I am glad that you are bringing this up, it has been a thorn in my side for many yrs now. You are exactly right about why would Leo call and not ask to talk to his sister? Then a call was made to Dean’s parents home, same thing nothing was said and that was after midnight ?

I was told by Leo’s sister that Leo was picked up by VPD that night for robbing a liqueur store. If that is true, he couldn’t have made those calls. We all know Zodiac liked making phone calls, why wouldn’t he be the one making them , as if telling them that he knew where they lived. He liked the idea that he could make people fear him.

I don’t think that Darlene went to Blue Rock Springs to score some weed. I think she went there to have a confrontation with the man she feared and Mike was there as a back up. That was why he wore all those clothes on such a warm night, he felt he needed to appear larger. I heard that another person by the name of Randy Young was asked to meet Darlene and Mike there ( more back up ), but they took too long and Randy left. Neither one of them had enough money that night to buy any drugs, or fireworks for that matter.

Leo had friends ,I am pretty sure any one of them would have had anything Leo wanted. Why he would lie about making the phone calls is anyone’s guess.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:05 pm

I am glad that you are bringing this up, it has been a thorn in my side for many yrs now. You are exactly right about why would Leo call and not ask to talk to his sister? Then a call was made to Dean’s parents home, same thing nothing was said and that was after midnight ?

I was told by Leo’s sister that Leo was picked up by VPD that night for robbing a liqueur store. If that is true, he couldn’t have made those calls. We all know Zodiac liked making phone calls, why wouldn’t he be the one making them , as if telling them that he knew where they lived. He liked the idea that he could make people fear him.

I don’t think that Darlene went to Blue Rock Springs to score some weed. I think she went there to have a confrontation with the man she feared and Mike was there as a back up. That was why he wore all those clothes on such a warm night, he felt he needed to appear larger. I heard that another person by the name of Randy Young was asked to meet Darlene and Mike there ( more back up ), but they took too long and Randy left. Neither one of them had enough money that night to buy any drugs, or fireworks for that matter.

Leo had friends ,I am pretty sure any one of them would have had anything Leo wanted. Why he would lie about making the phone calls is anyone’s guess.

The most shocking thing in regards to these calls for me is the apparant police reaction to them….Or lack of. I mean there is just so many instances of police not doing their job properly in this case it’s unreal. I mean how can they honestly claim: Approx. Midnight, Derlene Ferrin shot dead. 1:30 a.m, deceased husband & his parents receive phonne call at Approx. 1:30 a.m from a man breathing into the phone and says nothing, and the police say ‘Call’s not related to Darlene’s Murder’???? I mean, ok, in any and every case you may excuse one or two mistakes that you can understand it was human error, but this case has the following…

Sheriff Collins, when asked why he didn’t record and report the fact that a victim had told him she saw the killers face and subsequently gave a fairly detailed description, replied: "You know, i didn’t think it was important at the time." Yeah i suppose he’s rite, it becomes insignificant as to what a suspect looks like….You have his shoe size!!

Then theres Officer Fouke, who suddenly remembered a little detail in 2007 that he saw Zodiac go up a few steps to a pathway, and head directly to a residence front door. Mr Fouke said he hadn’t mentioned this little detail in the previous Thirty-Eight years because he had made an assumption. That being, "I assumed he (Zodiac) didn’t live there." I bet 1500 people boarded Titanic aswel becuase they assumed that it wouldn’t sink….We know what that assumption did!

As bad as these mistakes and errors are, we can sort of put it down to human error and mistake’s. But when Graysmith comes along and appears live on the news and declares, as if it’s an undisputed fact, that "It took ten years to write the book and so much information and attention was focused on the prime suspect in the case, the man who was the first suspect and the man who knew all of the victims, stalked them, and the only only who had the intelligence to write the letters (Ciphers) and to commit the crimes."

Then take into account the 10/20.000 tips, leads, calls, letters, emails the SFPD recieve each year, 85% of which is emailed to the Homicide Division "Dear Detective J. Doe.
I know the idenity of the Zodiac Killer and have the physical evidence to prove it. Zodiac’s name was, Lyndon B Johnson.

But this, on a serious note, is why the SFPD say they have long ago designated the case Inactive. I watched a high ranking SFPD official commenting a few weeks back that "We had no choice, we had to classify the case as inactive because we would get about 10 tips & leads a day about the case, every day and even though the majority of them were clearly silly, we are bound under the law to follow up every lead that comes in."

duckking2001, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:10 am

I think that’s a little unfair to say the police didn’t do a good job. What could they have done? Maybe they could have traced the phone calls, but in the instances where they did trace the calls they just wound up at a pay phone and not a whole lot more. If those really were from Zodiac, it probably would have ended up the same way.

For assuming that Darlene knew her killer, that is what they did, even without the calls. That’s SOP. That doesn’t get us any more suspects than we already have. Even knowing that the killer knew her name and address doesn’t for certain mean that it was someone she knew or even that he definitely lived in Vallejo, just that he knew her.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:16 am

What I cannot figure out is why Zodiac would want to call Dean’s parents.

That is just weird and makes no sense. Neither does Leo calling them.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:23 am

What I cannot figure out is why Zodiac would want to call Dean’s parents.

That is just weird and makes no sense. Neither does Leo calling them.

IMO likely because he did not know her. He looked at her drivers license, saw her last name Ferrin, figured someone so young and out with a teenaged boy would not be married, so called the Ferrin house thinking it was her parents home. Does that make sense?

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:31 am

What I cannot figure out is why Zodiac would want to call Dean’s parents.

That is just weird and makes no sense. Neither does Leo calling them.

IMO likely because he did not know her. He looked at her drivers license, saw her last name Ferrin, figured someone so young and out with a teenaged boy would not be married, so called the Ferrin house thinking it was her parents home. Does that make sense?

There is no indication he looked at her drivers license though….or the car registration…or Mike’s ID to know he was a teenager.
Nachtsider, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:32 am

According to Leo, Darlene went to BRS to score weed for him. He waited and waited for her to show up, then decided to call the various family residences to see if she was there. He hung up when Dean and Arthur answered, because neither they nor the other Ferrin menfolk liked him very much – they thought he was a good-for-nothing pothead.

I’m quite satisfied with this explanation, actually. Can’t think of any reason why Leo would tell a story like that if it wasn’t true.

[tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:40 am

According to Leo, Darlene went to BRS to score weed for him. He waited and waited for her to show up, then decided to call the various family residences to see if she was there. He hung up when Dean and Arthur answered, because neither they nor the other Ferrin menfolk liked him very much – they thought he was a good-for-nothing pothead.

I’m quite satisfied with this explanation, actually.

Why would Leo, who was very young, call Dean’s parent’s house at 1:30 in the morning looking for Darlene and hope she would answer?

Darlene’s house…ok, I could see that, but not her husband’s parents.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 3:29 am

I think that’s a little unfair to say the police didn’t do a good job. What could they have done? Maybe they could have traced the phone calls, but in the instances where they did trace the calls they just wound up at a pay phone and not a whole lot more. If those really were from Zodiac, it probably would have ended up the same way.

For assuming that Darlene knew her killer, that is what they did, even without the calls. That’s SOP. That doesn’t get us any more suspects than we already have. Even knowing that the killer knew her name and address doesn’t for certain mean that it was someone she knew or even that he definitely lived in Vallejo, just that he knew her.

No i am not saying the police were at fault for not tracing the calls, this was 68/69, when even if your on the line connected and running a live trace it would take about 18 hours lol.

No, the point i was making was, i think that the fact they claimed to not think these calls were in any way significant and were not related to the death of Darlene 90 min’s prior to the calls being made to Darlene’s home and husband Dean. I think that is irresponsible of them at best. I mean if i received news tday at 9 p.m, for example, that my sister had been murdered in an isolated parking lot, and then at 10:30 p.m i received a phone call with a male breathing down the phone, i would be faced with two choices. A, either this is a gigantic coincidence that i get a crank call with breathing, the first one in about 12 years and it just happens to be within 90 mins of my sisters murder, or B, this is directly linked to the incident 90 mins ago and this may very likely be the assailant.

I think they should have took the calls as very suspicious and made an official log, then if say 2 weeks later, they come across a good suspect, they could look through his call records for any short calls made around 1:30 a.m on July 5th, 69 followed by a call to Dean’s Parents. I’m aware this would be a long shot, but you never know, i think they were to quick to jump to the conclusion it sounds like and decided the calls were simply a coincidence.

And saying that, i can sort of understand why the police may say it’s not relevant, they had enough work to deal with as it is, but if my wife had just been shot dead and i’d been the recipient of a menacing and taungting call, the likes of which i’ve not received sinse i was about 20 a decade ago, i’d move Heaven & Earth to make them take it serious.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 3:47 am

What I cannot figure out is why Zodiac would want to call Dean’s parents.

That is just weird and makes no sense. Neither does Leo calling them.

IMO likely because he did not know her. He looked at her drivers license, saw her last name Ferrin, figured someone so young and out with a teenaged boy would not be married, so called the Ferrin house thinking it was her parents home. Does that make sense?

There is no indication he looked at her drivers license though….or the car registration…or Mike’s ID to know he was a teenager.

That must have been what he was doing when Mike says the car pulled in behind them the first time and the driver sat there for a few minutes before leaving, he was obviously running the plate through the DMV dada-base (Lol, i’m just kidding btw).

And i also agree with you Tahoe about Leo. Regardless of how young you are, why would you want to ring you sisters residence to say nothing. I mean if he wanted to speak with Dee, but Dean answered, then just hang up the phone and try later….what is the point/purpose in breathing down the phone? Ok, i suppose he may have disliked Dean for some reason, but that doesn’t, as you said Tahoe, answer why he would ring Deans Parents also and do the same, useless and pointless, breathing excercises.

I mean it was fairly straight foreward for me to put a stop to menacing telephone calls with someone breathing heavily down the line. I recieved such a call about 10 years ago at home and so i decided to start breathing heavily back at the caller. 17 hours later this voice cut in and said "Look excuse me did i phone you or did you phone me?" Muhaha. (That is my rather silly effort at a joke.)

Here’s the passage from the Vallejo section of the TZMS website, August 2010:

Someone makes three phone calls, beginning at 1:30am on July 5, 1969:

The Zodiac killer calls to demonstrate that he knew who the victim was. That much is evident just from the fact of the phone calls. It’s also why he shines a flashlight at the victims in Blue Rock Springs Park, something he probably also did in the earlier episode on Lake Herman Road. The flashlight serves the dual purpose of freezing the victims (because they assume it’s the police, and technically they’re trespassing) and visually confirming their identities.

Why wouldn’t Leo have made a call to his mother’s house? The number was unlisted, but he’d have known it. He calls Dean’s brother and Dean’s parents, but not his mother’s house? I’m assuming the three FERRIN residences were listed, one after the other, in the phone book, so it’s conceivable that Leo just started calling the numbers out of inertia and impatience, but that still doesn’t explain the non-call to his mother’s house.

I can imagine Leo not wanting to identify himself to Dean if he knew that Darlene was out driving around with someone other than her husband.

It’s clear that the local police believed drugs were involved in the Lake Herman Road murders, but there’s no direct evidence that either Vallejo couple was looking to buy drugs—certainly not David and Betty Lou—and Michael Mageau has no reason to deny such an intent four decades after the fact.

