Miscellaneous documents

Source: http://lawrencekane.wordpress.com

Edit 2020: Hear Lawrence Kane speak -

I never knew Kane was married or lived in New Orleans. He sure did get around.

Source: http://lawrencekane.wordpress.com

Courtesy of zodiackiller.com user Seagull:

Really great stuff Galaxy. But I have to ask, how do you find things such as this?



Matthew

ophion1031 wrote:I never knew Kane was married or lived in New Orleans. He sure did get around.

Wasn't he married more than once or am I mistaken?



Matthew

Matthew Mayer wrote:Really great stuff Galaxy. But I have to ask, how do you find things such as this?



Matthew

Generally speaking, vital records such as certificates of marriage/birth/death more than 50 years old can be obtained by submitting a request (w/ fees - usually between $1 to $5 depending on location) to the records department of the state, county, or jurisdiction where said marriage/birth/death took place. Divorce records are typically a little more difficult to acquire and have to be requested directly (in person or via phone) through the county clerk of court. Of course, the protocol varies from state to state -

http://www.archives.com/genealogy/vital-records-divorce.html

http://www.archives.com/genealogy/vital-records-marriage.html

Matthew Mayer wrote:

ophion1031 wrote:I never knew Kane was married or lived in New Orleans. He sure did get around.

Wasn't he married more than once or am I mistaken?



Matthew

On September 9, 1959, he was arrested in Hattiesburg, MS, on a charge of adultery (with additional charges of disturbing the peace and assault & battery) - it would be interesting to learn more about the events that preceded this arrest. The marriage certificate posted up thread indicates that he didn't have any previous marriages, although I tend to doubt its veracity on this point.

It's amazing the guy never really did much time in jail but had a police record that was a mile long.

ophion1031 wrote:It's amazing the guy never really did much time in jail but had a police record that was a mile long.

^ Perhaps this was a factor?

Kane's SS application -

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/7188/Lawrence-kane-Hand-Printed-SS-application#.VghWbctViko

Galaxie500 wrote:

ophion1031 wrote:It's amazing the guy never really did much time in jail but had a police record that was a mile long.

^ Perhaps this was a factor?

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for posting his SSN app, I have never actually seen that until now.

On the Trail of the Zodiac, by Rider McDowell (http://www.zodiackiller.com/KH1.html)

...a couple of excerpts from the above-mentioned piece:

"I locate Kane's unlisted number and manage to engage him in a phone conversation over some gauzy premise. I record my conversation with the glib, rather agreeable Kane, noting rather remarkably the presence of the subtlest stutter. I play a section of the conversation along with equal sections of two other male voices of the same age, for Hartnell over the phone. He replies: "The third voice (Kane's), his speech pattern is certainly consistent with the voice I heard, although it's been too long to be certain."

&

"As I'm winding up my research on this piece, calls are made to Larry Kane to ask point blank his opinion of Hines's allegations. The first eight times I call, I get a recording on an answering machine, the kind of celebrity voice recording for sale at joke shops. The message is always the same, a second-rate impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock, soliciting you to leave a message. The final 15 seconds of the message is filled with the blood-curdling sound of a woman screaming, a terrible, chilling sound, made more terrible given the context of the call. I make two trips to Kane's South Lake Tahoe condominium, once with Hines, once alone. There is no answer at his door, nor do his neighbors, who admit to having little to do with the man in the corner condominium, know when he'll return. Finally one afternoon I reach Kane by telephone and ask him for his side of the story. There is a hesitation, then, "I don't wish to discuss that. How did you get this number?" Another hesitation, and Kane hangs up, and I listen for a moment  to the sound of the empty line."

Galaxie500 wrote:On the Trail of the Zodiac, by Rider McDowell

...a couple of excerpts from the above-mentioned piece that I rarely see discussed:

"I locate Kane's unlisted number and manage to engage him in a phone conversation over some gauzy premise. I record my conversation with the glib, rather agreeable Kane, noting rather remarkably the presence of the subtlest stutter. I play a section of the conversation along with equal sections of two other male voices of the same age, for Hartnell over the phone. He replies: "The third voice (Kane's), his speech pattern is certainly consistent with the voice I heard, although it's been too long to be certain."

