Zodiackillersite.com

Just a quick question regarding something about the Stine murder and the subsequent 'Encounter'.

Fouke states that Zodiac only seems to spot him & his vehicle approaching when they are at opposite sides of Jackson & Maple intersection which is around 10 maybe 20 yards. My question is:

Was Don Fouke responding to the call with his emergency lights activated and/or the siren?

The natural assumption is 'yes' but Fouke states in the 2007 interview regarding his speed "Well, until I saw him.... Probably about 35 to 40 MPH." That isn't exactly responding with an urgency at that speed so I am wondering if he was making a song and dance of himself as he approached with his lights and siren. I am curious about this because the odds are that Zodiac would have seen Fouke approaching well before he was almost in his face if he'd had his light and/or siren activated. Anyone know for sure if he did or didn't?

The legal speed limit in a residential neighborhood is 25 mph so 10 to 15 mph faster than the legal limit seems like there was some urgency, to me. Had they been going much faster I think the possibility for them to miss seeing someone would have been greater.

I don't see the sirens being on mainly because it was a residential neighborhood with little traffic and sirens would cause a disturbance, well more of a disturbance than the motorcycles, fire engines with searchlights and the dogs. I'm not sure of that though. JMHO

Seagull wrote:The legal speed limit in a residential neighborhood is 25 mph so 10 to 15 mph faster than the legal limit seems like there was some urgency, to me. Had they been going much faster I think the possibility for them to miss seeing someone would have been greater.

I don't see the sirens being on mainly because it was a residential neighborhood with little traffic and sirens would cause a disturbance, well more of a disturbance than the motorcycles, fire engines with searchlights and the dogs. I'm not sure of that though. JMHO

I was thinking from a British perspective again where the speed limit in a residential street is 30 MPH. I don't know if it's different in the U.S but over here, if someone dialled 999 to report a burglary in progress, the police would respond with just their emergency lights on, no siren, and tend to turn the blue lights off when they get within a mile or so of the reported location. They do this, obviously, not to scare the offenders into fleeing the scene before they have chance to get there and catch them.
But that's another discrepancy between the Fouke and Pelissetti.

Pelissetti: "We responded to a radio call of a cab driver being robed and/or possibly assaulted..."
Fouke: "We were patrolling the Eastern side of the Richmond District going Northbound on Presidio Avenue. We had passed Washington Street when a broadcast came in of a shooting at Cherry & Washington street"

Personally I think Pelissetti is more likely to be correct and Fouke may simply be recalling it incorrectly as there was no way of knowing Paul had been shot until they arrived on scene. No one reported hearing a shot or shots fired.
I would tend to lean toward Fouke not making a huge spectacle of himself with lights and sirens blaring because Zodiac only seems to notice the police car when it's at the other side of the Intersection he's now at. Had Fouke had his lights activated then chances are the Zodiac would have seen him coming from a far greater distance and would have probably turned and hid in a garden. As it is, going by Fouke's account, Zodiac only becomes aware it's a police vehicle when it's a few feet away and puts his head down and turns into a driveway.

I'm only curious about this because of the eight year old witness. While we don't know where the kid saw Zodiac in order to give police the name of a suspect, if the kid saw him anywhere along Jackson st for example, then I'm wondering if the Eight year old was compelled to look outside because he saw red and blue lights flashing on his bedroom wall and decided to look outside to see what was going on.
I mean if Zodiac, after seeing Don and Eric, did turn, ascend the steps and walk along the pathway toward the door of 3712 Jackson, then i'm wondering whether this is when the eight year old looked out of either 3712, or the house next door, to see a man approaching and got a clear look at him. I am thinking this because the three teens who saw the actual incident at the cab itself did not report recognizing the offender. Also, it makes sense for this eight year old to be in or near a home of 3712 Jackson because the FBI report does not list the location of the sighting or where the eight year old was. They may not have wanted to let it be known that the eight year old had reported seeing a man walking up the driveway toward his or his neighbours house with a patrol vehicle passing by behind him because Fouke had not mentioned the suspect approaching any house.
The eight year old doesn't seem to simply report a simple sighting of a male in the area as though he is reporting seeing a possible witness, but the report is specific in its implication of the eight year old naming someone specifically as possibly being responsible for the murder. He must have seen something very incriminating like the incident itself, or the man he saw had blood all over him, for example. I'm sure that whoever the child was and wherever he saw Zodiac, Zodiac also saw him. There is no way of proving this but I have long though that Zodiac's threat of 'School children make nice targets', while appearing a general threat to every other reader, was a specific threat to the eight year old who he knew had seen him and may have recognized him. This could further be argued for by Z's later statement of "If you cops think I was going to take on a school bus the way I said I would, you deserve to have holes in your heads." To me he is clearly saying that this was never what he intended and the threat wasn't intended to be taken as literally against a school bus, but rather the specific school child he knew had seen him close up.

I'm always the skunk at the picnic.

Where I lived in the 60s and 70s there were no posted speed limits in neighborhoods (a lot of people still walked to work or school) and rarely on the major streets in town. The major highways (state and federal) would have posted signs. My hometown is Podunk, Kentucky, but I lived in Evansville, Indiana, from 1955-1966. It was good-sized town then as well as now and there were few posted speed limits in town.

Podunk has few red lights even now but we do have posted speed limits in town and out of town (but you know us Southerners all have lead feet )

California may be totally different. I've never been there.

Seagull wrote:The legal speed limit in a residential neighborhood is 25 mph so 10 to 15 mph faster than the legal limit seems like there was some urgency, to me. Had they been going much faster I think the possibility for them to miss seeing someone would have been greater.

I don't see the sirens being on mainly because it was a residential neighborhood with little traffic and sirens would cause a disturbance, well more of a disturbance than the motorcycles, fire engines with searchlights and the dogs. I'm not sure of that though. JMHO

Well I just noticed that Armond Pelissetti said "We responded to a radio call that told us that a cab driver was being robbed and/or possibly assaulted at the corner of Cherry and Washington Streets in Pacific Heights. We, fortunately, were very close and responded to that corner and were able to do so with red lights and siren at 9:55 at night and got there very quickly."

That makes it sound like they weren't slowing down to speak to pedestrians, doesn't it. Good point.
And yet he still saw that (Welsh) guy clearly enough for an excellent description huh? Amazing.

smithy wrote:That makes it sound like they weren't slowing down to speak to pedestrians, doesn't it. Good point.
And yet he still saw that (Welsh) guy clearly enough for an excellent description huh? Amazing.

This is not Fouke & Zelms statement, it's Pelissetti & Peda.

A.P stated that he responded to the scene with red lights and siren. Fouke has never stated, as far as I am aware anyway, if he also had his lights activated and his siren blaring. It's a point of interest for me because as I said in the initial thread post, if Don and Eric also responded with their emergency lights and/or siren activated, then Zodiac would likely have seen them coming from much further away and never allowed himself to be seen at the area of J'sn & M'le Intersection.

And about Fouke and his Welsh suspect.

The reasons Fouke gives us for his 'Welsh Ancestry' are complete junk IMO. Now if Fouke has said he thought this White Male may be Welsh due to his staggering stumbling and unsteady walking motion and therefor thought the man was completely drunk, I would understand him suspecting 'The Welsh Connection'. But the logic Fouke gives us behind his assumption and comment is basically:

"The suspect was quite stocky in appearance which obviously means he may have a Welsh heritage".

If your tall and thin, would Fouke then suspect you of being polish? "The suspect was 6 ft 4, slim build and looked shifty, this means he is probably of Polish decent"

Is this how it works?