I actually believe police work on the individual murder cases was pretty solid when you consider that, with the exception of Lake Berryessa, all the other murders appeared to be common generic murders at the time they were initially investigated. We self-styled Zodiac investigators read police reports about murders which, when the responding officer was actually jotting down the testimony or making a sketch, were simply anonymous crimes that could have been committed by anyone for any number of reasons. I think that at least partly explains the relative lack of interest in the phone calls; the police at the time didn’t realize they were right in the middle of one of the most notorious crime sprees in history. They might have assumed that the killer had made the calls, but they would also have assumed that Darlene was killed by someone she knew or was at least acquainted with, so the calls would have seemed less sinister immediately after the murder. It’s only when you realize she may have been killed by a stranger, a serial killer on the loose, that the calls take on a foreboding tone.

If the Zodiac was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, gunning down a defenseless cabbie, Donald Fouke was a deer driving down Jackson Street, caught in the headlights of history. The glare just got too intense, and he blinked.

“I’m quite satisfied with this explanation, actually. Can’t think of any reason why Leo would tell a story like that if it wasn’t true.”

Well, if he was a good-for-nothing pothead . . .

I’m sorry for what the Suennen family has had to go through, but I have to be honest and say they don’t impress me as particularly reliable witnesses.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:32 am

Zodiac sees "kids", who look like teenagers or young adults, parked as if to "make out" or talk. He kills them. He sees drives license for Darlene Ferrin. He calls three people named Ferrin likely assuming this is her family. He does not call anyone named Suennen because he does NOT know that is actually Darlene’s real family. If the intent is to inflict pain surely you call the victim’s parents, not her in-laws. Thats my opinion anyway.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:55 am

How did Zodiac know she was a Ferrin? Driver’s license aside.

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:09 pm

How did Zodiac know she was a Ferrin? Driver’s license aside.

I have great 20/20 vision, and if I was walking up to a car at night,with only a flashlight,and getting ready to start shooting,I highly doubt I would get such a clear vision of her drivers license to be able to read it and see her last name. There’s no indication that Z reached into the car and looked closely at her license. ‘IF’ Z really was the person calling her Family after the murders that night,this would seem to indicate either he knew her when he walked up to the car,and it was random, or he knew her and targeted her.

onewhoknows, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:25 pm

If the Zodiac Killer made those three breathing calls that night, then he knew who Darlene was.
If Darlene worked at the pancake house in Vallejo, she was easily accessible to the public, and men
who might meet her that way. So that makes me think, Zodiac was a local romantic interest of Darlene’s and
tracked her to BRS, knowing who she was. Darlene’s messing around with various men seems more
a motive for murder, than a small time weed deal. As far as the Police go, Zodiac played them like
puppets and continues to do so…they are just more victims of his.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:15 pm

How did Zodiac know she was a Ferrin? Driver’s license aside.

I have great 20/20 vision, and if I was walking up to a car at night,with only a flashlight,and getting ready to start shooting,I highly doubt I would get such a clear vision of her drivers license to be able to read it and see her last name. There’s no indication that Z reached into the car and looked closely at her license. ‘IF’ Z really was the person calling her Family after the murders that night,this would seem to indicate either he knew her when he walked up to the car,and it was random, or he knew her and targeted her.

My point is that if he actually knew her he would have called Suennen family members that night. Maybe Z had seen her before, but if he had known her at all he would have called her actual parents not her in-laws IMO.

Police see drivers license at night with a flashlight all the time. Also after killing her Z could have looked at her license from her purse or hand.

Just a thought. The police investigations and the research community have yet to turn up anything solid showing Darlene or any other Z victim knew their attacker.

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:17 pm

Maybe he knew her only casually,and didnt know her previousl last name before she got married.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:31 pm

Maybe he knew her only casually,and didnt know her previousl last name before she got married.

Right. I am saying if he "knew" her at all it was only by sight. The "cute waitress" or "the girl I saw at the store".

If he had known her personally, he likely would have known that Ferrin was her husband’s name and would have known her maiden name as Suennen.

traveller1st, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 4:50 pm

Wasn’t there something about Mike M’s wallet being on the rear fender or near the rear fender, either way out in the open to some degree. He may have checked the names for his own purposes and decided he’d never remember how Mike’s surname was spelled lol.

He could well have made the calls as an audible equivalent to sending a letter to the victims relatives (Bates) i.e misdirection.

Then again it could all be unrelated or at least not directly related. The calls may have been an action caused by the events of that night but not necessarily by the Zodiac. I know it’s been stated that the calls have to be something because they preceded the press but that doesn’t take into account word of mouth. It could have been someone trying to find out if what they heard was true but not wanting to talk unless Darlene answered for what ever reason whether it be to not drop themselves or Darlene or Mike in it if it hadn’t been them at BRS. Or it could have been some idiot with really bad timing.

Too much of a coincidence… Zodiac was a TERRORIST

"My point is that if he actually knew her he would have called Suennen family members that night. Maybe Z had seen her before, but if he had known her at all he would have called her actual parents not her in-laws IMO."

AK Wilks

Except the Suennen parents had, as I indicated earlier, an unlisted number. Leo would have known it, but the Zodiac wouldn’t.

Interesting but if Z knew Darlene had dated her and/or was obsessed with her and stalking her he would likely know her maiden name and maybe phone numbers for her family. But three people named Ferrin are called but none of her real parents siblings or other family.

AK–no one said they were soul mates! You don’t need to know everything about a person to know that person’s name. I don’t know if other members of the board have done this, but I’ve occasionally Googled former high school classmates, or looked up old girl friends on Facebook, and sometimes been stymied because I didn’t know their married names. The other disturbing thing, when you get to be my age, is when you DO find an ex-girl friend from your college days, and you’re absolutely sure you’ve got the right person . . . but she doesn’t even look remotely like you remembered her (she may feel the same way if she’s looked at my own Facebook page).

Serial killers have been known to stalk victims without drawing attention to themselves. Since Darlene worked at a diner or coffee shop, it would have been very easy for the Zodiac to target her. I’ll give you that it’s conceivable he knew her maiden name, but knowing the unlisted number of her parents strikes me as a much higher obstacle to overcome. How would you find out that kind of information, particularly in 1969, without calling attention to yourself?

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:02 pm

Well Darlene was not that many years out of high school.

If Z knew her in high school he would know her name and if he knew her post HS he could have looked up her high school picture and seen her maiden name.

Z was an enterprizing fellow I don’t think he would have too much trouble getting an unlisted number. I have done it.

I don’t dispute Z might have vaguely known her in the sense of "she was the cute waitress". But people have claimed he dated Darlene, knew her well and/or was obsessed with her. I doubt it – if ANY of that were true certainly he would know she was married to a Ferrin and her family name was something else, and IMO he would have called her parents, her sister or other family members. IMO the most likely explanation why no Suennen family members were called and three Ferrin family members were is because Z did not know her, looked at her drivers license and assumed Ferrin was her real name, as she was young and on a date with a boy with a different name. Z would not have thought her married.

The police investigations concluded Z did not know any of his victims and nothing I have seen by media and researchers in the decades since convinces me otherwise. Just my opinion.

ggluckman, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:07 am

If we want to accept brother Leo’s word as truth, we have at least two difficulties:
1) His explanation for his phone actions, taken at face value, don’t wash.
2) His story about Darlene procuring weed introduces an intriguing new potential subplot, but none of the other attacks echo a drug theme.

On the other hand, if we assume the calls were placed by the killer, we have the difficulty of explaining (or explaining away) the reasons why Leo would have claimed that he made the calls.

If we didn’t have Leo’s story to consider, it would seem to me quite conceivable the killer might have been aware of Darlene’s last name, though knowing little else about her. In such a case, it would be quite plausible that he might have gone through the phone book looking for people named Ferrin and blindly calling them. And it would be all the more believable given that there have been other reports suggesting Z made mysterious phone calls following other attacks.

So, I would be happy to buy into the theory that Zodiac placed the calls. It’s just that it keeps getting tangled in Leo’s confession. If we assume Z placed the calls (my preferred assumption) how could we best account for Leo’s claim that he was the caller?

Would it be better to suppose:
1) Leo did not actually place the calls–that he somehow got confused and made a mistake?
2) Leo lied about placing the calls, but for no good reason?
3) Leo lied about placing the calls, and had a motive for doing so?
4) Leo was truthful and really did place the calls, and they had nothing to do with the killing?
5) Leo was truthful and really did place the calls, but there was a connection to the murder?
6) Neither Leo nor the killer placed the calls?

Would love to hear your thoughts on this, if you are so inclined. (Note that answers 3 or 5 would require some futher explanation.)

Regards,

G

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:41 am

I lean towards #6, with the possible exception maybe he did call his sister’s house that night.

This is Leo in the Fall of 1968. He was in the 8th grade. Thx to Tracers:

]
morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:20 am

I agree, it’s odd that a victim of a shooting has multiple members of their Family(or Husband’s Family) called less than 90 minutes after the attack,BEFORE anybody would have known what happened and who the victim was.

I don’t think it’s random. I also don’t know who made the calls. Z, Leo? No idea. I have to lean towards Z. Maybe he walked up to the car and saw Darlene and thought, "hey, that’s Dean Ferrin’s old lady, maybe I will call their Family and harass them as to rub salt in the wounds"

onewhoknows, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:07 pm

If Zodiac actually knew Darlene, and had a romantic interest in her, even if only in his own head,
he would have been jealous of her husband. The phone calls are statements to her husband.
Perhaps Zodiac actually met Ferrin at some point, and the calls were a warning to him.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:56 pm

Did Zodiac call Betty Lou and David’s family? What about Bryan and Cecelia’s? Mike Mageau’s…Paul Stine’s? I don’t think it was Zodiac who called the Ferrin family.

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:44 pm

Did Zodiac call Betty Lou and David’s family? What about Bryan and Cecelia’s? Mike Mageau’s…Paul Stine’s? I don’t think it was Zodiac who called the Ferrin family.

You may be totally right. On the other hand, maybe Z did not know Dave or Betty,or Cecelia

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:01 pm

Any ideas where in the pd report it mentions the phone call received by Dean’s parents? I know it’s in there…lol

I know cops went to Dean’s house to tell him what happened. I remember Carmela Leigh commented about it. They were still there for the party.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:07 pm

On the night itself, we know that in the early hours of July 5th, at Approx. 12.40 a.m, the Zodiac phoned police to alert them to his handy work. The call was traced and was found to have been made from a pay-phone roughly 500 yards from the Darlene’s home.

Actually, that phone booth was half a mile away. Still close, but not as close as Graysmith wrote.

sandy betts, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 3:22 pm

Did Zodiac call Betty Lou and David’s family? What about Bryan and Cecelia’s? Mike Mageau’s…Paul Stine’s? I don’t think it was Zodiac who called the Ferrin family.

How do we know for sure that there weren’t calls made to any of the others, but that they weren’t thought of as calls from the person who killed their relative ? Mike has told that he had been harassed many times after the shooting, Kathleen Johns was also bothered . Most people who receive a call with no one saying anything, just think it is a wrong number, some don’t hear the breathing on the other end. I don’t think that we can just assume that there weren’t any other calls made to other family members, just because they didn’t report any.

The calls to the Ferrin family /Deans parents and Dean’s home were not the only Ferrin’s in that family, Dean had a brother and sister in-law who didn’t report any calls. But then again we don’t know if they did but didn’t connect it to Darlene’s death.
Pam ( Darlene’s sister )is angry with me and could have seen my posts about the calls that night. She has a lot of influence over her brother Leo. She was the one who told me back in 1990 that Leo was arrested that night . In jail you might get one phone call, but not as many as were made.
She also told me that the mystery man standing next to Darlene, was for sure Jim Phillip’s. After she became angry with me , she called Tom V to tell him that he was not Jim, just to make me look foolish.
For those who might want to know why she became so upset with me, it was because I told her that if she didn’t stop claiming every suspect as the man who killed her sister , that she was starting to sound crazy. Also that we would not be able to get the man who has been harassing the two of us caught as the killer. She went postal on me and said that she always has claimed that "Grant" was the killer! That we would never get the police to arrest the man we have as the Zodiac anyway, so who cares ? I then told her that she told Tom V that Gyke was the man, before that it was Art Allen, then Kane . Leo, Pam and their sister Linda, saw the picture I took of the man they all said was the man who killed their sister and he was Larry Kane. Kane is dead the man in that picture is very much alive, go figure ? Sorry, I had to go off topic to make my point and try to explain why Leo would have lied.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:50 pm

Did Zodiac call Betty Lou and David’s family? What about Bryan and Cecelia’s? Mike Mageau’s…Paul Stine’s? I don’t think it was Zodiac who called the Ferrin family.