&

"As I'm winding up my research on this piece, calls are made to Larry Kane to ask point blank his opinion of Hines's allegations. The first eight times I call, I get a recording on an answering machine, the kind of celebrity voice recording for sale at joke shops. The message is always the same, a second-rate impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock, soliciting you to leave a message. The final 15 seconds of the message is filled with the blood-curdling sound of a woman screaming, a terrible, chilling sound, made more terrible given the context of the call. I make two trips to Kane's South Lake Tahoe condominium, once with Hines, once alone. There is no answer at his door, nor do his neighbors, who admit to having little to do with the man in the corner condominium, know when he'll return. Finally one afternoon I reach Kane by telephone and ask him for his side of the story. There is a hesitation, then, "I don't wish to discuss that. How did you get this number?" Another hesitation, and Kane hangs up, and I listen for a moment  to the sound of the empty line."

Thanks for posting that, never seen it before! Kane certainly had the right personality to fit how I picture Zodiac being. I also have always thought Zodiac, and his partner(s) had some sort of protection, and Kane is one of the few suspects who probably had protection of some sort. I wish we could get a list of his known associates from 1965-1975. There has been some speculation that Kane may have been an informant for the FBI. Some people who knew him personally (I think) said "no way." But back in the 60's the FBI and CIA had informants from all walks of life and some of these folks were people you wouldn't think would ever be an informant. It didn't take much for them to get to you. They could catch you in something and force you to do it, for example. And with Kane's criminal history, that is certainly conceivable. Could be another reason why he never did any hard time. Those agencies had a lot of criminals doing jobs for them and most of them got away with a lot. Some people have said that Kane may have had mob ties and that's another reason he probably was not an informant. The CIA and the mob were very close and worked together on many many (yep, I am watching Police Academy)things.

Kane is one of those guys that I just don't know about. I bet he was a really cocky mofo. I bet he did a lot of bad shit that nobody will ever know about. But was he the Zodiac Killer? Sorry, I am half asleep and rambling. Pretty sure none of this even makes sense.

ophion1031 wrote:

Galaxie500 wrote:On the Trail of the Zodiac, by Rider McDowell

...a couple of excerpts from the above-mentioned piece that I rarely see discussed:

"I locate Kane's unlisted number and manage to engage him in a phone conversation over some gauzy premise. I record my conversation with the glib, rather agreeable Kane, noting rather remarkably the presence of the subtlest stutter. I play a section of the conversation along with equal sections of two other male voices of the same age, for Hartnell over the phone. He replies: "The third voice (Kane's), his speech pattern is certainly consistent with the voice I heard, although it's been too long to be certain."

&

"As I'm winding up my research on this piece, calls are made to Larry Kane to ask point blank his opinion of Hines's allegations. The first eight times I call, I get a recording on an answering machine, the kind of celebrity voice recording for sale at joke shops. The message is always the same, a second-rate impersonation of Alfred Hitchcock, soliciting you to leave a message. The final 15 seconds of the message is filled with the blood-curdling sound of a woman screaming, a terrible, chilling sound, made more terrible given the context of the call. I make two trips to Kane's South Lake Tahoe condominium, once with Hines, once alone. There is no answer at his door, nor do his neighbors, who admit to having little to do with the man in the corner condominium, know when he'll return. Finally one afternoon I reach Kane by telephone and ask him for his side of the story. There is a hesitation, then, "I don't wish to discuss that. How did you get this number?" Another hesitation, and Kane hangs up, and I listen for a moment  to the sound of the empty line."

Thanks for posting that, never seen it before! Kane certainly had the right personality to fit how I picture Zodiac being. I also have always thought Zodiac, and his partner(s) had some sort of protection, and Kane is one of the few suspects who probably had protection of some sort. I wish we could get a list of his known associates from 1965-1975. There has been some speculation that Kane may have been an informant for the FBI. Some people who knew him personally (I think) said "no way." But back in the 60's the FBI and CIA had informants from all walks of life and some of these folks were people you wouldn't think would ever be an informant. It didn't take much for them to get to you. They could catch you in something and force you to do it, for example. And with Kane's criminal history, that is certainly conceivable. Could be another reason why he never did any hard time. Those agencies had a lot of criminals doing jobs for them and most of them got away with a lot. Some people have said that Kane may have had mob ties and that's another reason he probably was not an informant. The CIA and the mob were very close and worked together on many many (yep, I am watching Police Academy)things.

Kane is one of those guys that I just don't know about. I bet he was a really cocky mofo. I bet he did a lot of bad shit that nobody will ever know about. But was he the Zodiac Killer? Sorry, I am half asleep and rambling. Pretty sure none of this even makes sense.

