Much ado has been made about the supposed dissimilarities in style and modus operandi between Zodiac and Theodore Kaczynski. This concern has less to do with our understanding of Kaczynski's nature than with the general inability of the police and public to perceive the Zodiac murders as unique manifestations of a particular type of murderer, and their steadfast insistence upon typecasting Zodiac as a typical serial killer of the sexual-sadistic variety.

This is unfortunate, because over the years such miscalculation has placed a stumblingblock in the path of any person who has devoted his time to solving the crimes and bringing the identity of the killer to light.

Contemporary thought divides multiple killers into two broad categories: mass murderers and serial killers. On the subject of mass murder, the National Center for the Victims of Crime opines, "[m]ass murderers differ from serial murderers in that the former appear to suddenly act out and indiscriminately kill numerous people in a specific time period." In brief, mass murderers act in a single, violent paroxysm of inexplicable rage, exposing themselves to identification, capture, and often death at the hands of the police. The murders are acts of desperation, serving as vehicles for bringing the perpetrator into the public eye and drawing attention to his sense of impotence, his frustration, his anger and hostility.

This definition is contrasted with that given for serial murder, in which the same source states,

Much evidence exists to suggest that the classical serial killer suffers from the same sense of frustrated rage, inadequacy and loss of control as the mass murderer described above. Be that as it may, a pair of distinctive differences separate the two.

First, the serial killer seeks to compensate for his sense of powerlessness through the direct manipulation and control of a specific victim. He effects that control through the direct application of torture, brutality, sexual outrage, and murder.

Second, unlike the mass murderer, the serial killer comes to enjoy the continuing sense of power that his crimes afford him, and he seeks to conceal the evidence of his crimes in order to continue in their enjoyment for the longest possible period of time. He does not desire to draw attention to himself by "going out" in a blaze of glory. First and foremost his desire is to kill, and to continue in the enjoyment of killing for as long as it is humanly possible.

Now, although it may be tempting to lump killers into one of these two categories (i.e., mass murderer/serial killer) it seems obvious, based on actual studies, that in a certain number of cases the paradigms do not hold true.

Serial bombers, whose victimology often follows the pattern of taking individual victims, yet whose psychology favors that of the mass murderer, engage in no physical contact with their victims that might allow them to meet the definitions of brutality and sexual perversion that are the hallmarks of the serial killer. The mad bomber kills, not for any sense of immediate sensual gratification, nor to exercise control over any specific individual, but to manipulate and control society at large through the use of terror. In that sense his psychology is closer to that of the mass murderer than it is to the classical serial killer. The key difference between the mass murderer and the mad bomber seems to repose in the willingness of the former to commit suicide, and in the unwillingness of the latter to expose himself to risk.

Similarly, unique cases such as that of David Berkowitz (the "Son of Sam") present a clear picture of a "serial" killer whose psychology resembles that of the mass murderer, in that his crimes were apparently without motivation, were perpetrated quickly at arm's length, and failed to manifest the physical brutality, torture, or sexual perversion that define the "serial killer" paradigm.

With this in mind, it is difficult to perceive the rationale by which Zodiac became known as a classical serial killer of the sexual-sadistic type. Like the murders of Berkowitz, Zodiac's killings manifested none of the true "hands-on" elements customarily ascribed to the classical serial killer. The four known Zodiac events can be summarized as follows:

Lake Herman Road. More than two years passed between the time of the Bates slaying and the next authenticated Zodiac murder at Lake Herman Road, just outside the city limits of Vallejo, California. Staking out a lonely lovers' lane, Zodiac gunned down David Faraday and his date, Betty Lou Jensen, in an incident lasting no more (and perhaps less) than 90 seconds. There were no living witnesses to the crime. Forensic examination of the victims and the crime scene revealed no evidence of physical brutality, sexual assault or any activity on the part of the killer other than the act of shooting at the victims and their car.

Blue Rock Springs. In a near carbon-copy of the Lake Herman Road assault, Zodiac gunned down Darlene Ferrin and seriously wounded surviving victim Mike Mageau as the couple sat in a parked car at midnight in a lonely golf course parking lot. As in the previous attack, the killer exited his vehicle, fired a fusillade of shots into the victims' car, then immediately left the scene. No more than 90 seconds elapsed between the beginning of the incident and its end. No word was spoken by the killer, and neither of the victims was touched.

Lake Berryessa. The most complex of the Zodiac killings, and perhaps inspired by the Manson murders of one month earlier, Zodiac stabbed Bryan Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard at a lonely site off Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California. Wearing a garish costume and brandishing a gun, Zodiac cajoled the couple into tying one another with lengths of clothesline, then inflicted multiple stab wounds on both victims as they lay helpless upon the ground. Based upon the account given by surviving victim Hartnell, the duration of the actual assault could not have been longer than one or two minutes, while the time preceding the attack was occupied by the killer persuading the couple that they would not be harmed provided they offered no resistance. Following the assault the killer immediately left the scene. Other than the actual knifing, no touching of the victims occurred, nor did the killer effect any physical brutality, torture or sexual assault.