…I don’t think that we can just assume that there weren’t any other calls made to other family members, just because they didn’t report any.

We have to go by what we know. While they could have, I’m not going to guess.

Hey, didn’t Bobby G get these breathing phone calls up till Arty’s death? You think that maybe he would have had them traced

You’d also think if Z was really the caller he would say something; saying nothing doesn’t do much but make people wonder if he called or not, and everyone knew that he did the crime because he…called and said so. So what’s the point?

"Did Zodiac call Betty Lou and David’s family? What about Bryan and Cecelia’s? Mike Mageau’s…Paul Stine’s? I don’t think it was Zodiac who called the Ferrin family."

The Confession Letters says, YES I DID MAKE THAT CALL TO YOU ALSO. We know the Zodiac called police after the Blue Rock Springs and Lake Berryessa murders. Oakland PD received a call from someone claiming to be the Zodiac 11 days after the Stine murder. Several people involved in the case, including Robert Graysmith, received odd calls for years after the murders.

Thus there were three anonymous calls to relatives of Darlene less than an hour and a half after she was shot, long before any mention of the crime in the paper or on the radio. Darlene’s own parents, the Suennens, got no such calls; they had an unlisted number. Robert Graysmith, Zodiac, page 34 of the hardcover edition

"I don’t think it was Zodiac who called the Ferrin family."

If it wasn’t the Zodiac, and if it wasn’t Leo–and Leo calling Dean’s brother and parents and NOT calling his own house doesn’t make much sense–who was it?

Isn’t it amazing that those three households just happened each to get a phone call shortly after the murder of a wife/in-law, purely by coincidence, when the Zodiac killer was known to make phone calls after his murders?

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 22, 2013 7:25 am

I still stand by my theory that this 1967 double murder in Alameda County is likely the work of Zodiac:
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … ac-victims

In this case, the victim’s Families received heavy breathing calls BEFORE & AFTER the couple was murdered. Like Graysmith, the calls reportedly always came round 10-11 in the morning.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:00 pm

Yes Zodiac called the police (at least twice) to report his crimes, but there was never any proof he called families–or Oakland, etc. It’s all assumptions. I don’t like those.

Anyone find in the PD report where it said a brother-in-law received a call?

]
AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:18 pm

Yes Zodiac called the police (at least twice) to report his crimes, but there was never any proof he called families–or Oakland, etc. It’s all assumptions. I don’t like those.

Anyone find in the PD report where it said a brother-in-law received a call?

I think it is correct to know the phone calls in the case. Also there is a possible pattern of contacting family like the letter to Cheri’s dad, the letter to Paul Stine’s brother and the letter to Donna Lass sister.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:39 pm

Yes Zodiac called the police (at least twice) to report his crimes, but there was never any proof he called families–or Oakland, etc. It’s all assumptions. I don’t like those.

Anyone find in the PD report where it said a brother-in-law received a call?

I think Ray is correct to know the phone calls in the case. Also there is a possible pattern of contacting family like the letter to Cheri’s dad, the letter to Paul Stine’s brother and the letter to Donna Lass sister.

There is no proof of any kind to prove that card to Donna’s sister came from Zodiac. And what letter to Paul Stine’s brother?

This is what I am talking about. These are all assumptions this stuff came from Zodiac. Not a good way to prove a case.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:41 pm

Here is the info from the parents. They came in on the 7th of July to report the call that came in at 11:30am on the July 5.

It reads 11:30…and was even typed over something to show 11:30.

Still looking for a phone call to a brother-in-law.

Not sure if we should be quoting Graysmith.

Edit: Here is the link to the pd report – http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR23.html

smithy, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:22 pm

Yes Zodiac called the police (at least twice) to report his crimes, but there was never any proof he called families–or Oakland, etc. It’s all assumptions. I don’t like those.

T., forgive me, but we’re assuming that Zodiac called the police twice, too. No proof. (Why "at least?" – you’re thinking about Riverside maybe?)

Without a match between fingerprints on phone booths, letters, crime scenes and a perpetrator (of the calls at least), it ain’t fer shure.

It seems likely that the guy who wrote the letter of August 4th made a call, yep. We assume so.
It seems very possible that the guy who attacked C & B at Berryessa also did, yep. Probably.

No proof though. AFAIK.

“Yes Zodiac called the police (at least twice) to report his crimes, but there was never any proof he called families–or Oakland, etc.”

No one said there was proof that the calls were from the Zodiac. As I said in my last post, three identical calls to Dean and his relatives within 90 minutes of the murder seems just a tad suspicious. The police clearly took the Oakland PD call VERY seriously.

“Anyone find in the PD report where it said a brother-in-law received a call?”

No, and you’re making the assumption that everything that happened always shows up in the police report. It doesn’t. Mike Butterfield takes as Holy Writ that police reports contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To the contrary, they inadvertently omit things (Sergeant Rust finding the two shell casings on the right rear floorboard of Darlene’s car—you won’t find that in the police report, either), and they include things that are later disputed by the reporting eyewitness (William Crow says he never told the SCSO RO that the car he saw was a Valiant).

We know the Zodiac liked to make phone calls after his murders and that he liked to send personal letters (Joseph Bates, Paul Avery, Melvin Belli, Count Marco). As Ricardo and Tom Voigt have pointed out, the last two received letters strongly suggesting the Zodiac knew where they lived (Melvin Belli) and what their handwriting looked like (Count Marco).

“This is what I am talking about. These are all assumptions this stuff came from Zodiac. Not a good way to prove a case.”

Every single case that has ever been made in a court of law involves assumptions. Even if the evidence against a defendant is 100% physical and forensic, the jury must still assume that that material was collected and submitted in good faith, unless the defense raises the issue that it wasn’t (as was done, for example, in the O. J. Simpson murder case). Every criminal case is, to some extent, circumstantial.

“Here is the info from the parents. They came in on the 7th of July to report the call that came in at 11:30am on the July 5. It reads 11:30…and was even typed over something to show 11:30.”

There are obvious typos in every police report—at least, all the ones I’ve read. I’d be more convinced if the time noted was, say, 8am, than I am by “11:30”. Incidentally, it doesn’t read, “11:30”; it reads, “1130”.

If the Ferrins received a wrong number at 11:30am, after the murder had been reported in the media, and especially since the caller didn’t actually say anything, I doubt seriously that they’d have thought enough of it to make a point of reporting it to the police. I suspect they said “1:30”, and it was just mistyped.

“Still looking for a phone call to a brother-in-law. Not sure if we should be quoting Graysmith.”

Graysmith is not a fastidious reporter of the truth, but he also gets it right a lot. I just cited the example of Ed Rust finding the two shell casings inside the car (page 32 of the hardcover edition of Zodiac), which is backed up by the listing of items sent to CI&I (the search itself is not in the police report).

I have personally called into question Graysmith’s account of David and Betty Lou stopping at Mr. Ed’s prior to their trip out to Lake Herman Road. There’s just no evidence of that, and there certainly would be accounts in the police report if it had actually happened. However, in that case Graysmith is trying to bridge the time gap between 9pm, when the couple left Sharon’s, and 10:15pm, when they were supposedly sighted by Mrs. Helen Axe. So he makes a reasonable assumption which is not backed up by any eyewitnesses.

On the other hand, his citing of the three calls circa 1:30am is not something he would conceivably have made up out of whole cloth. We know that both Dean and his parents DID receive such a call—at least 4 witnesses say so, two at each venue. If Graysmith just made up the call to Dean’s brother, what did he have to gain by doing that? The account was already “True Crime” enough without having to add to it.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 12:37 pm

Wow Ray–you went back and counted my posts on the Penn thread? I’m impressed.

It’s obvious we disagree, but I don’t know why you have to get so personal. Sheesh…geeze….OMG.

You say Mary Pilkner believed her card came from Zodiac? How would she know? She also believed the card that came in ’07 was from Zodiac–guess what…just another weirdo. And what do you know…I helped figure out who sent it.

I just think people jump the gun thinking everything is Zodiac. I would LOVE it if we knew those calls were Zodiac. Fact is…we don’t.

bayarea60s, Subject: Phone Calls Sat Mar 23, 2013 2:02 pm

I have no idea if calls were made or not. Seems like the Ferrins definetely received some kind of call. Perhaps Joe Bates. Let’s say they all happened. Heavy breathing, no speaking, says to me someone is enraged, but perhaps not at the principals involved, but enraged with the people they called, and they figured best way to get even is to kill what’s most precious to the person they’re enraged with. Now that would really be genious. No way LE would look at that angle. LE would try to relate the murdered to each other. Not trying to advocate yet another spin on the case, I was just thinking why would a person make such a call.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 2:14 pm

I have no idea if calls were made or not. Seems like the Ferrins definetely received some kind of call. Perhaps Joe Bates. Let’s say they all happened. Heavy breathing, no speaking, says to me someone is enraged, but perhaps not at the principals involved, but enraged with the people they called, and they figured best way to get even is to kill what’s most precious to the person they’re enraged with. Now that would really be genious. No way LE would look at that angle. LE would try to relate the murdered to each other. Not trying to advocate yet another spin on the case, I was just thinking why would a person make such a call.

I have often wondered if Zodiac may have known family members of the victims.

If it were Zodiac who called that night, I would say he for sure knew of Darlene "Ferrin".

I don’t think Zodiac went into her purse or the car looking for registration or something…seems like Mike would have noticed that. She was "Phillips" for a short while too. So, imo, if her killer knew her, he knew her as "Ferrin", but not close enough to know Suennen. Just an opinion.

Were there other ways to found out addresses (aside of phone #’s) back in 1969?

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 3:34 pm

I have no idea if calls were made or not. Seems like the Ferrins definetely received some kind of call. Perhaps Joe Bates. Let’s say they all happened. Heavy breathing, no speaking, says to me someone is enraged, but perhaps not at the principals involved, but enraged with the people they called, and they figured best way to get even is to kill what’s most precious to the person they’re enraged with. Now that would really be genious. No way LE would look at that angle. LE would try to relate the murdered to each other. Not trying to advocate yet another spin on the case, I was just thinking why would a person make such a call.

I have often wondered if Zodiac may have known family members of the victims.

If it were Zodiac who called that night, I would say he for sure knew of Darlene "Ferrin".

I don’t think Zodiac went into her purse or the car looking for registration or something…seems like Mike would have noticed that. She was "Phillips" for a short while too. So, imo, if her killer knew her, he knew her as "Ferrin", but not close enough to know Suennen. Just an opinion.

Were there other ways to found out addresses (aside of phone #’s) back in 1969?

Wow stalking back then really required some leg work

ggluckman, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 3:54 pm

Wow stalking back then really required some leg work

You are 100% correct, morph13.

Stockers these days have it way too easy.

Why, when I was young, we had to do things the hard way…

ggluckman, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 3:55 pm

Uhh, forget that last comment.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 5:15 pm

Disagree with me all you want to, but when you get personal and start saying what I "actually mean" and what I think, well…stop it. You are assuming once again.