Kane fulfills a lot of the vague parameters of what one might expect the Zodiac's personality to be like given the available evidence - reticence about his past and personal affairs, ego-centrism, frequent alterations to appearance, mental health history, etc. One thing that bears reiteration is that Kane, despite his criminal dalliances, was regarded by his known associates as an erudite, well-spoken, polished sort of individual...far from the imbecilic, caricaturesque profligate some have attempted to portray him as. This becomes an interesting juxtaposition when one considers the extensiveness and breadth of his criminal record. While the possibility certainly exists that Kane was an FBI informant (and, indeed, the newspaper articles posted elsewhere on this website indicate that he acted as an informant for the police on at least one occasion), his movements - so far as they can be determined - tend to contradict the oft-raised suggestion of his having been part of a witness protection program. Speculation regarding his affiliation with the mob originates with the fact that he was employed as a PR guy for Allen Dorfman in Las Vegas, but there's nothing to suggest that his involvement with Dorfman's criminal enterprises was anything other than tenuous.

Something else I don't see brought up very often is Kane's background as a performer. During his time in New York, he worked as an M.C. (Master of Ceremonies) for several night club and hotel venues...hence his association with celebrities of the day.

ophion1031 wrote:
I wish we could get a list of his known associates from 1965-1975.

I know that he was a friend of Robert "Bob" Maloff, a hotel developer and businessman in the Reno and Lake Tahoe areas. Other than that, my knowledge of Kane's associates during the period in question is admittedly pretty sparse. If you'd like, however, I can send you a PM with more information on what little I do know.

This dude was creepy. I could see him being a serial killer, especially a woman killer.

Rocketman wrote:This dude was creepy. I could see him being a serial killer, especially a woman killer.

If nothing else, he was an interesting character.

FBI docs obtained by researcher Alex Lewis:









(I'd be interested to know more about the "peeping tom" offenses and what they entailed.)

Some more handwriting samples:

A few interesting posts from the old zodiackiller.com forums:

"I have known Larry Cane (he spells it with a "C") for over 15 years. I only recently found out about him being a suspect. Actually the whole thing was by accident as I was watching TV one night and ran across a show where they had mentioned him by name. Larry has never mentioned anything about this to me, and I never really knew too much about his past. I could be wrong, but it would be a huge stretch to think of Larry and the Zodiac as the same. He has told me of several of the things expressed on the site, i.e., the car accident, living with his mother in Tahoe, working at the Sahara, etc. Larry has never, on any occasion, even hinted about the Zodiac nor gave me the impression he could even consider killing someone. I am not a crime expert, but 1 thing I can tell you is that you are looking at the wrong person and you should probably take your investigation elsewhere. Besides that, it scared the hell out of me once I heard about it. I must admit though, that there are similarities with regards to his personality and what you describe as those traits belonging to the Zodiac, but still, the whole thing is a little too far fetched to even consider remotely possible."

--and the following from Sandy Betts:

"...One of his friends told her that Larry has changed his phone number. I believe Larry is still at that address, but he uses a PO box for his mail. He won't answer his phone even if you called him, his friends use a code, then he will pick up. I called once many yrs ago, he had a recording of a woman screaming in the back ground, very strange indeed."

"Tom, he was there 6 mos ago. I drove up there to see if he was still alive. He has changed cars again, and again the car has no plates front or back. I didn't call him to see if he would answer. I found out what the code was from an arrest record in the late '70's. The phone company had a tap on his phone for a while. Seems he had connections to Golden Gate fields, Albany, CA, a person in Santa Rosa, and one in Incline Village. He was arrested fined and put on probation. The offenses occurred between Oct. 78 to Feb. 1st 79."

I wonder how he got away with driving a car with no plates. Maybe he took the plates off whenever he was at home and then put them back on when he drove it? That would be very suspicious.

ophion1031 wrote:...I bet he was a really cocky mofo...

--as the following extract from 1952 would seem to attest   -

HAHAHAHA now that is some funny stuff!!

Larry Klein in the 1940 U.S. Census (Brooklyn, NY) -

https://i.imgur.com/SdqDwh1.jpg

ophion1031 wrote:I wonder how he got away with driving a car with no plates. Maybe he took the plates off whenever he was at home and then put them back on when he drove it? That would be very suspicious.

That would be my guess. Probably not all that uncommon back then.

I could be mistaken but didnt Sandy Betts say that Kane was one of her two suspects? I think she said her two suspects were friends?

Rocketman wrote:

ophion1031 wrote:I wonder how he got away with driving a car with no plates. Maybe he took the plates off whenever he was at home and then put them back on when he drove it? That would be very suspicious.

That would be my guess. Probably not all that uncommon back then.

Kane possessed multiple fraudulent driver's licenses and identification cards. Consequently, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to suggest that he may have used false plates.