Zodiackillersite.com

Terry Cunningham is a former detective who didn't think Zodiac existed and apparently thought four boys were responsible for the murder of David & Betty Lou.

Here is something I posted at Tom's (zodiackiller.com) a while back with links:

Tahoe27 wrote (May 7, 2011):
http://www.zodiackiller.com/COTC47.html
http://www.zodiackiller.com/COTC48.html

Quoting Q, 7:29erust1: "I am going by what the original SO investigator told me. He was quite certain the shooter at Lake Herman was a local guy. Most of what the Z said in his letter was public knowledge. I am not sure about the ammo use, may have been a lucky guess as..."

Quoting eastcoast, 43erust1:He did? I really don't recall. I am not saying the guy who wrote the letters isn't the Z, probably is. I just don't think he did the Lake Herman crime.

I've always thought Faraday and Jensen were a Zodiac crime.
But in the interest of study and curiosity I decided to look into the June 3, 1969 murder of a gas station attendant committed by four boys to see if there were any similarities to the Lake Herman crime. This is what I found:
Oakland Tribune 6-4-1969
"Booked for investigation of murder.... David Luis Magris 21, Matthew F Donohoe 27: his brother Robert S Donohoe 18, and
Michael J Schwerdtfeger 22 all of Vallejo."

San Mateo Times 6-3-69
"Steve Tompkins of Vallejo, attendant at a station adjacent to interstate 80, was robbed shortly after 2 am by four youths police said.
He was forced into their car at gunpoint, taken 3 miles on a back road, dumped out of the car into a roadside ditch and killed by 5 shots from a M1 rifle."

Excerpts from a more current article,
Daily Herald 5-23-1996:
Magris went out with 3 aquaintances, celebrating his 21 birthday with a one-night crime spree, Dennis Tapp,then 26, was working the graveyard shift at his fathers gas station in vallejo.
"Two men came up to the service station and knocked on the door", Tapp recalls. "They asked for the keys to the bathroom, I said 'Bathrooms open."
The next thing he new he was looking down the barrel of a sawed-off carbine.
"I opened the safe. I gave them my wallet" Tapp says, "They said turn around. I turned around and felt the first bullet hit me right in the middle of the back. Another bullet hit me in the right shoulder and I was paralyzed from the waist down."...
...."Tapp was the second victim that night. Magris and his cronies had first stopped at another gas station where they ordered attendant Steven Tompkins to fill a bag with money and then abducted him and drove to the out skirts of town. There, one of Magris' accomplices fired several shots in Tompkins' back. Like Tapp, the 20 year old Tompkins was left for dead. Unlike Tapp, he did not survive."

Oakland Tribune 11-21-1969
Fairfield- A Solano County Superior Court jury recommends death penalties for two men convicted of murder during a gasoline station holdup.
Jurors returned their verdict last night against Michael Schwerdtfeger,23, and David L. Magris,21, both of Vallejo."....

*side note: The death penalty was outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1972, so 107 inmates including Magris and Schwerdtfeger were moved off death row. Magris was paroled in 1985 and has since talked to his victim Dennis Tapp. He and Tapp are both against the death penalty.


Just found this article about David Margis and his victim Dennis Tapp:

Unlikely Allies Join Execution Foes at Prison
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-04-21/ ... th-penalty

Here is a link to the entire discussion at the ZodiacKiller.com message board:

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/9 ... 96fieNdWSo

Thanks, Tahoe!

I will do some reading. I don't think there's anything to the theory - but it's interesting stuff nevertheless.

Norse - you're keeping an open mind then eh?

Here it is on killer.com from 2002:
http://www.zodiackiller.com/mba/ozs/755.html

As has been said before, and very loudly, elsewhere, at the very least this demonstrates that there were other suspects who might have been seriously considered in respect to the murders, hmmm? If it weren't for those pesky letters, perhaps.
Doh!

I will go back and read thru, but quick question, if he thought there was no zodiac, who does he think was the writer of the z letters? Whomever wrote the details about Dave & Betty in the LHR stated that Betty Lou was on her side. When Borges found the bodies, Betty was on her side, but by the time she got police & they went back to the scene, she was no longer on her side. The letter writer knew she had been on her side, meaning he either was there, or had access to the police report

Smithy: Yes! Open mind. I think that's the way to go. Open mind and at least SOME plain sense (and a bit of logic).

