In the police reports a Gordon Arthur XXXXX is mentioned as having dated Darlene. (Gordon Arthur Spence – deceased. thx to morf)
GORDON ARTHUR SPENCE-
Gordon Arthur Spence
15 May 1948-8 Jan 2008 –
Death Newark, Alameda, California, United States of America

Spence was the guy that supposedly got Darlene pregnant while she was married to Dean, or at least Darlene told him she might be pregnant. He was in the navy attending training school in CT. He grew up in the Fremont area. Claims when he came home for leave, he didn’t contact her or have anything to do with her.

—He met Dee in December of ’68 at Terry’s, where she worked.
—They dated one month later
—Went on a few more dates
—Late Jan or early Feb went on a date. Parked at BRS for a short time and brought her home around 1 or 2 am. He went in and met Dean who was painting. Dean was very nice to him.
—Next date a couple of days before he left for Idaho. Met her parents. Darlene wanted to go to Idaho with him. He talked her out of it.
—Darlene told him in a phone call she thought she was pregnant
—In a letter to him she told him she spent some time in the hospital, but didn’t say why…he thought maybe she had had an abortion.
—He decided after that to not to have anything further to do with her.

—Apparently in late August he came home to Fremont on leave from the Naval Nuclear Power School in Idaho and drove to Vallejo to Terry’s to see Darlene and was told by a waitress friend that she had been killed and the police wanted to talk to him. He spoke with them on September 1st.

Here is the link to the Vallejo PD reports interview w/ "Gordon": http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR40.html

Here is a description of Mike and Darlene’s attacker given by Mike at the time:

zodiackiller.com http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR10.html

Per Bobbie Ramos, Darlene’s friend a description of Gordon:

—21, sent to Idaho
—5’10", Husky, Curly Hair
(pg 42–link above)

Bobbie Ramos stated that he was going to send Darlene money so she could move to Idaho and "join him". Of course he said that was not the case and the relationship was more one-sided…on Darlene’s part.

****

Granted lots of guys could be desribed like that and I would like to think they verified this guy’s whereabouts with the school he attened.

It just brought to mind the Touma case from a year or two back. She being pregnant and her boyfriend killing her.

Gordon follow up:

thx to Sandy and Morf for finding the photo. 11/9/12

Just looking at other possibilities. I really think the answers lie in those reports!