Zodiackillersite.com

Tahoe27 wrote:You're saying you think the dispatcher who took the call was drunk?

Who knows, what I'm telling you is people were very different back then. Yes many people drank on the job. It was the norm. People went out at lunch and "had a few", believe me when I tell you. How else do you account for such a blunder. The cops are driving down a quite street with nobody around except for this guy one block away from the call location. The cop stated that he observed the white male suspect lower his head as their prowl car approached and walk up the steps of a residence. And the guy was coming from the direction of their call. You a have got to be kidding. You know they should have asked the guy for ID and for the subject to wait in place for an officer to question him, as he was so close to the scene. That's about as simple and easy as it gets. Whether or not this man was the killer is one thing, the fact that a potential witness was allowed to vanish without getting his name, address, etc. is simply preposterous. And perhaps I'm all wet, and
It was just blatant incompetence.

Holmes201 wrote:You know they should have asked the guy for ID and for the subject to wait in place for an officer to question him, as he was so close to the scene. That's about as simple and easy as it gets. Whether or not this man was the killer is one thing, the fact that a potential witness was allowed to vanish without getting his name, address, etc. is simply preposterous.

It stands out as very odd, no argument there. I don't think the most obvious explanation is that the officers in question were drunk on the job, though - that's what we're still talking about, right?

Fouke's explanation is very simple: They were looking for a black man, hence they didn't bother with the man in question beyond determining that he was not black. Plausible? More or less. But it nevertheless seems very odd not to ask the guy a few simple questions - after all, he could very well have seen something of interest. It's hard not to judge the whole thing as at least partly incompetent, but then again we do have the benefit of hindsight - not to mention the benefit of knowing what Fouke and Zelms had no idea of back then, namely that the perpetrator they were looking for was the Zodiac killer.

As far as the officers knew they were responding to a dispatch about a shooting incident involving a cab driver. Routine stuff, one could say. It's safe to say that they would have acted very differently had they known the true nature of the thing.

And then...Foukes' partner, a rookie, was killed in action a few months later. Was he getting ready to tell the true story? Whatever it was? He was sent in first in a bust, right?

Here in theory is part of the police dispatchers message to Donald Fouke "Be on the lookout for a black male adult, blond-reddish hair and crew cut" and nobody questioned this in 1969. Didn't somebody once say the police were trained to be observant. Surely it is not standard police dispatcher training to take the whole description from the teenagers, and then when you inform the responding officers you actually omit virtually everything about the description and just say 5'10" black male, as some people have said, to attempt to explain away this discrepancy.
Donald Fouke was given black male, 5'10", crew cut, blond/reddish hair, glasses, 200 lbs, dark clothing and Donald Fouke passes a man fitting the entire description apart from the color, surely his interest and police training must have suggested this could be the guy or at least pricked his interest, not withstanding that not many black people had crew cuts and blond hair in 1969 as described in the police dispatch.
When Donald Fouke approached the man on Jackson Street, he, like we all do is look at the persons face, after all he is supposedly looking for a BMA, so why then bother to pay any attention to his elasticated cuffs and tan engineering boots. Also the biggest giveaway that he was looking for a white male, is if realizing the guy was a white male when he was looking for a black male, his immediate focus should be on looking for this black male once he passed the mystery man on Jackson Street, yet he described this white man as 'graying at the rear of his hair'. Why is Donald Fouke bothering with detail like this, the man is white, the back of his head is not important if you are looking for a black male.

Also take a look at Donald Fouke's scratch "I respectfully wish to report the following, that while responding to the area of Washington and Cherry Streets a suspect fitting the description of the Zodiac Killer was observed by Officer Fouke walking in an easterly direction on Jackson Street and then turn on Maple Street. The suspect was not stopped as the description received from communication was that of a negro male. When the right description was broadcast Officer Fouke informed communications"

The scratch says "a suspect fitting the description of the Zodiac Killer was observed by Officer Fouke."
So the suspect did fit the description he was given by dispatch, except the BMA part, but this was ignored on account of one discrepancy despite everything else matching. And again BMA with blond hair and crew cut. Come on.

EndOfTheWorld wrote:And then...Foukes' partner, a rookie, was killed in action a few months later. Was he getting ready to tell the true story? Whatever it was? He was sent in first in a bust, right?

It didn't quite go down like that. Many times Zelm's death has come into question. This pretty much answers it all:

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=2413

UKSpycatcher wrote:
The scratch says "a suspect fitting the description of the Zodiac Killer was observed by Officer Fouke."
So the suspect did fit the description he was given by dispatch, except the BMA part, but this was ignored on account of one discrepancy despite everything else matching. And again BMA with blond hair and crew cut. Come on.

I think one has to take into consideration the scratch came in to play much later. By then, it did fit the description.

Armond Pelissetti after updating to BMA, went up Cherry Street where he bumped into Fouke.
To walk Cherry is 1 minute, but Pelissetti was checking alcoves and parked cars, so let's say 90 seconds.
It is now 90 seconds after the updated BMA description.
So where was Fouke and Zelms 90 seconds ago.
Traveling at 30 mph they would be well beyond Jackson and Maple when they supposedly received the updated version.
This portion Jackson Street (between Cherry +Maple) is approx 0.2 mile.
Traveling at 30 mph, Fouke and Zelms would travel 0.75 miles.
That is half a mile beyond Jackson/Maple when they received the updated description.
They didn't receive it here, that is why it was received at Arguello as Fouke claimed in the 1989 documentary.
The timeline in the 1989 documentary makes sense.
The timeline in the 2007 documentary does not and could never have happened this way.

There was also no delay on Pelissetti's updated version reaching Fouke.
If Armond Pelissetti as he claimed received the initial radio broadcast, traveled to the scene, parked up, ushered the kids, took the new description and checked Paul Stine this had to be approximately 2 minutes, then he got to the radio and updated everyone on the BMA. Donald Fouke claimed he got the updated description in Arguello of a BMA and it takes approximately 2 minutes to travel from the time he got the initial radio broadcast in Presidio/Washington to Arguello. So the timeline of both officers here is perfect. But if Fouke hadn't gone to Arguello he would now be at the crime scene receiving the update and that didn't happen.
This means there could have been little delay in the updated BMA description getting through to Donald Fouke, because Pelissetti made the amended radio call roughly 2 minutes after receiving the initial call, in this 2 minutes Fouke had traveled to Arguello where he got Pelissetti's update.

OK, Zelms was killed on the street by some petty criminals. Tragically, especially with his 8-month-old son. But he was one witness to the Stine crime scene that never said anything, apparently. I've never heard his story. Did he say Foukes was entirely correct?

EndOfTheWorld wrote:OK, Zelms was killed on the street by some petty criminals. Tragically, especially with his 8-month-old son. But he was one witness to the Stine crime scene that never said anything, apparently. I've never heard his story. Did he say Foukes was entirely correct?

All we have is a comment from his widow and she says her husband told her they did stop and talk to the man. Zelms allegedly carried around the wanted poster and always felt horrible Zodiac was in their grasp. Their is no official documentation of Zelms statement--at least none we have seen.

Tahoe27 wrote:

EndOfTheWorld wrote:And then...Foukes' partner, a rookie, was killed in action a few months later. Was he getting ready to tell the true story? Whatever it was? He was sent in first in a bust, right?

It didn't quite go down like that. Many times Zelm's death has come into question. This pretty much answers it all:

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=2413

OK, I read the newspaper article. Probably accurate but who really knows for sure what happened. Still could have been a hit somehow to silence Zelms. I'm just saying it's possible. If he would have remained alive then his version of the story would have come out eventually.