San Francisco. In his final authenticated murder, Zodiac shot cab driver Paul Stine while seated behind Stine in the back seat of his cab. Immediately following the murder, Zodiac tore off a piece of Stine's shirt for the purpose of identifying himself as the perpetrator of the crime. Having done so, and having wiped down the interior of the cab, Zodiac immediately left the scene.

It is interesting to contrast these methods with those of several other well-known serial murderers. Ted Bundy gained control of his victims by bludgeoning them into a state of insensibility, following the initial assault with acts of rape, torture, mutilation and death by strangulation. Following their deaths he indulged in various acts of necrophilia and post-mortem mutilation. Ed Kemper committed rape, stabbing, and manual strangulation upon his living victims; decapitation and necrophilia upon the dead. John Wayne Gacy, a prolific murderer of young males, secured control of his victims' persons through elaborate ruses, before committing various acts of torture involving sodomy and other acts of physical brutality.

In each of these instances, and in countless others like them, the primary signature of the perpetrators can be stated as comprising a compulsive desire, or need, to physically overpower, dominate and control the victim. In many such cases the actual murder can be perceived as of lesser importance to the psychological needs of the killer than the acts preceding or following the murder.

It is easy to perceive that the crimes of Zodiac fell far short of displaying the classical signature of the sexual-sadistic serial murderer. Zodiac neither raped, tortured, brutalized nor attempted to possess his victims after death. Indeed, the only unifying element in the entire gamut of the Zodiac events was the killer's use of murder to capture and control the public at large through the widespread terror wrought by his killings. In that regard, the murders did not serve as ends in themselves, but rather, as means toward a greater goal.

This was plainly manifested in Zodiac's numerous correspondences, each of which was calculated to hold the public in the grip of uncertainty and fear. By this we can see that through his murders, Zodiac won the credibility necessary to sustain the general public interest and fear. In short, he was able to exercise the classical element of control, which, however, appeared not as control over a single individual, but, like the mass murderer, control over society at large.

Zodiac's killings paled in significance when compared to the effects produced by his numerous, almost ubiquitous, threats to commit mass murder:

If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry. 1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill rampage Fry. Night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, untill I end up with a dozen people over the weekend. [Three-part Cipher]

School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire & then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out. [Stine Letter]

Take one bag of ammonium nitrate fertlizer & 1 gal of stove oil & dump a few bags of gravel on top & then set the shit off & will positivily ventalate any thing that should be in the way of the Blast. [Seven-Page Letter]

But if I hold back too long from no nine I will loose [] all controol of my self & set the bomb up. [Belli Letter]

I hope you enjoy your selves when I have my Blast. [Jolly Roger Card]

I promised to punish them if they did not comply, by anilating a full School Buss. [Mt. Diablo Letter]

On the basis of the foregoing facts it can reasonably be concluded that, although he has been classified as a serial killer, Zodiac's psychological profile stands closer to that of the mass murderer and his near-cousin the mad bomber. Indeed, the only real distinction between the former and the latter, other than the willingness of the mass murderer to sacrifice his life, is that the mad bomber possesses the requisite skills to make and deploy lethal devices that will explode at a particular time and place.

It stands to reason that a mad bomber personality that (1) is not willing to sacrifice his life and (2) has neither bombs nor trigger mechanisms with which to work, may find alternative means of exercising his will against society. Because he takes his victims one by one, such a killer becomes misidentified as a serial murderer, when in effect his psychology is entirely at odds with the label.

Like Zodiac, Theodore Kaczynski appears from his writings to have entertained a long-running flirtation with the idea of mass murder:

These quotations show Kaczynski's musings on the subject of mass murder to have been colored by his desire to continue living, and a general unwillingness to sacrifice his life to the fulfillment of his desire for recognition and revenge.

The psychological profiles of both Kaczynski and Zodiac merge in the single common denominator of mass murder and the inability of both killers to carry out what in Zodiac is an expressed threat and in Kaczynski an unfulfilled desire.

Ultimately, mass murder is the supreme consummation of the killer's desire to stand up in a public forum and scream forth his frustration and impotence to an otherwise unhearing world. Absent a willingness to accept death as the price for attaining such a forum, Zodiac and Kaczynski employed as a surrogate the sporadic killing, followed by written communications that substituted for the single, grandiose expression of the mass murderer.

Bearing this in mind, one perceives that Zodiac's use of knives and guns is less an expression of psychological preference than it is simply a reflection of the probability (as manifested by his bomb diagrams) that the killer had no other means by which to work. Though Kaczynski had possessed a knowledge of explosives dating from his teenage years, his repeated experimentation with timing and triggering devices did not bear actual fruit until late in 1985. His resolution--based upon years of pent-up hostility, anger, frustration, impotence and rage--began with the sex-change incident in 1966. One can only wonder how Kaczynski managed to cope with his aggressions for the ensuing 19 years.

This much, however, seems clear: had Zodiac's psychology truly been that of the classical serial killer there can be little doubt that the number, severity and frequency of his crimes would have increased to the point where bungling and arrogance might well have culminated in his arrest.

Such is the usual pattern of serial murders and their denouement.

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