I wrote: “Not sure if we should be quoting Graysmith.”

“Please. What you actually mean is, “I consider everything Graysmith says to be unreliable.” Again, that’s a Mike Butterfield viewpoint. Graysmith is not a fastidious reporter of the truth, I’ll grant you, but he also gets it right a lot.

No…that is NOT what I meant to say.

Since most think RG was full of it, I thought it might be best to reference another source. While, I did not say that–you automatically lump me in with Butterfield as someone who does not like Graysmith. You jumped to a conclusion and tell me what I meant to say?!

I have actually stood up for Graysmith for years–even after his second book.

Well, I can say A LOT of what Graysmith wrote about IS in police reports.

He takes a lot of crap for false stuff when a true majority of it CAN be found in police reports.

People take things like the BRS chase as fact, when Graysmith himself wrote: "This is what may have happened next"…trying to account for the quick amount of time between when Darlene left and was killed.

The man was a political cartoonist, who did the best he could with the info provided and I think he did a damn find job of laying it out there.

(Zodiac 2 aside…bleh)

6/2012
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … ook-zodiac

Why does me wanting more proof getting me rude replies from you? I don’t get it??

You have made it clear how you feel about me and my posts.

smithy, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 6:18 pm

Wait just a cotton-picking minute here will yas?

Earlier on it was said that the calls were made immediately after BRS and Berryessa were made by the guy who was the killer in both cases, and I posted that’s "not proven". It’s not proven. We can’t say, on the strength of those two incidences and the one the writer at Riverside alluded to – that he or they made the calls or "liked making calls."

We don’t know that he "liked sending letters to people associated with the case" either.

Did he write to Kathleen Johns? Some say he did.
The letter to Joe Bates may or may not have been from him. I think it probably was, personally, but there’s no proof.
Did he write to Avery? Not in any trademark handwriting, no. Avery got a heavily-embellished card. That card’s highly contentious.
The Marco letter is even more highly debatable. It’s got no trademark features. That writing’s very different.

Belli got a letter. Yes. And a piece of shirt. I think he hugely enjoyed sending that letter, but it’s the only one addressed to a named individual which we can confirm came from him.

California has a lot of weirdos. Famous cases that appear in newspapers attract weirdos, even now. Go look on social media sites for weirdos. There are lots.
Enough weirdos sending enough letters and making enough calls in ’69 and ’70, and one or two of them were bound to get the timing right.

Say, there are even a lot of weirdos on the various Z sites. I am myself sllightly odd!
I too think "people jump the gun thinking everything is Zodiac."
I do not embrace all that is Graysmith, either.

Here’s an emoticon.

Edited ‘cos I can’t reliably tell the difference between Kathleen Johns and Joe Bates. Ho hum.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 23, 2013 7:41 pm

Earlier on it was said that the calls were made immediately after BRS and Berryessa were made by the guy who was the killer in both cases, and I posted that’s "not proven". It’s not proven.

Yes. You are correct. It is not proven those two calls were from the same person either. I was trying to avoid the noid of that innuendo.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 12:51 am

I agree on most of these points on the phone call. Tahoe is a skeptic, smithy often is as well. On proposed code solutions so is doranchak. The great thing about this board IMO is that we allow more speculation, more theories, more evidence and good looks into different POI’s BUT we also have many members who keep us grounded by asking for more proof, by asking questions and by remaining skeptical. Granted sometimes this may be annoying when they seem not to acknowledge all the evidence or are dismissive of certain evidence. But they also provide a huge service by creating debate and raising relevant questions, forcing us to rethink or search for more evidence or even sometimes abandon bad ideas.

IMO the old ZodiacZee was too speculative with not enough people to raise questions and counter arguments. IMO some boards get too hung up on one POI and don’t like much real debate. Other boards allow a lot of fighting and personal attacks. We do not. Also IMO ZKF has too many debunkers with almost nobody doing original research and presenting new ideas. I think this board is the best because we have both types, researchers and debunkers, believers and skeptics, speculation and hard fact, POI people and non-POI people.

No need to bring up stuff that happened years ago on Penn threads. It is off topic, off thread and getting borderline personal. We treat all members here with respect and disagree and debate politely. That message goes to everyone.

In terms of what we "know" well we know with absolute certainty very little. But when you look at the majority of serial killers, they do not write letters to families of victims of persons involved in the case. Nothing like that from Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, etc. So when we go by what the Cal DOJ, FBI and/or SFPD handwriting experts say, we have Zodiac sending cards or letters to people like Avery and Belli, to Mr. Bates. The bulk of the evidence suggests Z did make phone calls at least twice and maybe more. IMO the evidence tends to suggest that Zodiac did write to the sister of Donna Lass and to the newspaper about Joe Stine.

Zodiac shows an interest in family members that we do not see from the vast majority – maybe 98% or better – of other serial killers.

Considering all that and looking at the evience IMO it is far more likely Z made those Ferrin calls than anyone else. We will never "know" with absolute certainty, but by preponderance of the evidence I deem it very likely.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 1:10 am

Tahoe is a skeptic…

Only with certain aspects of this case. I think there is far more we actually agree on.

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:19 am

Please tone it down a bit.Just because somebody does not agree with you, please do not treat them badly or speak down to them. We can all keep things simple & agree to disagree.

Quicktrader, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 4:48 am

Please tone it down a bit.Just because somebody does not agree with you, please do not treat them badly or speak down to them. We can all keep things simple & agree to disagree.

And no ‘warnings’ please simply because of sarcasm

QT

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 12:13 pm

Back to Welsh Chappie’s fine thread…

Here are the mentions of the phone calls in the police report:

Dean received TWO phone calls.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR19.html

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR23.html

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 12:56 pm

The call to Dean’s parents could be explained by a concerned friend calling them to extend sympathy for their daughter-in-law’s death but when the phone was answered the caller became tongue-tied, couldn’t express themselves and hung up after a moment. There are probably more reasonable explanations for the call than the call was made by Zodiac.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:49 pm

The call to Dean’s parents could be explained by a concerned friend calling them to extend sympathy for their daughter-in-law’s death but when the phone was answered the caller became tongue-tied, couldn’t express themselves and hung up after a moment. There are probably more reasonable explanations for the call than the call was made by Zodiac.

If I’m not mistaken, at the time the calls were made, no body knew dee had been killed

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 3:52 pm

Tahoe posted the paragraph from the page in the police report that comments on the phone call Dean’s parents received a couple of posts above on this page. That call was made at 11:30 AM the day after, or roughly 12 hours after Darlene was shot and killed. I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that Dean had told his parents Darlene had been murdered by then. Vallejo was not a huge city, word would have travelled fast among Darlene and Mike’s friends that the two had been shot.

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 4:41 pm

Tahoe asked me to see if the Suennen’s phone number was listed in the Polk Directory. It was not. And, as established long ago, their number was not listed in the phonebook either. So if someone did call them that night (which I don’t believe happened), the caller could not have gotten the number from any public directories. Sure, they could have gotten it from a Parish directory or such.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 4:43 pm

Thx Tracers–

Was their address listed?

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 4:54 pm

Yes, their address was listed. I think it was 130 Jordan. But the Polk did not show a phone number for that address either.

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sun Mar 24, 2013 4:57 pm

Tahoe posted the paragraph from the page in the police report that comments on the phone call Dean’s parents received a couple of posts above on this page. That call was made at 11:30 AM the day after, or roughly 12 hours after Darlene was shot and killed. I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that Dean had told his parents Darlene had been murdered by then. Vallejo was not a huge city, word would have travelled fast among Darlene and Mike’s friends that the two had been shot.

LOL "go out on a limb" Yeah, I think they knew by then too.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:26 pm

Interesting also military time would be 0130 and some police use that or variations.

onewhoknows, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:05 pm

0130 AM Breather

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:15 pm

Not feelin’ the 0130. They didn’t use that type of format just above it.

sandy betts, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:34 pm

The time retyped on page 23 of the BRS police report, between ‘after’ and ‘AM’ in the second paragraph, ISN’T ’11:30’.

It’s ‘1:30’.

If you go back and check all the time citations on that page, you will note that, in every single instance, the police typist includes the central colon between the hour and the minute numerals.

Page 23, BRS Police Report

What looks to some like ‘1130’ is actually ‘1:30’, with the second stroke being a colon, not a one.

Don’t ask me what the typist was typing over; it might be the beginning of the word ‘midnight’, which would make sense in context.

Dean’s parents were called at 1:30am, shortly after Dean himself was called.

Most likely by the Zodiac.

Thank you Ray , That was my understanding as well. I will be talking to VPD soon and will conferm the time with them.

traveller1st, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:50 pm

it’s like one of those captcha things. All I can see now is Dido. lol

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 5:59 pm

it’s like one of those captcha things. All I can see now is Dido. lol

Why does that make me think of Carol? OH wait…wasn’t she Doda? ha

Hey–it could be 1:30 or 130. Wouldn’t change my mind…I would still LEAN towards ggluckman’s #6. Is it possible it could have been Zodiac? Sure.

(I’M SEEING COLORS. –no red …the blue format is nice:) )

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:19 pm

The time retyped on page 23 of the BRS police report, between ‘after’ and ‘AM’ in the second paragraph, ISN’T ’11:30’.

It’s ‘1:30’.

If you go back and check all the time citations on that page, you will note that, in every single instance, the police typist includes the central colon between the hour and the minute numerals.

Page 23, BRS Police Report

What looks to some like ‘1130’ is actually ‘1:30’, with the second stroke being a colon, not a one.

Don’t ask me what the typist was typing over; it might be the beginning of the word ‘midnight’, which would make sense in context.

Dean’s parents were called at 1:30am, shortly after Dean himself was called.

Thank you Sandy, thats what i thought the time was that these calls had been made. That was what struck me as significant in the article i read … "The call’s were made to Dean Ferrin’s residence at around 1:30 a.m, (around one and a half to two hours after the attack) on July 5th. At this point, no press had been made aware of the incident, so this tends to suggest the calls were not made by someone as a heartless prank after reading about Darlene’s murder"
Most likely by the Zodiac.

Thank you Ray , That was my understanding as well. I will be talking to VPD soon and will conferm the time with them.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:38 pm

Another thing I find interesting. Why TWO calls to Dean’s house?

Zodiac could have had his reasons, but this takes me back to Leo…or even a "friend" of Darlene’s. They were having a party.

Two calls comes across (imo) has someone trying to reach someone who wasn’t the someone answering the phone.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:01 pm

Another thing I find interesting. Why TWO calls to Dean’s house?

Zodiac could have had his reasons, but this takes me back to Leo…or even a "friend" of Darlene’s. They were having a party.

Two calls comes across (imo) has someone trying to reach someone who wasn’t the someone answering the phone.

Well as a backdrop to that very good question Tahoe, firstly i’m curious to know if you believe this party was one to celebrate ‘Painting’ (not something i’ve ever come felt like throwing a party for personally), or weather u think that ‘Painting’ was a sort of code wor they used for Weed or another illegal term?

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:14 pm

Another thing I find interesting. Why TWO calls to Dean’s house?

Zodiac could have had his reasons, but this takes me back to Leo…or even a "friend" of Darlene’s. They were having a party.

Two calls comes across (imo) has someone trying to reach someone who wasn’t the someone answering the phone.

Well as a backdrop to that very good question Tahoe, firstly i’m curious to know if you believe this party was one to celebrate ‘Painting’ (not something i’ve ever come felt like throwing a party for personally), or weather u think that ‘Painting’ was a sort of code wor they used for Weed or another illegal term?

No..not this one.

There is always the possibility "fireworks" meant weed…or something else…I don’t know. Seems sort of late for Bill and Dean to send Darlene off to buy fireworks.

