You be the judge

A few weeks ago, I chanced across the story of a man calling himself Joseph Newton Chandler III. It was a very strange tale; he’d shown up in the vicinity of Eastlake, Ohio around 1978, allegedly from California, and proceeded to live a very quiet life. He went to work, he went home, and did little else. He made a few friends, but none terribly close.

And then, one day in 2002, he shot himself. And that’s where the story gets fuzzy:

He was an impostor in life. In death he became a John Doe.

Last July, a man identified as Joseph N. Chandler committed suicide

in his apartment. It turned out he had stolen the identity of an

8-year-old boy who was killed with his parents in a 1945 car crash near

Sherman, Texas.

The impostor was described by police as a loner in his 60s.

“We don’t know what or who he was hiding from or who he really was,” police Detective Lt. Tom Doyle said.

The man left $82,000 in a savings account, but didn’t leave a will.

Police said family members listed on a rental agreement led to

nonexistent people or addresses.

“We thought at first maybe he was in the witness protection program, but that has been ruled out,” Doyle said.

A judge has ordered investigators to try to find the man’s heirs.

If they cannot find any within 18 months, the money will go to the

county’s unclaimed-funds account.

Of course, 18 months passed and no one claimed the money or his identity. “Chandler” was cremated, and any fingerprints were destroyed. But who was he? Why did he use a fake name? What was he doing in 1978, when he applied for a Social Security number in Rapid City? As law enforcement in that city said, ““The fact that a 41-year-old man was requesting a Social Security card should have sent up a red flag at the time.”

No kidding — especially if a new theory about the identity of "Chandler" is to be believed: that he might have been the Zodiac Killer.

Before getting to the comparisons and contrasts, it’s probably best to let the images tell the story first:

While the sketch on the left and the age regression of "Chandler" on the right aren’t absolutely identical, there were enough similarities for me to have a serious freak-out moment all those weeks ago. But at the time, because the comparison wasn’t made by me but by someone on a members-only site, I didn’t want to say anything.

But of course, others were bound to come to a similar conclusion, which is what Steve Huff, who was in the news several weeks ago for his amateur sleuthing on the BTK Killer case, has done. Though the post rambles and takes its time to get to the point, the most interesting bit has to be this:

A man clever enough to pose ciphers that challenged even federal
agencies like the FBI, a man so keen on Gilbert and Sullivan that it
appeared he could parody lyrics he knew by heart, was also clever
enough to understand his place in the history of murder. Though
Zodiac’s murders were completed in a very different manner from "saucy
Jacky," – the Ripper preferred to not just stab but slash and gut his
victims, all prostitutes working the Whitechapel district of London –
the killers were very alike in the way they teased those seeking to
bring them to justice, and alike in the fear they inspired in the awed
public reading of their crimes, reading the killer’s own words. I
believe Zodiac was a student of the Ripper in this way – "Ripperology"
was already a thriving field of research in the late ’60’s – books
investigating the Whitechapel Monster were being written virtually from
the time he disappeared after his last known murder, the truly gruesome obliteration of pretty young Mary Jane Kelly on November 9, 1888.

And most interesting is this; a brief look into Ripper history brings us back to the name, Joseph Chandler.

From Casebook: Jack the Ripper’s ‘timeline’ page, which outlines the key events in the course of the Ripper’s known murders:

"…September
12, 1888 — Coroner Wynne E. Baxter begins the inquest into murder of
Annie Chapman at the Whitechapel Working Lads’ Institute — adjouned
until the 13th.

— Inspector Joseph Luniss Chandler
is quoted in the Star as saying the ‘bloodstains’ found on the fence in
the yard of 25 Hanbury Street were simply urine stains…"

To those with a more casual knowledge of Ripper history, Frederick
Abberline is the Inspector most often associated with the case – he’s
been depicted in movies, most recently by Johnny Depp in the
fictionalized movie version of the Ripper tale, From Hell.

But a slightly more in-depth study will bring up Inspector Joseph Chandler, H Division, Metropolitan Police.

It’s the kind of detail a subtle, clever Ripper afficionado would
know offhand, but not the kind of detail someone who perhaps only saw a
movie, or an occasional documentary on the subject, might bother to
recall.

The Zodiac Killer was nothing if not clever, and subtle.

The big problem in determining whether "Chandler" is, in fact, Zodiac is the lack of available evidence. "Chandler’s" remains were cremated, and fingerprints are not available. There’s evidence related to Zodiac’s case, but as applied to a dead cipher, what good is it?

And whether he was the Zodiac or not, the biggest mystery still remains: who the hell was Joseph Newton Chandler III anyway, and what secret was so monstrous that he covered his tracks so well, even after death?

It’s the kind of story that makes a person crazy. Or inspired.