Asked directly about the Zodiac Killer theory — which had circulated online and in some media coverage — Elliott said he could neither confirm nor rule out a connection, and deferred to California authorities and the Department of Justice. This was a careful answer that neither endorsed nor dismissed the theory; it reflected the reality that investigators had not definitively excluded any specific alternative explanation for Nichols’s behavior, while also not claiming to have evidence linking him to any particular crime.
Elliott’s most direct statement about the case’s open questions was this: “There has to be a reason he never again contacted his family.” The confirmation of Nichols’s identity did not produce a reason. It confirmed that the question existed and that the person whose behavior raised it was now identified by name.
Phil Nichols also spoke publicly after the announcement. He said that his last contact with his father had been the 1965 letter — the letter from Napa, California, containing a penny. He said: “He left our family in a lurch.” And he said: “I’m at peace, and hold no animosity, no anger.”
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## The Forensic Genealogy Revolution
The identification of Robert Nichols as the man behind the Joseph Chandler identity was notable not only for what it revealed about a specific case but for what it demonstrated about a new investigative technique.
Forensic genealogy — using genetic data combined with traditional genealogical research to identify unknown individuals — had existed as a specialized field for several years before the Chandler case. But the Chandler identification, described by the Marshals Service as the first use of the technique in the Service’s history, represented a proof of concept for applying it to severely degraded samples and to cold cases where conventional fingerprint and database approaches had failed.