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:20 pm

It’s not unusual to invite a bunch of friends over to your new house to help with the painting. I’ve done it for friends more than once. I can believe that Dean and Darlene would have invited friends over for this purpose. I believe later Dean said that there was a "painting party" but that not much painting was done. It turned into more of a party apparently.

Zamantha, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:21 pm

Another thing I find interesting. Why TWO calls to Dean’s house?

Zodiac could have had his reasons, but this takes me back to Leo…or even a "friend" of Darlene’s. They were having a party.

Two calls comes across (imo) has someone trying to reach someone who wasn’t the someone answering the phone.

Well as a backdrop to that very good question Tahoe, firstly i’m curious to know if you believe this party was one to celebrate ‘Painting’ (not something i’ve ever come felt like throwing a party for personally), or weather u think that ‘Painting’ was a sort of code wor they used for Weed or another illegal term?

No..not this one.

There is always the possibility "fireworks" meant weed…or something else…I don’t know. Seems sort of late for Bill and Dean to send Darlene off to buy fireworks.

Buying Fireworks doesn’t necessary mean buying them from a firework stand. If people wanted illegal fireworks, well then you would go to their home or place of work or perhaps even meet the seller some where to pick up. I’ve seen lot’s of illegal fireworks.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 9:18 pm

It’s not unusual to invite a bunch of friends over to your new house to help with the painting. I’ve done it for friends more than once. I can believe that Dean and Darlene would have invited friends over for this purpose. I believe later Dean said that there was a "painting party" but that not much painting was done. It turned into more of a party apparently.

Fair point Seagull.

But at this painting party, the following names have been menioned, by different people, as being present…

Richard Gaikowski
Lawrence Kane
Steve Baldino
‘Todd’ Walker
Arthur Allen

According to ZodiacKiller.com’s Tom Voigt,

"We may never know the whole story, but I will never, ever forget the moment when Ken Narlow looked me in the eye and said: ‘Gaikowski was at Darlene Ferrin’s painting party."

According to Darlene’s sister…

"The unkown, well dressed man at Darlenes house that night was Lawrence Kane"

According to a report on ZodiacKillerFacts.com

"Baldino had both initially identified Walker, but the identifications were not sufficient to warrant Walker’s arrest." (Baldino had allegedly ID’d Walker as being present at the Painting Party that he himself was at)

And please, before i get a flurry or replies stating ‘No evidence this or that person was present’ etc, i am not claiming the above is true and all attended this party, only pointing out the claims that are made by others.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 9:56 pm

Part of the reason I don’t find the calls to Dean so strange is that it would seem it might have been the norm.

Seems like Darlene hung out with lots of people until wee hours. Even bringing one boy friend home to meet her husband (1:30-2am–after hanging out @ BRS)….Dean was painting…that late.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR40.html

A painting party was a way to get help painting the inside of your house. Pizza, beer, what-have-you. There WAS a party. Karen the babysitter that night was interviewed by the Concord PD.

Zam–good point. But it brings us back to the same question….how were they to purchase them? Neither had money. Maybe they thought Darlene could get some for free?

Zamantha, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:10 pm

Zam–good point. But it brings us back to the same question….how were they to purchase them? Neither had money. Maybe they thought Darlene could get some for free?

They could of pre-ordered & even pre-paid. Or it was an honor system, and they brought from someone who knew they would be paid later. Or it could of been a trade for something as simple as food at the restaurant. Lot’s of possible scenario’s.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 12:01 am

Zam–good point. But it brings us back to the same question….how were they to purchase them? Neither had money. Maybe they thought Darlene could get some for free?

They could of pre-ordered & even pre-paid. Or it was an honor system, and they brought from someone who knew they would be paid later. Or it could of been a trade for something as simple as food at the restaurant. Lot’s of possible scenario’s.

Finding a booth was mentioned. It would seem if it were pre-planned Bill Lee wouldn’t have made the following statement:

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR19.html

But..could have been she knew someone who could make/aquire illegal fireworks/explosives. Maybe he was calling for her that night.

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:53 am

Sometimes I look at the time of the call to Dean’s parents and see 11:30 and other times I see 1:30. And at various times I come to different conclusions about the same set of facts in the reports and accounts by the people interviewed. In the past I said it was, imo, unlikely Leo made the calls. Now I can see a scenario that makes sense to me: Leo did ask Darlene to get him some pot or whatever. When he didn’t hear back from her, he called her around 1:30 a.m., but called Dean’s parents by mistake. He then call Darlene’s house and twice a man answered and not his sister. Perhaps he didn’t ask for Darlene because he didn’t want to have to explain why he was calling so late.

That is possible.

I used to think the going for Fireworks story fishy and that Darlene had been asked by Dean to go try to find some drugs. But the reports show Bill Leigh and Dean were taken from Dean and Darlene’s house right to the police station. There they both said Darlene was off looking for fireworks. They wouldn’t, imo, have time to cook this story up as a cover for drugs.

Darlene and Mike had no money. Perhaps Darlene just said she would go look for fireworks and used that trip as an excuse to grab some time with Mike. Dean and others thought she was trying to find fireworks, but she wasn’t. Thus, no money.

Possible.

I know Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked say Dean’s brother got a phone call, but do the police reports state this? I don’t recall any mention of this in the reports. thanks

If I am getting off topic, let me know and tell me where I should be posting.

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:58 am

Does anyone know if the police tried to trace the calls made to Dean and Darlene’s house? I don’t recall ever hearing about that.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 2:12 am

Does anyone know if the police tried to trace the calls made to Dean and Darlene’s house? I don’t recall ever hearing about that.

I don’t think they could do that with 1960’s technology. I know that even in the 80’s they would have to be running a trace live as the call came in, an then keep the caller on the line for a specific time (Average bk then i think was 15 mins or so) to trace where the call was coming from.

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:59 am

Part of the reason I don’t find the calls to Dean so strange is that it would seem it might have been the norm.

Seems like Darlene hung out with lots of people until wee hours. Even bringing one boy friend home to meet her husband (1:30-2am–after hanging out @ BRS)….Dean was painting…that late.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR40.html

A painting party was a way to get help painting the inside of your house. Pizza, beer, what-have-you. There WAS a party. Karen the babysitter that night was interviewed by the Concord PD.

Zam–good point. But it brings us back to the same question….how were they to purchase them? Neither had money. Maybe they thought Darlene could get some for free?

RE: The boyfriend coming home to meet Dean,I remember it was Spence that she brought home. Dean was painting.(How much painting did they do in that house? )

RE: Concord police interviewed Karen. Why Concord? They were no investigating Z at any point were they?

Personally, I think the breathing calls to relatives of Darlene’s shortly after her murder(before anybody publicly knew she died)are odd,and worthy of attention. Too bad they didnt have *69 back then or caller ID

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:04 am

Sometimes I look at the time of the call to Dean’s parents and see 11:30 and other times I see 1:30. And at various times I come to different conclusions about the same set of facts in the reports and accounts by the people interviewed. In the past I said it was, imo, unlikely Leo made the calls. Now I can see a scenario that makes sense to me: Leo did ask Darlene to get him some pot or whatever. When he didn’t hear back from her, he called her around 1:30 a.m., but called Dean’s parents by mistake. He then call Darlene’s house and twice a man answered and not his sister. Perhaps he didn’t ask for Darlene because he didn’t want to have to explain why he was calling so late.

That is possible.

I used to think the going for Fireworks story fishy and that Darlene had been asked by Dean to go try to find some drugs. But the reports show Bill Leigh and Dean were taken from Dean and Darlene’s house right to the police station. There they both said Darlene was off looking for fireworks. They wouldn’t, imo, have time to cook this story up as a cover for drugs.

I know Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked say Dean’s brother got a phone call, but do the police reports state this? I don’t recall any mention of this in the reports. thanks

If I am getting off topic, let me know and tell me where I should be posting.

RE: The calls, I can see Leo making one phone call to the wrong person by accident,but more than one?(If Dean’s Brother gota call) I cant see that. And why would he call Dean’s Family at all looking for Darlene that late? Sounds like somebody could have simply opened up a phonebook and looked up some names.

sandy betts, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 11:27 am

Quote from Morf
RE: The boyfriend coming home to meet Dean,I remember it was Spence that she brought home. Dean was painting.(How much painting did they do in that house? )

RE: Concord police interviewed Karen. Why Concord? They were no investigating Z at any point were they?

Personally, I think the breathing calls to relatives of Darlene’s shortly after her murder(before anybody publicly knew she died)are odd,and worthy of attention. Too bad they didnt have *69 back then or caller ID
f:

It is my understanding, that Concord Pd had a person who was very good at hypnotizing and was asked by VPD to hypnotize Karen, to see if she had more information about the man Darlene was so afraid of, or a license plate number of his car ? During that session the phone rang , which ruined that session .

If Leo was arrested earlier that night, there should be something on file I would think ? Like I have said before , drugs were on every corner, I doubt that Leo needed to ask his big sister to get them for him .

I agree these calls are worth looking into, even though we know this is something that Zodiac did like to do,
that doesn’t mean that he did it each and every time, right after he did his thing.
He did things that made you unsure if it was him or not , that was part of his game. He didn’t have to use 3 different guns , but he did . It was perhaps to confuse LE , make them work a little harder?

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:02 pm

It’s not unusual to invite a bunch of friends over to your new house to help with the painting. I’ve done it for friends more than once. I can believe that Dean and Darlene would have invited friends over for this purpose. I believe later Dean said that there was a "painting party" but that not much painting was done. It turned into more of a party apparently.

Fair point Seagull.

But at this painting party, the following names have been menioned, by different people, as being present…

Richard Gaikowski
Lawrence Kane
Steve Baldino
‘Todd’ Walker
Arthur Allen

According to ZodiacKiller.com’s Tom Voigt,

"We may never know the whole story, but I will never, ever forget the moment when Ken Narlow looked me in the eye and said: ‘Gaikowski was at Darlene Ferrin’s painting party."

According to Darlene’s sister…

"The unkown, well dressed man at Darlenes house that night was Lawrence Kane"

According to a report on ZodiacKillerFacts.com

"Baldino had both initially identified Walker, but the identifications were not sufficient to warrant Walker’s arrest." (Baldino had allegedly ID’d Walker as being present at the Painting Party that he himself was at)
And please, before i get a flurry or replies stating ‘No evidence this or that person was present’ etc, i am not claiming the above is true and all attended this party, only pointing out the claims that are made by others.

Wasnt Baldino the same exact guy that claimed he had heard a recording of Zodiac calling into Nancy Slover on the night of BRS? It was proven that no such tape existed,and he came clean and admitted he lied

onewhoknows, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:04 pm

I am confused as to why Darlene would be associated with these much older gentlemen.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:36 pm

I am confused as to why Darlene would be associated with these much older gentlemen.

Attention. And if one or two of them are with the SFPD, then that may be an image she liked, a kind of "I have friends who are in a position of authority" and that she had connections and felt protected. Ironically, this apparant attraction to the Blue Meanies may have been what caused her death?

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 2:17 pm

I used to think the going for Fireworks story fishy and that Darlene had been asked by Dean to go try to find some drugs. But the reports show Bill Leigh and Dean were taken from Dean and Darlene’s house right to the police station. There they both said Darlene was off looking for fireworks. They wouldn’t, imo, have time to cook this story up as a cover for drugs.

Darlene and Mike had no money. Perhaps Darlene just said she would go look for fireworks and used that trip as an excuse to grab some time with Mike. Dean and others thought she was trying to find fireworks, but she wasn’t. Thus, no money.