Morf: Thing is, though, that Jensen was face down when the cops arrived. So as far as I can recall THAT was what the report stated. I tried to look for the exact page of the report where this is mentioned just now - but I couldn't find it.

Anyway, I'm unable to make sense of the hoax theory on this particular point. There is no Zodiac killer, just a series of unrelated crimes and a letter writer who takes credit for them. At this point he takes credit for the LHR double murder while at the same time announcing himself as MM's and DF's attacker. He volunteers some information, some technical details, in order to prove that he is indeed the killer. Things only he and the cops would know - as he says.

But he makes a mistake - so goes the theory. Because he states that Betty Lou Jensen was on her side when he left the crime scene. This is the point highlighted by Horan and his gang.

But I don't get why. We know that Jensen WAS on her side when Z left - because Stella Borges, the first person on the scene, says so. She confirms what Z claims in his letter. There may be a discrepancy between what Z claims and what the report says - but this doesn't throw suspicion on the letter writer. The letter writer is telling the truth - the police report is possibly lacking (again, I can't find the relevant page in that report at the moment). The letter writer assumes that the police would have noticed what he saw himself when fleeing the scene, namely that Jensen was on her side. Stella Borges saw this too when she arrived a few minutes later. Z couldn't know that this state of affairs had changed when the cops arrived- From his point of view what he claimed in the letter was clearly true. So, where's the slip-up?

If, on the other hand, the police report does contain a reference to what Borges saw - i.e. that Jensen was on her side at first - then the letter writer could be one of two people: either someone with access to the report (the infamous reporter or someone of his ilk) - or the killer. But in this scenario there is no discrepancy between the report and the letter writer's claim - so there is no basis for a hoax claim here.

So, second scenario: letter writer could be either killer or hoaxer with access to report. First scenario (in which there is no mention of what Borges saw in the report): letter writer could, in fact, only be one person. Namely the killer. Or Stella Borges. But I think even Horan would admit that is a bit unlikely.

Lastly, have y'all noticed what the coroner in the LHR case happens to call himself? Alarming, I'd say.

One thing which strikes me here: this was a gang. Seven people were brought in (including three girls who presumably were involved in some capacity). Considering these seven people all have friends they talk to...I don't know. I think we would have heard a whole lot more about this if a gang of seven people knew for a fact that the by and by VERY famous Zodiac killer was NOT responsible for LHR.

You could say that those who knew had their reasons to keep it to themselves, of course. But they were caught and for some of them telling the truth about LHR wouldn't have a made a difference. And, again, they had friends, family, acquaintances...seven times who knows how many possible people who would've been privy to the truth. No, I just don't see it.

Norse wrote:
Morf: Thing is, though, that Jensen was face down when the cops arrived. So as far as I can recall THAT was what the report stated. I tried to look for the exact page of the report where this is mentioned just now - but I couldn't find it.

The report reads that she was found face down by police, but both Zodiac & Borges who found the bodies, stated that Betty was on her side to begin with. Seems like the Zodiac letter writer & Ms Borges are in agreement. There's a thread about this whole topic someplace. I think Betty may have been alive and near death when Borges 1st found her, and as she died, fell over. This would be consistent with what Zodiac wrote in his letter.

This report clearly states, that Stella Borges found Betty ON HER SIDE:
http://www.zodiackiller.com/LHRPR20.html

A few minutes later, when Police got back to the scene, they found Betty face down as seen in the Pitta report:
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/galler ... fullsize=1

Yep! Thanks for those links, morf. The order of the documents on TV's (where I looked for this) is a bit confusing, as the first report (per the order on the site, I mean) is not that of the first responding officers.

But no matter. It's evident that Borges corroborates what Z states.

So, we're left with two possibilities: either Z was the killer, or Z managed to get his hands on the report (the part of it where Borges' statement is recorded). Each man and woman may believe what they will about that - but the suggestion that Z slips up in his missive and gives away the game (as Horan suggests) is surely nonsensical. Z, for once, simply tells the truth - and that's that.

I find it interesting that the couples who came forward with information after it was in the papers stated that they saw TWO male subjects that night---- not a lone adult male, not four kids.