Zodiackillersite.com

CharlesR wrote:The reason she rang the payphone back was to try to collect the money for the operated assisted call.

No.

TomVoigt wrote:

CharlesR wrote:The reason she rang the payphone back was to try to collect the money for the operated assisted call.

No.

The operator was listening to the call and rang back the phone at the phone booth to lock up the cross-bar telephone switch on the position until a central office tech could come in and do the trace to the frame. The line records would indicate the physical termination of the phone line right out from the switch relay contacts.

CharlesR wrote:

TomVoigt wrote:

CharlesR wrote:The reason she rang the payphone back was to try to collect the money for the operated assisted call.

No.

The operator was listening to the call and rang back the phone at the phone booth to lock up the cross-bar telephone switch on the position until a central office tech could come in and do the trace to the frame. The line records would indicate the physical termination of the phone line right out from the switch relay contacts.

OK, but I have to point out that in your other post you said she rang it back to collect money due.

CuriousCat wrote:OK, but I have to point out that in your other post you said she rang it back to collect money due.

Give him a minute so he can change it yet again.

No.[/quote]

The operator was listening to the call and rang back the phone at the phone booth to lock up the cross-bar telephone switch on the position until a central office tech could come in and do the trace to the frame. The line records would indicate the physical termination of the phone line right out from the switch relay contacts.[/quote]

OK, but I have to point out that in your other post you said she rang it back to collect money due.[/quote]

No, you people totally misunderstand. I am pointing out the only reasons an operator would ring back a telephone. Now that Tom clarified the reason for the operator putting the call through to the police.Please try to follow. That is why so many people are confused. They really don't know how things worked years ago.You are too young to know that they called to the payphone because they used to give curtesy to the customer and trust them to put in the extra money they owed. Thats how it was. Now everybody is a snake and the phone company knows it too.

You guys are not cutting the mustard here.

The suggestion by Tom (and others) is that the operator had a call from Zodiac that was odd enough to arouse enough suspicions to initiate a trace and long enough to accomplish it within 7 minutes of the call ending.

This fails on two accounts:

1. PT&T could not unilaterally trace a call - only upon request from law enforcement.

2. Typical call tracing took anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. So that would require the operator to engage in an extremely lengthy conversation (15 minutes +)

It is far more likely that the operator knew what number Zodiac was calling from because he told her.

CharlesR wrote:they called to the payphone because they used to give curtesy to the customer and trust them to put in the extra money they owed. Thats how it was.

That's not how it worked.

Chaucer wrote:It is far more likely that the operator knew what number Zodiac was calling from because he told her.

The operator could ring a particular phone without knowing the number.

TomVoigt wrote:

Chaucer wrote:It is far more likely that the operator knew what number Zodiac was calling from because he told her.

The operator could ring a particular phone without knowing the number.

Yes, I know. I'm not talking about the ringback. I'm talking about the trace. It was SOP for operators to ask for a caller's number during emergency calls in case of disconnection.

My hypothesis is that upon receiving the call from Zodaic, the PT&T operator asked for the nature of his emergency and the number he was calling from. He supplied both of them to her. With the number he called from already in hand, it would have been possible to locate the pay phone within minutes after he hung up with Slover.