That report doesn’t actually read that the cops drove Bill and Dean to the PD. But, the cover (IF drugs) was already out there with the babysitter. That is what Darlene told the sitters and in another statement made by Bill…he says that is what the sitters told them when they got back to the house. Could be they just kept on with that.

BUT, you do make an intersting point. Did Darlene ever intend to look for them? (not that it matters at this point) I don’t recall Mike ever saying that was the intention that night. Can’t remember…

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 2:19 pm

[Wasnt Baldino the same exact guy that claimed he had heard a recording of Zodiac calling into Nancy Slover on the night of BRS? It was proven that no such tape existed,and he came clean and admitted he lied

Yes morf. That’s the one. And part of why Graysmith took a lot of heat I think. One even admitting to bs’ing him…guess they thought it would be funny to screw up his book…and forever the case.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 3:16 pm

Lot’s of very interesting posts, but the No. 1 issue here, in my opinion anyway, is not really weather the caller was or wasn’t Zodiac, but why did the Police at the time not consider these calls significant, deciding that they were not related to the death of Darlene?

I mean, is it just me this is quite a big point of interest for? This has a knock on effect because before anyone can know the answer to that, someone has to look into it and investigate first.

I have to say again what i said in the initial thread post, it’s not simply a matter of ‘Well it was poor policing on the part of the SFPD’ (I really am trying not to criticise an LE Division). If i was Dean Ferrin, and i even had a slight suspicion that the calls were related to my wifes brutal murder, i would not stop doing whatever it took to get them to look into it.

And finally, when i say i am honestly shocked at the lack of interest & subsequent attempt’s to find out what phone booth the call came from, I don’t mean I expect them to trace the call the way we are accustomed to seeing it done today, i am not shocked due to the Police failing to track which Cell Phone tower the signal is bouncing off, and once they know, speed off toward it with their Sat-Nav’s directing them directly to him…Lol. No, i realise that back then traces had to be ran in real time, but surely they could have just pulled the incoming call records for Dean’s phone No. for July 5th? Or go to whoever is in charge of public telephone service and get the records for all public pay phone outgoing calls for July 5th between 12.30 a.m and 3 a.m.
I know it isn’t going to tell you who the Zodiac was just by identifying a phhone booth, but it would tell you how far way he had fled, in what direction, and never know, you may get lucky and have a witness come foreward to say they saw a man in that phone booth at around 1.30 a.m aswel as his car parked alongside.

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 3:27 pm

Maybe LE did pursue the phone calls and we just do not have those pages of the reports.

The police reports we do have were for the large part given to different people by a few different retired officers connected to the case from their own personal copies of the files on the crime. They did not come from currently acting police personnel because they will always cite the fact that it is an open or unsolved case and can not release that type of info.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Wed Mar 27, 2013 3:42 pm

Ahhh, but there is mention of another phone booth from where those calls (to family) were made. Just not in the pd report. ZU. But unless it was in a police report, it could be one of the few who liked to tell RG BS. I mean, it would sure seem with everything else in those reports, THAT would have been mentioned, but like Seagull stated…we most likely don’t have everything.

“Sometimes I look at the time of the call to Dean’s parents and see 11:30 and other times I see 1:30.”

Whatever time is indicated on page 23, it is 4 key strokes. Assuming the time indicated is either 1:30 or 11:30, what has actually been typed would have to be either 1/:/3/0 or 1/1/3/0.

It cannot be 1/1/:/3/0, because that’s five strokes.

Almost without exception in the police report, the time citations on a given page are consistent. For example, all the time citations on page 23, where the four strokes thought to be either ‘1:30’ or ‘1130’ are found, DO contain the central colon.

BRS Police Report, Page 23

An example of a page where the central colon is not used is page 21:

BRS Police Report, Page 21

I assume this is because two different police typists were responsible for those pages. Since the ‘1:30’ or ‘1130’ occurs on a “colon” page, we can reasonably assume that the type-over is ‘1:30’.

A further reason to believe the citation reads ‘1:30’ is that the time of the two calls to Dean Ferrin was approximately 1:30. It seems a tad coincidental that the time cited by his parents in the report, if we assume it was ‘1130’, just happened to be a time that could be visually confused with 1:30. They could conceivably have received the call at 2am, 2:30am, 3am, 3:30am, and so forth, but they just happened to receive the call at 11:30am. That seems just a little too convenient.

“Now I can see a scenario that makes sense to me: Leo did ask Darlene to get him some pot or whatever. When he didn’t hear back from her, he called her around 1:30 a.m., but called Dean’s parents by mistake. He then call Darlene’s house and twice a man answered and not his sister. Perhaps he didn’t ask for Darlene because he didn’t want to have to explain why he was calling so late.”

Leo Suennen has had a good run on Zodiac message boards. He’s mentioned exactly once, in a single sentence in Graysmith’s Zodiac on page 16:

Darlene’s younger, rebellious brother, Leo Suennen, was at the party . . .

On the other hand, he’s not mentioned anywhere by anyone in the police reports, which is ironic because the BRS police report actually does mention someone who posts on Zodiac message boards (Sandy Betts) . . . but not Leo.

The police report details two calls to Dean’s house circa 1:30am, and a call to his parents circa 1:30am. None of the principals cited in the police report says anything about receiving a call from Leo that night. This includes the babysitter and her friend, who were at Darlene’s house from 7:30pm, when Darlene’s dad dropped them off there, until circa 1:30am when Dean came home. During that entire time, Leo never called Darlene’s house. The babysitter and her friend were working for Darlene for the first time, and had only briefly met her before. They would have no motive whatsoever to hide information during an interrogation by police. The babysitters DO mention the call from the waitress at Terry’s, and Darlene’s call at 9pm when they relayed that message to her, in addition to Darlene’s various comings and goings that night.

Leo was so desperate for weed that he never called his sister’s house all evening.

I hate to sound sarcastic, but you know it’s a Zodiac message board when Leo Suennen is considered a more reliable source than Robert Graysmith. Graysmith isn’t perfect, and I criticized him in print many years before people like Ed Neil did, but Graysmith was the political cartoonist for a major city newspaper, has written several books, and is the person most responsible for publicizing the Zodiac case and keeping it in the public eye. Maybe Tom Voigt is second, and Tom’s a friend of mine, but he’s a distant second.

Leo Suennen is Leo Suennen. It’s possible one of his sisters read Graysmith’s book, which originally came out in 1986, and mentioned the 1:30 calls to Leo, and Leo said something like, “Hey, I used to call Darlene’s house back then when I was looking to score some weed.”

Maybe he did.

But not that night.

duckking2001, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:31 am

Ray, you make a good case for it being 1:30 and it most likely is, but one thing that sticks out to me is that the time is retyped over, not typed normally, so it doesn’t necessarily follow the format of the rest of the typing. For all we know it was added in later by a different person than the one who typed the rest. It could be useful to look for other typed over segments to get a feel for what kind of format might be used…

or it could just he a waste of time nitpick. Just an idea.

But I don’t understand your point about Leo being unreliable just because he’s not in the police reports, or the message boards, or whatever. Sure, Tom and Graysmith almost certainly know more about the Zodiac case than he does, but it’s reasonable to think that he should be able to remember events from his own life, unless there is other information that contradicts it.

morf13, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 7:27 am

I think somebody simply corrected their mistake. Either they originally put 11:30 and changed it to 01:30, or vice versa. Not that it answers the question of which time it actually is,but I think it’s a simple error correction. The reports are filled with lots of typos, wrong names, etc

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:33 pm

I think making assumptions is what we ALL are doing so many years later.

It would seem LE was not concerned with these calls, yet some on message boards want to assume this is Zodiac. And that is fine. It’s opinions. Doesn’t make anyone right or wrong.

There have been many things LE has said they don’t feel is Zodiac, yet we at messages boards, find ways to dismiss thier conclusions because it fits our ideas. And vice versa. And I say WE because we ALL do it.

***

In the police reports, it mentions Dean didn’t take the babysitters home until around 2:00am. When those calls (which were NOT reported as "heavy breathing") came in, the babysitters were still there.

As a matter of fact, in Bill Leigh’s statement, they didn’t leave work until around 1:30 and he and Dean both stopped (in separate cars) at Pete’s Liquor on the way home. So it would appear even 1:30 isn’t an exact time either.

Bottom line: Was it Zodiac?

We don’t know. Had he said SOMETHING; "She had to die", etc. (as mentioned by duckking)….we wouldn’t be wondering.

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:41 pm

I think it is possible that the unknown caller to both Dean’s home and to Dean’s parents home could have been the police calling to see if anyone was home before sending an officer out to inform Dean that Darlene had been shot. Remember that Dean went by his middle name and that his first name, Arthur, was the same as his father. Page 5 of the LHR report says that Darlene’s ID stated she lived at 930 Monterey Vallejo which was Dean’s parents address so that fits with the police possibly thinking that Dean’s parents would have been where Darlene lived and have called there. They may have then realized that there was another Arthur Ferrin whose age better fit someone that Darlene would be married to and then called Dean’s home.

At this point police did not know who killed Darlene and a husband is usually the first suspect in a wife’s murder so I can understand why police would want to break the news to Dean face to face and watch his reaction.

I do not think because Leo does not pan out as a reasonable maker of the phone calls that we can assume it was Zodiac who made the calls. I think I have offered a reasonable alternative to who may have made those calls. And maybe the reason it does not appear that the hang-up without speaking phone calls were investigated by police is because they knew who made the calls, namely themselves.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:20 pm

…And maybe the reason it does not appear that the hang-up without speaking phone calls were investigated by police is because they knew who made the calls, namely themselves.

This could very well be Seagull! That would also answer Welsh Chappie’s question.

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:56 pm

…And maybe the reason it does not appear that the hang-up without speaking phone calls were investigated by police is because they knew who made the calls, namely themselves.

This could very well be Seagull! That would also answer Welsh Chappie’s question.

Which of WC’s questions?

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:17 pm

oh, wait, I did some reading back. Was the question about why there is no record in the reports of LE investigating the calls?

Nachtsider, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:18 pm

I don’t see how Leo would have been expecting Darlene to score some drugs, since she was out in Blue Rock Springs Park with a man who wasn’t her husband, something she was known to do by everyone (according to the police report).

Unless, of course, she went to BRS with Mike to score Leo the weed. Which is precisely what he claims.

The reason I go with Leo being the originator of the calls is that it provides an explanation not just for the calls, but for Darlene and Mike’s presence at BRS. They clearly were not there for a romantic liaison.

But hey, for those who don’t go for Leo as the caller, another possibility that was going through my head last night was that the calls were made by some nameless paramour of Darlene’s. She had many admirers, a number of whom may very well have been creeps.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:48 pm

Police almost always make death notifications to immediate family in person. Every effort is made to make notification in person. I am not saying a phone notification has never happened anytime anywhere. I can say I have never seen it happen in murder and death cases I was involved in.

Also why would the police call and then heavy breathe?

We will never know what happened for sure. But for me, the evidence points to Zodiac probably being the caller.

What practical difference it makes at this point I don’t know. There are good arguments on both sides.

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:12 pm

I don’t recall the police reports saying there was any heavy breathing, just that Dean’s parents could hear breathing. Am I mistaken on that?

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:16 pm

Ok, I see the parents reported "deep breathing." Sometimes it is hard for me to keep straight what the reports said vs. what Graysmith and others have said over the years.

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:58 pm

Police almost always make death notifications to immediate family in person. Every effort is made to make notification in person. I am not saying a phone notification has never happened anytime anywhere. I can say I have never seen it happen in murder and death cases I was involved in.

Also why would the police call and then heavy breathe?

We will never know what happened for sure. But for me, the evidence points to Zodiac probably being the caller.

What practical difference it makes at this point I don’t know. There are good arguments on both sides.

