If Z saw the negro, then the negro saw Z. What has the Zodiac to gain by inventing a black man walking by. It serves no purpose. And I don’t want to go off on a tangent but the Stine Report omitted about 40 pages, the police in 69 were less than thorough.
If so we’ll call a truce…till next time
No way! It’s war from now on!
But…yes: You’re right, what I meant was something like that, i.e. the police gave them a version (for whatever reason) which they then printed more or less verbatim.
As for our shabbly dressed friend and the Stine report: Yes, there could be parts of the BRS report we don’t know about. That’s always a possibility.
On a general note: The police in ’69 were less than thorough, I agree 100%.
The papers in ’69 were less than thorough too, which makes our task all the more pesky in 2015.
Now we agree totally …let battle commerce 
If Z saw the negro, then the negro saw Z. What has the Zodiac to gain by inventing a black man walking by. It serves no purpose. And I don’t want to go off on a tangent but the Stine Report omitted about 40 pages, the police in 69 were less than thorough.
Just because we haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Unless I am reading into this wrong. 
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
If Z saw the negro, then the negro saw Z. What has the Zodiac to gain by inventing a black man walking by. It serves no purpose. And I don’t want to go off on a tangent but the Stine Report omitted about 40 pages, the police in 69 were less than thorough.
Just because we haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Unless I am reading into this wrong.
Your bang on they could exist, but they seemed to have no problem rolling out page after page on the other three crimes, it just seems a little off that in Presidio Heights they could only muster 2 lonely pages, yet on this occasion threw numerous photographs at us, that they never managed with the other three crimes combined.
Re: SF reports
All we have is Pelissetti’s initial report.
Biggest case in SFPD history. Of course there’s more. Unless they were roughly about a thousand times as hopeless as some people have claimed. And I really don’t think they were THAT hopeless. They knew how to write reports, like all other cops.
Question is why they haven’t released the material in a similarly sized bulk, compared to the other jurisdictions.
I hope to…someplace, the reports are still extant, and that…no, I won’t even say it.
Most of the reports that have been made available for us have come from retired LE who Tom V and others have cultivated a relationship with. Various LE from the jurisdictions involved apparently saved their working copies of the originals. None of the reports and photos came from detectives that are or were currently working on the case when the material was given to Tom and others.
So, I think this just means that SF put a tighter rein on who had copies of the reports in the first place and they run a tighter ship than the other jurisdictions.
No doubt Seagull. I am surprised we got to see as much as we have! It’s really a remarkable thing. Kudos to Tom V. and others who took the initiative to get these police reports that ultimately should not be available to the public.
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
No doubt Seagull. I am surprised we got to see as much as we have! It’s really a remarkable thing. Kudos to Tom V. and others who took the initiative to get these police reports that ultimately should not be available to the public.
Well I don’t want to sound nasty 
but they aren’t much use in the hands of police, who have ultimately failed to deliver the killer after 47 years and have effectively put the case into deep freeze. I am sure there are cleverer minds outside the police force (well I certainly hope so, else we’re all in trouble) and the Vidocq Society is one, to name but a few. This case needs thawing out, because the minds of the many are better than the minds of the few. The police have suffocated this case for far too long and their hypocrisy in claiming to be serving justice in attempting to solve this case is quite frankly starting to grind. I’m sorry but it had to be said 
When I say "not available to the public" I am meaning "legally".
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
He might well have invented the "shabbily dressed negro." Were there ANY black people living in that town at that time? Not many, I would guess. If there was a negro, shabbily dressed or not, then he got a good view of Z, but this view has never been passed down. Or maybe there was a negro but the cops never found him. If he existed he should have been fairly easy to find due to the scarcity of negroes around there. Maybe the cops never looked, probably assuming the Z was lying in his letter, which came later. The negro could have come forward himself if he read the papers, but maybe he didn’t read the papers, or maybe he did read the papers but was merely passing through town on his was to Minneapolis or someplace, where the Z case was not big news. If he existed, at the time he saw the Z he didn’t know he was the Z, and it’s possible he’s still alive and still doesn’t know he was the Z.
He might well have invented the "shabbily dressed negro." Were there ANY black people living in that town at that time? Not many, I would guess. If there was a negro, shabbily dressed or not, then he got a good view of Z, but this view has never been passed down. Or maybe there was a negro but the cops never found him. If he existed he should have been fairly easy to find due to the scarcity of negroes around there. Maybe the cops never looked, probably assuming the Z was lying in his letter, which came later. The negro could have come forward himself if he read the papers, but maybe he didn’t read the papers, or maybe he did read the papers but was merely passing through town on his was to Minneapolis or someplace, where the Z case was not big news. If he existed, at the time he saw the Z he didn’t know he was the Z, and it’s possible he’s still alive and still doesn’t know he was the Z.
According to the 1970 census figures, the closest I could find to the July 4, 1969 attack date. There were 11,101 black people living in Vallejo at the time. Blacks accounted for 16.6% of the population.
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Vallejo70.htm
I didn’t know there was a sizable black population in Vallejo. Nevertheless, we don’t know if the shabbily dressed fellow was real or non-existent and if the police found him or even looked for him or if he perhaps came forward on his own after reading the paper and if so if he was ignored by the police or not.
I didn’t know there was a sizable black population in Vallejo. Nevertheless, we don’t know if the shabbily dressed fellow was real or non-existent and if the police found him or even looked for him or if he perhaps came forward on his own after reading the paper and if so if he was ignored by the police or not.
We don’t know if a lot of what Zodiac wrote in his letters and cards is true! Nor do we know if LE ignored some potentially important information. It’s easy to sit behind a screen and second guess something that happened 40+ years ago. Digging up facts to go with the speculation takes a little more effort.
Maybe somebody DOES know something about this already. That’s why I bring it up. Is this shabbily dressed negro generally considered real or fictitious? I’m sure somebody has asked the pertinent detectives about this, but I don’t know what answer they got.
