about dorks, geeks losers or whatever the terminology might have been. Even a student telling their parents and them telling someone they know - who knows how far stories and info about people travel.

Also makes you wonder about things in different ways reading stuff like this. Gives you ideas you hadn't considered before so I think it's great that we try and look into everything on here. I mean going back to my examples about how stories spread - if it was kids relating to each about people they know I'm thinking that the famous salutation could theoretically have been derived from an insult. "There's a kid at our school and he can't pronounce his R's properly". "You think that's weird, this is Zodiac speaking, cawcaw cacaw".

One thing did make pay attention though.

Morf wrote.

Quote :

*For all you single ladies out there, ZODE is a NY JETS fan, and loves trains & railroads...he is a LEO

After my recent speculative thread on the origins of the copper leaf spring comment and the Mikado trains I was tempted to PM Morf and ask if there were any suspects with and interest in trains. Then I read that this morning

I'm wasn't sure how strongly I felt about any connection but now I'm wondering when Zode's interest in them started and if he was ever part of any club or society associated with such during the 60's. That might provide an angle for someone else's exposure to the word Zodiac as a name or nickname as used by Zode.

It would be particularly interesting if he'd visited this when it opened and exactly when in 1966 it opened. I'm guessing in the first half of the year since the land was purchased in 65 and I would imagine they would have wanted it opened for the summer.

http://www.steamonly.org/rls_about.html

Glad you plunged into the 'Zode' thread Trav. A pretty cool back story on an interesting guy. If he lived in Vallejo,I think he would be near the top of the Z suspect pool. Having said that,I dont think he was Zodiac,and I dont think he knows who Z was. However, he is a Melvin belli fan, no question, and so was Zodiac. I still think theres a chance one of his schoolmates was zodiac.

RE, the interest in trains, thats interesting too for any possible z suspects. The classmate of Cheri Bates that wound up living in Vallejo until 1974, listed Train 'Brakeman' on his marriage license application. That made me think of this:


Maybe that's why Z called himself 'Red Phantom' (he was a phantom,a brakeman, and the color of the brakeman on that book was red)
Sorry to go off topic a bit

No I don't think he was Zodiac either but to have all those connections floating out there for someone who was Z to have maybe picked up on is interesting. Not that it needs me to qualify it but the writing is a non starter - can't even see anything of interest in it.

I'd seen that phantom brakeman mention before but forgotten about it, thanks for posting.

I believe that Belli became the focus of Zodiac because he appeared on the Dunbar Show. Remember that in the original call, likely made be Eric Weil from the Napa State Hospital, the caller asked for either Belli or F Lee Bailey. It was Belli who was available to go to the Dunbar Show so by default it was he who attracted Zodiac's attention. Had F Lee Bailey been available it's likely that Zodiac would have written to him instead of Belli. So, I don't think that the fact that Zode was an admirer of Belli holds that much weight. Had Zode expressed admiration for Bailey as well it might mean more to me.