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.

Comments

[Steve]

Sarah,

Here is a link to a less "rambling" version of the entry.
http://www.legendgames.net/showstory.asp?page=blognews/stories/UN0000128.txt

I thank you for the link to my blog. The editor at BNN, the link above, shrank my .jpeg comparing the Zodiac suspect sketch, with "Chandler" which I am sure you would agree is crucial to the entry, but otherwise it's more concise. I will say I felt it was a point worth building up to, and I do take that luxury in my blog, hence the rambling.

Steve

[Dwight Brown]

"'Chandler's' remains were cremated, and fingerprints are not available."

They aren't? This confuses me. I'm not a forensic scientist or criminalist, but I would have thought that the coroner's office would keep around a set of prints, dental records, and a DNA sample before allowing an unidentified body to be cremated. Was he cremated before the police figured out his identity was false? That's not clear from the story quoted.

Or am I just stupid?

[Bryon]

Something about the Zodial Killer has always scared me silly. Everytime I see a special on him or read a story or anything I get creeped out. Of course that hasn't stopped me from delving into the subject in full force. Now that's a kind of serial killer novel I'd enjoy reading. One that starts with the killer dead and traces back through his life. Not another freaking Silence of the Lambs rip-off.

[Jim Winter]

Eastlake, eh? Wonder if that also solves the mystery of the big blackout, too.

Seriously, though, it's pretty amazing that Chandler could hold on to his identity for so long. Of course, he got his social security number in an age when records weren't readily accessible. From then on, every computer in the country had no reason to doubt he was who he said he was.

How would one go about that today?

[Sarah]

Dwight -- Huff's piece says that "Chandler" was cremated shortly after his death and the autopsy showed he would have died shortly from advance-stage colon cancer.

The remains were kept unburied for 18 months, but according to the Plain Dealer article I cited (no link, alas) this is what happened:

"Onderisin held a small memorial service for the man he knew as Joseph Chandler this fall, interring his remains in a columbarium at Riverside Cemetery in Painesville Township."

But I guess if an autopsy was done, they would have taken prints, but since suicide was self-evident and they didn't know then he wasn't who he said he was, maybe not. And of course, afterwards it was too late.

[PK the Bookeemonster]

Can anyone refer me to the better books about the Zodiac Killer? Not being a true-crime reader, it is difficult to weed out the good from the not-so-good. Thanks!

[JD Rhoades]

From what's written here, it looks like the evidence that Zodiac was a "student of Ripperology" was "he liked to taunt the cops" and "there was a lot of that stuff around at the time". Maybe there's more, I don't know. But without more than that, it's hard for me to believe that the use of the not-all-that-uncommon name "Joseph Chandler" has any significance.

And frankly, "age regression drawings" have never impressed me all that much.

Call me Mr. Skeptical.

[Bryon]

Alright there Mr. "J.D. Rhoades."

J.D. is only one letter away from J.C., the initials of Joseph Chandler, and everyone knows Randy Rhoads was the guitarist in the metal band Jack the Ripper. That's exactly the kind of information a subtle and clever co-conspirator would know...

[JDRhoades]

Dang. Busted.

[Steve]

About the fingerprints; one article I read said simply that every surface they treated for fingerprints - and it didn't give any deeper explanation - yielded a result that was not adequate to scan and load into something like AFIS. I find it peculiar as well that they aren't available.

I'm glad to see skepticism, by the way - normally I'm a pretty rock-ribbed skeptic, and I don't like it when others get so married to a theory that they won't entertain alternate ideas. That said; I simply think the "age regression" was poorly drawn, period. If I were to re-do the jpeg I'd simply lop that out and put the Zodiac suspect composite beside "Chandler's" photo.

Books about Zodiac? There's two by Robert Graysmith - an amazon search of his name will bring them up, and another by Michael Kelleher. The Graysmith books are pretty exhaustive but they contain some pretty breathless and left-field theorizing. The first stop I recommend for anyone studying Zodiac is Tom Voigt's site, Zodiackiller.com.

[Robert norris]

If they tried to dust for fingerprints, and didn't find any, why didn't they just fingerprint the body???..........DUH