The police appealed for help from the public in the days after the autopsy of CJB, via the news media, asking people to be on the lookout for the murder weapon described as a small knife. The crime scene in the vicinity of Cheri Jo Bates’ body must have been scoured with a fine tooth comb by police. Then came the library reconstruction on November 13th 1966, and miraculously the following day a caretaker near the murder scene using only a rake, unearthed a hunting knife. I am assuming the police must have rigorously searched that area in the days subsequent to the murder, yet they found nothing. What are the chances the murderer of Cheri Jo Bates planted this larger and unrelated knife to taunt police. He then rang the police and caretaker to hint a knife was in a specific area. This was reported as nothing more than a casual find to the press, and the suspicious caller was kept under wraps. There should have been no way this knife was present when the police conducted the original search, thereby indicating it was planted by the killer or mischievous other. It seems more than coincidence it being found the day after the highly publicized library reconstruction. Maybe this was the warning he was to continue killing, by planting a longer bladed hunting knife. "Yes, I did make that call to you also, it was just a warning…I am stalking your girls now."
Richard, I like the way your brain works and I totally agree with your analogy. That was so much like what Zodiac would do as a taunting warning. A kind of "in your face" thing he likes to do.
Cheers Sandy, yes in view of no reported direct phone threats ever discovered or reported by newspapers, the idea of this perpetrator contacting the caretaker and police would not be out of character for this individual or Zodiac, whether the same or not. If we believe the communications in this case, he didn’t mail one Confession letter, and didn’t mail one Bates letter. So the idea he would place a call to the relevant college/caretaker and police, to taunt them with a bigger knife is not unrealistic. The police, I read, used metal detectors in their immediate search, so it’s extremely likely this knife was planted at a later date with purpose. It could be an innocent prankster, but the real killer certainly couldn’t be ruled out.
The police appealed for help from the public in the days after the autopsy of CJB, via the news media, asking people to be on the lookout for the murder weapon described as a small knife. The crime scene in the vicinity of Cheri Jo Bates’ body must have been scoured with a fine tooth comb by police. Then came the library reconstruction on November 13th 1966, and miraculously the following day a caretaker near the murder scene using only a rake, unearthed a hunting knife. I am assuming the police must have rigorously searched that area in the days subsequent to the murder, yet they found nothing. What are the chances the murderer of Cheri Jo Bates planted this larger and unrelated knife to taunt police. He then rang the police and caretaker to hint a knife was in a specific area. This was reported as nothing more than a casual find to the press, and the suspicious caller was kept under wraps. There should have been no way this knife was present when the police conducted the original search, thereby indicating it was planted by the killer or mischievous other. It seems more than coincidence it being found the day after the highly publicized library reconstruction. Maybe this was the warning he was to continue killing, by planting a longer bladed hunting knife. "Yes, I did make that call to you also, it was just a warning…I am stalking your girls now."
Oh hell, he’s quoting from the movie Reefer Madness.
Richard, I like the way your brain works and I totally agree with your analogy. That was so much like what Zodiac would do as a taunting warning. A kind of "in your face" thing he likes to do.
The Department of Justice report described the heel prints at the Cheri Jo Bates crime scene as "those worn by Air Force personnel" and "was identified as a B.F. Goodrich waffle design, men’s four-eighths inch washer type half heel. The B.F Goodrich Products Division of Akron, Ohio, reported that this type heel is only sold to the Federal prison industries at Leavenworth, Kansas. It was subsequently learned that Federal prison industries made low quarter military type shoes and supplied them to all the armed services using black dress shoes. The measurement of the heel indicated that it would have been attached to an eight to ten size shoe. Shoes bearing the same type heel were issued and sold at the PX at March Air Force Base in Riverside." There was a correctional facility by Joseph Bates’ workplace. Donald Fouke described a low cut shoe.
Only 25 miles from the area where Kathleen Johns was abducted is the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Crows Landing in Patterson. Following World War II, Crows Landing became an Outlying Land Field to the Naval Air Station in Alameda and later Moffett Field, near the south end of San Francisco. As you exit NASA Crows Landing to return to the Bay Area, the quickest route is immediately onto Interstate 5, which then joins Highway 132 only 1.4 miles before the point where Kathleen Johns was flagged over and where the vehicle was ultimately found burnt out. Zodiac could have entered Highway 132 just behind Kathleen Johns and trailed her for approximately 2 minutes, before he made his move.
Richard Hector recalled of Crows Landing in the 1960s, "I can remember as a school child taking tours of the base, and once the famed Blue Angels performed there. My understanding was that it was a convenient location given the practice bombing range that existed for many years in the mountains just to the west of that base. Just a single macabre anecdote: a long-time resident of Patterson would sneak onto the bombing range & would retrieve unexploded ordnance. He would dismantle them & sell the metal for scrap."
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Fort Ord military base. During the relevant Zodiac era, the Zodiac crosshairs could be seen in the bottom left corner of the following image, by the east garrison.
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Heel print?
Kansas?
Prison?
Z was wearing a heel like Perry Smith’s in the Cluters murder in Holcomb Kansas?
In cold blood by Truman Capote.
Damn, Z was going to out smart the cops where Perry got caught trying too.
BTW. Perry and Richard were out of prison headed to Mexico so they stole a car and stopped by for a killing first.
Didn’t Z say he was out of prison and stopped by in a stolen car for a killing at (Lake B. ) while on his way to Mexico?
Not only does Z still words and phrases from other books and magazines and periodicals he stole Capote’s work from 1965.
One can google Smiths boot print from the bloody crime scene of Herb Clutter.
