Zodiackillersite.com

Norse wrote:Technical question: What's the potential status of this guy? If he is the witness in question, is there anything - legally - the matter with reaching out to him and ask if he's willing to share anything he may remember?

There is nothing legally wrong in asking, but even if he was the child, he may well deny it. The last thing he would likely want is to get dragged into the Zodiac case, maybe.

Worth a shot, then - or so I would say.

If he's the right guy, he may be unwilling to get involved - or he may simply not remember much. But even a small contribution could be valuable: If he could - say - confirm that he indeed saw the perpetrator and that he, at the time, thought it was someone he knew, this would be very useful to know, even if he can't provide anything beyond the bare bones.

Robert Lathrop von Hafften was born on [birthday redacted upon request]

Full Name: Robert L Vonhafften
Gender: Male
Birth Date: [redacted upon request]
County: San Francisco
State : California
Mother's Maiden Name: Harden

More fodder for the DGH theories.

The green dot is the residence in question, overlooking the crime scene. The red dot is where X. Anthony resided at the time. It doesn't seem obvious at first glance that a kid living at the green dot would be familiar with someone living at the red dot - it's not really in the same neighborhood, pretty far apart, actually, if we're talking about an actual neighbor.

What I'm saying is that if the witness is the person we have in mind, it seems unlikely that he would have known Anthony as someone he'd see all the time (because he lived in close proximity): There would likely be some other, more specific connection (friend of the parents, something school related, etc.).

Yes they could have kids who went to the same school, Julius Khan Park, social club, or they frequented the same shops. Most of my friends and their families when I was a toddler lived a lot further than 5 blocks or 12 minutes walking time.

If he was a witness to the murder, he had to be pretty close, looking from let's say a bedroom window. It was 10 pm, dark, and to recognize somebody with confidence, you would have to be fairly close. I wonder if Robert L Vonhafften knew the Robbins children. Another thing in our favour, is that at least Zodiac turned right on Cherry. In the Bus Bomb letter, he seemed very familiar with 'blocks', time and distance despite being in the park at times.
If we take the Bus Bomb letter wording as true, he entered via Spruce Street. He said after all in the Bus Bomb Letter that " I disappeared into the park a block + a half away never to be seen again." He then travels via the park to the wooded area near his residence, at the base of West Pacific Avenue. I have drawn a diagram below, where he not only is concealed in dense foliage, but it matches his wording in the Bus Bomb letter exactly. In this position he is approximately 150 feet from Presidio Boulevard; "there was only 2 groups of parking about 10 min apart, then the motor cicles went by about 150 ft away." Presidio Boulevard is not only 150 feet from this dense overgrowth, but Presidio Boulevard travels from south to north before turning north west, Zodiac stated " there was only 2 groups of parking about 10 min apart then the motor cicles went by about 150 ft away going from south to north west." Here is a diagram where Zodiac could have been observing from, allowing a quick exit from the park if need be.
Zodiac also stated "The dogs never came with in 2 blocks of me + they were to the west." From here the dogs would unlikely have reached this area so soon after the murder, they would have been to the west and certainly not within 2 blocks. Also had he observed motorcycles on Presidio Boulevard, he would also see the lights, firetrucks and sirens on Arguello Boulevard "there was only 2 groups of parking about 10 min apart." Ok it's not 10 mins, more like 3-4 minutes from one side of the park to the other by car, but certainly 10 minutes walking, which is what he was doing after all.

I had a vague recollection that this had been discussed before – sort of – on here, and it was: Seagull mentioned an old post of Sandy's, in which she talks about the infamous Robert Hunter residence on “Zodiac Corner”, and the research she and Ed Neil did in connection with that business.

The gist of it is that it was established that the couple who actually lived at the Hunter place (indicated by the red dot above) had a son who was seven at the time of the murder, and who would have been 8 in early 1970. As Seagull pointed out back then, the FBI document does not specify when the 8 year old witness was interviewed (and it's furthermore possible that the age in the document refers to the person's current age, at the time of writing, not his age in Oct 1969).

Anyway, I think it's relevant to mention this: Whether it would have been possible to see the cab (and the killer) from the residence in question is another matter, but the place is close to the scene and the age of the boy is a match.

Needless to say, it would be pretty amusing if it turned out that the Hunter place – otherwise a borderline ridiculous footnote in the Z case – actually has a legitimate place in this story.

All credit to Sandy and Seagull.

NOTE: The name of this kid should be Schiantarelli.

...and mainly for kicks I'll add this piece of pure speculation:

We know that Z's original destination was, precisely, “Zodiac Corner” (Wash./Maple). For reasons unknown he ended up at Wash./Cherry instead.

It isn't entirely inconceivable that Stine pulled over at the original destination, or at least slowed down in order to do so, before Z decided (likely because something alarmed him, made him feel it was unsafe to proceed) to have the cab drive one block further.

Well, IF that is what happened – it isn't entirely inconceivable that someone actually observed this: The cab pulling over, or slowing down, and if such a witness was well placed, he could have gotten a fairly good look at the passenger.

Like I said, pure speculation. But the above scenario does jibe with the facts as we know them: The witness didn't necessarily see the murder, or the killer escaping the scene. He could have seen the cab approaching (slowing down, perhaps even pulling over), from a point further removed from the scene, recognizing the passenger: Then, at some later stage, he informs his parents about what he has seen (after it has become clear that a murder took place in the vicinity) – and presto, the parents call the cops.

Either way, in an ever increasing stale investigation, this has to rank as one of the best moves forward. Welsh Chappie's determination to unearth a relevant witness in the murder of Paul Stine, and Dave Oranchak's excellent work in following this up, discovering an 8 year old living in the house directly adjacent to the crime scene, is co-operation at its best, showing the Zodiac community can work together to achieve constructive progress, rather than some of the distasteful backbiting I have observed over the last few years.