I wasn’t saying that the death notification was attempted by phone only that perhaps the police called the home just to find out if anyone was there before sending an officer out to tell Dean that Darlene had been shot. The officer that did go to the home told Dean that Darlene has been shot but not that she was dead. The death notification took place at the police department once Dean and Bill Leigh arrived according to the police report.

I’m guessing police personnel was stretched pretty thin by that point. It was graveyard shift, people who were off duty needed to be called in, officers had two victims to deal with concerning notification (Mageau’s father was at a motel not at home), there was plenty of forensics work to be done and Vallejo was a small city department with not a great amount of personnel to begin with.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:06 am

SEAGULL: "I wasn’t saying that the death notification was attempted by phone only that perhaps the police called the home just to find out if anyone was there before sending an officer out to tell Dean that Darlene had been shot."

AKWILKS: Maybe. I was not there. But why didn’t the police say anything? Why didn’t they ask for anyone? Why just heavy breathe? I can’t say it did not happen, but I have never seen anything like that happen. The police don’t make late night calls and heavy breathe and hang up. Who knows for sure but I doubt it and that is not what I have seen. They just send someone to the house, if at all possible.

I think its a moot point. There is some evidence to suggest Zodiac made the calls, there is some evidence for other theories.

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:24 am

Ak I can not say for sure why there was heavy breathing. Maybe the officer who called held the mouthpiece of the receiver away from his mouth and up by his nose so it sounded like heavy breathing. Who knows? They had to be busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest that night and maybe did not have a man to spare to go out to Dean’s house if nobody was home. I imagine that locating Mageau’s father was taking up some manpower, too.

Maybe you have never heard of police making a call like that because you’ve never thought to ask an officer if something like that would have been done. What would have the officer on the phone have said to Dean anyway, stay there because we have another officer coming out to tell you something?

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:35 am

Ak I can not say for sure why there was heavy breathing. Maybe the officer who called held the mouthpiece of the receiver away from his mouth and up by his nose so it sounded like heavy breathing. Who knows? They had to be busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest that night and maybe did not have a man to spare to go out to Dean’s house if nobody was home. I imagine that locating Mageau’s father was taking up some manpower, too.

Maybe you have never heard of police making a call like that because you’ve never thought to ask an officer if something like that would have been done. What would have the officer on the phone have said to Dean anyway, stay there because we have another officer coming out to tell you something?

It would probably be easier for an officer to stop at the house then go to the station and phone. And protocol is you notify immediate family members of death in person.

I don’t have to ask the officer because I get the police reports. And I do ask family members of victims how they first found out of a death. All I can say is that I have never seen or heard about a phone notification of death, or a phone call prior to police arriving. Not saying it has never happened anywhere. I just doubt the police would call, and if they did call, they would ask a question, not heavy breathe and hang up. Just my opinion.

Now when my dad died, I did get a phone call, but that was his landlord, who just told me "Your dad is on the floor and we think he is dead". Not Mr. Sensitivity. I told them to call the police. When I got there police at the scene told me he was dead. I still questioned it and they let me in the room. He was dead. Then they left it to me to figure out who to call. (EMS refused, Ambulance refused, had to call a funeral home).

With several late night phone calls to different numbers, heavy breathing then hang ups, IMO that is more likely Zodiac than police.

But really, what difference does it make? The evidence is debatable. I have no problem with people being skeptical that it was Zodiac. I think the balance of the evidence points to Zodiac.

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:40 am

AK you seem to think that I am saying that the police were trying to make a phone notification of death. I am not saying that at all. I am saying simply that maybe the police, probably a dispatcher or someone else working the phones, might have called just to see if someone was home before sending an officer out to the house.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:48 am

AK you seem to think that I am saying that the police were trying to make a phone notification of death. I am not saying that at all. I am saying simply that maybe the police, probably a dispatcher or someone else working the phones, might have called just to see if someone was home before sending an officer out to the house.

And maybe they did. I am just saying I have never seen that. And if it did happen, I question why the police would not ask a question. Why they would call, heavy breathe, and hang up.

I am saying that in my experience the police do not call a home to see if someone answers the phone, then hang up. They just send an officer to the house to do a death notification.

I understand you feel differently and that’s fine. We will never know for sure. And I really don’t think its a crucial point either way. The evidence is debatable.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 2:44 am

We’re all just talkin’ here. I don’t think any of our comments are going to suddenly solve the case.

The police report, in regards to the calls to Dean’s house,just say there was "no answer on the other end". They don’t say someone called there twice breathing heavy.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR19.html

Whoever called didn’t say anything. They called back and didn’t say anything. Sinister or someone hoping Darlene would answer?

tracers, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:37 am

Tahoe27: Please speak for yourself.

Instead of saying:

"We’re all just talkin’ here. I don’t think any of our comments are going to suddenly solve the case."

Instead, say:

"I am just talkin’ here. I don’t think any of MY comments are going to suddenly solve the case."

That’s more polite, and frankly, less rude. Please don’t make assumptions about other people’s investigative abilities.

I was aware of Tom’s original archived board in 1998, and I never felt the urge to post there, mainly because I thought what I was doing was serious (e. g., contacting SLTPD and SFPD about a possible GPR scan in December 2000), and what that board was doing was more "just talkin’". And that group of posters was pretty serious: Doug Oswell, Mike Butterfield, Ed Neil, Bill Baker, Jake Wark, et al..

I didn’t start posting on this board and on Tom’s board until several Zodiac message boards had begun talking about my research in 2009/2010 (ZodiacZee, ZKF, OPORD, and ZKS). I joined the two boards I joined out of curiosity, and the expectation that case experts might be the best audience for what I was saying, and could correct any errors of fact and logic I made (not that I expected to hear about any), and out of a sense of duty to answer any questions they might have.

I have, generally speaking, been disappointed in the level of feedback I’ve received. To cite just one example, I’ve been told that the poster who calls himself ‘Aquiman’ on the ZKF board actually has a master’s degree, is a computer expert, and does failure analysis at a top research university. Well, you couldn’t tell all that by his posts about me. With the exception of a single post taking issue with an aspect of Morse/binary, he has limited himself to personal insults and snarky remarks, and has sent me emails asking why I don’t get down on my knees and beg the forgiveness of my suspects. If my suspects know I’m wrong, they can bring me to my knees legally without my cooperation, and without much time, money, and energy spent. Instead, they choose to write long op-ed pieces in national journals on the subject (without mentioning or alluding to me, of course), and post on a blog that doesn’t feature a real person’s name, and send emails to Zodiac message boards through a maze of third party intermediates.

Sorry, I’m not getting down on my knees for that. Katy Perry has nothing to worry about.

Every administrator of every Zodiac message board has asked me to post material and join the discussion (including WebSleuths, who sent me a long email asking about my theory in detail). Mike Butterfield hasn’t, but Mike knew who I was in 1999, and was apparently waiting for me to surface (as suggested by his long post on February 6, 2010 on the Harry Martin Is At It Again! thread on ZKF). I dispatched Butterfield to the web-hosting complex in Central America in January 2012, and he hasn’t been heard from since.

I currently have six Zodiac websites: TZMS, Zodiac Killer Circumstantial, Zodiac Killer Cryptographic, Zodiac Killer Eyewitness, Zodiac Killer Forensic, and Zodiac Killer Timeline. Four of the six are offline because I want to have a couple articles up on each site before publishing. I have subdivided what I do because my experience on ZKT has told me that’s what was needed. People need a place where they can go and only read about the forensic or eyewitness analysis, otherwise they will tend to dismiss whole areas of the conventional research, or at least not take them seriously. The Zodiac case is the most complicated criminal investigation in history, very comparable in detail to much larger events like September 11th (though obviously less compressed in time), and it deserves a very thorough analysis.

What I have said before, I will say again: investigators have not looked closely enough at the available conventional evidence. I didn’t start doing that myself until two years ago, since I was preoccupied with the cryptographic angle. The remarks on this board about the forensic documents in the Cheri Bates case are a demonstration of the lack of insight into very basic questions, and if I’m going to continue to post here, I will be addressing many of those issues.

In any case, I assure you I am NOT "just talkin’". I’ve put my name, face, and everything else on the line to back up what I say.

Ray, I don’t know about anyone else, but I am getting weary of you derailing threads with comments that are off topic. If you take personal offense to what someone has posted, why don’t you just take the issue to a private message? If you have comments you want to make about the level of discourse and feedback you have encountered on the boards, etc., perhaps you could start a thread about that in another more appropriate section of the board?

As for Tahoe’s comment that we are all just talking here, I assume that was in response to AK’s comment that whether or not Zodiac made the two calls to Dean and the one call to his parents was a moot issue since knowing the answer would not solve the case. I believe she was basically saying, "Knowing whether or not Zodiac made the calls won’t solve the case, but some of us like to explore and debate the issue nonetheless." There are a number of things that get discussed at length that, if resolved, would not solve the case, but some of us are interested in them nonetheless and enjoy giving our thoughts and hearing what others have to say.

Of course, I could be wrong in my assumption about what Tahoe meant, but once she wakes up and reads the board, I am sure she will elucidate us.

bayarea60s, Subject: The phone call Sat Mar 30, 2013 7:27 am

I think from what the Ferrins were telling police is someone called around 1:30am, seemed to be letting them know how angry they were. It could have been an innocent wrong number, but I highly doubt it. The party at Dean’s? I wonder if there was any problem there that night. if someone left pissed off? But then why call Dean’s parents house? And if in fact it was the killer, then I would think Darlene would be more the victim, and the Ferrin’s the target. Do something that would hurt them. I’m sure all this stuff was vetted out by VPD…
We have the police reports, we have 0 about the investigation. Who they spoke with, what was said what VPD did in the follow up, etc…..Maybe at the end of their investigation, they said we have 4 murder sites. all the other victim’s seem to live a squared away life, except perhaps the 2 at BRS, but given the environment, and the times it’s not uncommon to run into families that have multiple issues. And so, these 2 people at BRS were vicitim’s just like the rest of the victim’s, and had no prior involvement with the Zodiac. That the Zodiac picked them out as he did all the other’s.
All the stories around Darlene and this mystery man, I don’t know. I know the Bay Area had a serial killer who attacked at least 4 times, but went beyond that. He was unique, he taunted the police to catch him. that just doesn’t add up to one of the victim’s he would know, pretty well too. Well enough to stalk out her house, but no one ever took down the license #, but he wouldn’t know that. He comes to a party at Darlene’s house, she shares she saw this guy murder someone. and she doesn’t come forward to LE with that info? Nice….Real nice….But again she shares this story, no name of course, no further questioning from her sibs about this guy, just welcomes him in, putting her sibs and friends at risk without a care. It just doesn’t add up. And from Z’s perspective would be downright stupid. How would he know Darlene never shared his name? I don’t think Zodiac was even remotely that stupid.
I frimly believe Z was a stalker of sorts, but on his terms, and in a way that no one would ever be able to figure out his madness, his trigger points, what set him off.

sandy betts, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 2:42 pm

Well put BA60’s.
I think that assuming the unknown man in the picture with Darlene is Zodiac or someone affiliated with him, is one huge leap ! If that is the case, then we should also assume that the other men in pictures with Darlene could also be the Zodiac. Most people have excepted the man in that picture as being Jim Phillips. The cousin who found that picture ,may never have met Jim Phillips, after all he wasn’t with her for very long. She could have met Dean Ferrin at some point, there for confusing him for Darlene’s husband.
When Jim Phillips was arrested ( 1970 Fairfield I think ? ) he was measured at 5ft 9 in tall, making him tall enough to be the man in that picture. I am very sure than when a person is arrested, he has his picture taken along with height and weight, color of hair and eyes, finger prints.
The phone calls that were made July 5th 69 were to taunt the people who answered the phone is my belief. Proving that Leo was arrested that night before those calls were made, shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 2:50 pm

Proving that Leo was arrested that night before those calls were made, shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Do you know if juvenile records are disclosed? Maybe under certain circumstances?

Seagull, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 3:37 pm

Proving that Leo was arrested that night before those calls were made, shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Do you know if juvenile records are disclosed? Maybe under certain circumstances?

The records probably no longer exist and even if they did they would be sealed because it’s a juvenile record. Even LE would need to go to court to have juvenile records unsealed.

What might be possible is to look in the newspaper of the town where the robbery supposedly took place and see if there were any liquor store (or whatever Leo was thought to have robbed) robberies that night. Might not tell you who was involved specifically but at least you’d know if a robbery took place or not.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 4:20 pm

We’re making assumptions about what the word ‘assumptions’ means here.

Here’s a correct use of that word:

1: “Since the Zodiac called three people named FERRIN, he was demonstrating that he knew his victim’s name.”

2: “You’re assuming that the Zodiac made those calls.”

As I said earlier, while I created this thread with the possibility of the caller being Zodiac, and welcome debate on that point, the main issue I wanted to focus on in this post was why did the police seemingly dismiss the calls out of hand as being related to the death of Darlene without even investigating the calls and where they were made from?

Theforeigner, Subject: Re: Anonymous Phone Calls to Dean Ferrin & His Family Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:22 pm

Tahoe27: Please speak for yourself.

Instead of saying:

"We’re all just talkin’ here. I don’t think any of our comments are going to suddenly solve the case."

Instead, say:

"I am just talkin’ here. I don’t think any of MY comments are going to suddenly solve the case."

That’s more polite, and frankly, less rude. Please don’t make assumptions about other people’s investigative abilities.

I was aware of Tom’s original archived board in 1998, and I never felt the urge to post there, mainly because I thought what I was doing was serious (e. g., contacting SLTPD and SFPD about a possible GPR scan in December 2000), and what that board was doing was more "just talkin’". And that group of posters was pretty serious: Doug Oswell, Mike Butterfield, Ed Neil, Bill Baker, Jake Wark, et al..

I didn’t start posting on this board and on Tom’s board until several Zodiac message boards had begun talking about my research in 2009/2010 (ZodiacZee, ZKF, OPORD, and ZKS). I joined the two boards I joined out of curiosity, and the expectation that case experts might be the best audience for what I was saying, and could correct any errors of fact and logic I made (not that I expected to hear about any), and out of a sense of duty to answer any questions they might have.

I have, generally speaking, been disappointed in the level of feedback I’ve received. To cite just one example, I’ve been told that the poster who calls himself ‘Aquiman’ on the ZKF board actually has a master’s degree, is a computer expert, and does failure analysis at a top research university. Well, you couldn’t tell all that by his posts about me. With the exception of a single post taking issue with an aspect of Morse/binary, he has limited himself to personal insults and snarky remarks, and has sent me emails asking why I don’t get down on my knees and beg the forgiveness of my suspects. If my suspects know I’m wrong, they can bring me to my knees legally without my cooperation, and without much time, money, and energy spent. Instead, they choose to write long op-ed pieces in national journals on the subject (without mentioning or alluding to me, of course), and post on a blog that doesn’t feature a real person’s name, and send emails to Zodiac message boards through a maze of third party intermediates.

Sorry, I’m not getting down on my knees for that. Katy Perry has nothing to worry about.

Every administrator of every Zodiac message board has asked me to post material and join the discussion (including WebSleuths, who sent me a long email asking about my theory in detail). Mike Butterfield hasn’t, but Mike knew who I was in 1999, and was apparently waiting for me to surface (as suggested by his long post on February 6, 2010 on the Harry Martin Is At It Again! thread on ZKF). I dispatched Butterfield to the web-hosting complex in Central America in January 2012, and he hasn’t been heard from since.

I currently have six Zodiac websites: TZMS, Zodiac Killer Circumstantial, Zodiac Killer Cryptographic, Zodiac Killer Eyewitness, Zodiac Killer Forensic, and Zodiac Killer Timeline. Four of the six are offline because I want to have a couple articles up on each site before publishing. I have subdivided what I do because my experience on ZKT has told me that’s what was needed. People need a place where they can go and only read about the forensic or eyewitness analysis, otherwise they will tend to dismiss whole areas of the conventional research, or at least not take them seriously. The Zodiac case is the most complicated criminal investigation in history, very comparable in detail to much larger events like September 11th (though obviously less compressed in time), and it deserves a very thorough analysis.

What I have said before, I will say again: investigators have not looked closely enough at the available conventional evidence. I didn’t start doing that myself until two years ago, since I was preoccupied with the cryptographic angle. The remarks on this board about the forensic documents in the Cheri Bates case are a demonstration of the lack of insight into very basic questions, and if I’m going to continue to post here, I will be addressing many of those issues.

In any case, I assure you I am NOT "just talkin’". I’ve put my name, face, and everything else on the line to back up what I say.

Dear RG

In al respect, either your research (that goes for all of us who share our research/POI’s) spure interest among the many other Zodiac reseachers, or it doesn´t, you can not expect or demand people to show interest, it´s that simple IMHO.
If you are not ready to face lack of interest for what you share, don´t share it, don´t make it public.
Share it with LE and/or FBI, if your reseach is indeed convincing, I belive they will be interested.

I wish you, and everyone else, good luck with your Z work, and a Loving Happy Easter :sunny:

Theforeigner

bayarea60s, Subject: Welsh Chappie Sat Mar 30, 2013 9:43 pm

I don’t think we ever get to know exactly what LE did in this case. We only get to review the police reports, the investigation and what LE did is generally kept amongst LE. So they VPD may have very well investigated these calls extensively and found nothing, and then again they may have thought they weren’t much to begin with and didn’t follow up. We just don’t know what they did as far as investigating these calls.

Let’s assume that Leo did claim to be the caller to police, that’s just a claim and no reason at all not to investigate and find evidence for Leo’s claim. I can’t speak for U.S Law Enforcement but I know that if, for example, I was the brother of a murdered girl and I told police in the UK ‘It was me who made them calls’, the police would questions me and take a statement yes, but they would also do checks with the Phone Company to determine weather I was telling the truth or not. The police, i should imagine, would ask me where i made the calls from, and what approximate time. Then, if the phone records match what I am claiming, this would be supporting evidence.

Now some may argue ‘This was in69, they didn’t have technology back then such as we have available today.’ This argument, while true in general, is not an argument for this specific instance because i’m sure that, even bk in 1969, they could go back and find out where the calls were made from by contacting the phone companies.

Assuming that the Zodiac is responsible for calling Dean’s parents and assuming zodiac killed Cheri Jo Bates (and sent the letter to her father), has anyone looked into any possible connections between Dean’s father and Cheri’s father? Maybe zodiac knew both of them somehow? I’m not much of an internet investigator but it appears that Dean’s father worked at Mare Island and Cheri’s dad worked for military related companies dealing mostly with airplanes. <—I could be wrong on those, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

When I heard that father of CJB was in military research, I actually thought about this possibility as well..

QT

http://www.p47pilots.com/P47-Pilots.cfm … C.%20Bates

Joseph C. Bates

Picture of Joseph Bates JOSEPH C. BATES was born December 13, 1919 in Brooklyn, N.Y. Attended New York City schools. Joined Republic Aircraft in 1939 as Machinist and Lead Man.

Shortly thereafter transferred to Field Service Div. under Erwin Hoenes, as a Tech Rep, working with Ed Bigelow, George Dade and many other great guys, to provide pilots transferring to the P-47 from trainers, flying hours, instructing crew chiefs and airforce personnel on use and maintenance of P-47 (there are no bad airplanes, only bad maintenance!).

Traveled wherever service was needed: was at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. during the time Jimmy Doolittle was training the pilots to take off carriers for the Tokyo Raid; also the testing of the installation of the 75mm cannon in the B-25 Mitchell’s; serviced planes at Westover Field, LaGuardia Airport, N.Y., Grennier Field, N.H.; Millville, N.J;; Richmond Army Air Base, Seymour Johnson Air Base, N.C.; Pocatella, Idaho; Cross City, Fla.; Ainsworth, Nebraska.

Also served in the Infantry during the Bulge; after service, went to Omaha, Nebraska.SAC Headquarters under Gen. LeMay; then to Motorola Research Electronic Warfare Div., Calif.; X.15 Recovery Program; Edwards AFB; Research of Standard Arm Missiles at Corona Naval Ordnance Lab, Corona, CA; now at Naval Weapons Station, Seal Beach, CA in Ordnance Systems Component Rework, and radar detection systems and fire control. Has son living in San Diego, CA.

Thanks Stitch.

You’re welcome Buckwheat.

Here’s how I look at it. Even though there are several different options given on this thread as to who made the calls & why, the bottom line is, it’s either one more of the outrageous coincidences of the case, or it isn’t. Please give me a second to explain….

There are those on this site, and people in general, that demand physical and undeniable proof/evidence before they will even consider accepting what appears very likely to be true. Nothing wrong in that at all. These are the sceptics – the ‘type who will say "Yes, it appears in all likelihood that that is the case, but without solid proof, I won’t accept it." That stance I can totally understand. However, I don’t understand, and maybe this is just me, people who not only won’t accept the most likely and probable answer, but go way out of their way to claim it could be, or more likely is, some other possibility. This, to me, flies in the face of reason, logic and probability. We have two basic options when it comes down to it here.

1. The calls were made by a 3rd party who was completely unaware of Darlene’s death an hour prior and they just so happened to pick the one time of the one day in the one month of the one year to make malicious phone call’s to Dean and his parents when his wife, unbeknown to the caller, has just been murdered. Fantastic coincidence with odd’s that are staggering. Or…

2. The call was made in direct relation to Darlene murder, by a caller who had either committed the crime, or had knowledge of it.

There’s been lots of debate about the calls being placed to ‘Ferrin’ residences and none to Sunnen, De’s parents name’s. The speculation is that this was down to the shooter knowing De as Ferrin only, and the Sunnen phone No. being unlisted. Could be. Or it could be that the offender was far more familiar with Dean & his family, than he was with De’s. Dean may even have been the main target, and by that I mean, there is nothing more painful than to take away what mean’s everything to you

I honestly don’t get It lol:

Man A: "Oh look, there’s a goldfish in that tank"

Man B: "Do you have any evidence to prove that little gold fish is actually a goldfish? I’m afraid that is just your opinion of what it appears to be, I am going to have to insist on seeing some DNA."

I honestly don’t get It lol:

Man A: "Oh look, there’s a goldfish in that tank"

Man B: "Do you have any evidence to prove that little gold fish is actually a goldfish? I’m afraid that is just your opinion of what it appears to be, I am going to have to insist on seeing some DNA."

That phone call is not quite that obvious though. If only the caller had said something…

I honestly don’t get It lol:

Man A: "Oh look, there’s a goldfish in that tank"

Man B: "Do you have any evidence to prove that little gold fish is actually a goldfish? I’m afraid that is just your opinion of what it appears to be, I am going to have to insist on seeing some DNA."

That phone call is not quite that obvious though. If only the caller had said something…

I agree, there is nothing said down the phone, no ‘monotone’ to speak of hearing etc, but I just think that to dismiss the most obvious and likely explanation, to replace it with a claim that it is more likely to be a police officer calling to see if any ones home before he drives round the corner to see Dean, and when the Officer does get an answer on the line the other end, breathes for a few seconds down the line wondering what to do, before deciding to then hang up, is absolutely ludicrous! Lol.