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.

I don’t think it’s ever been reported that a shabbily dressed black man saw Z at the phonebooth. So, Z either mentioned it and it was true, or he made it up. Why would he volunteer that info? It could only lead to a witness against himself,so personally, I think he likely made it up. If you believe Fouke, he definitely made up the part about being stopped by Fouke & Zelms after the Stine killing.

Yes, he probably made it up but maybe it was true. Did LE ever try to find the shabbily dressed man? If existent, he probably got a better look at the Z than anybody.

There was an incident in Vallejo that tends to lean towards Vallejo having checked out leads about a "shabbily dressed Negro", though I can’t say for sure if it was done.

November 1969 a Black man, Raphael Norbert Colar, was senselessly shot and killed in Vallejo. This murder was questioned as a possible Zodiac murder. An article appeared in the November 26, 1969 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle about the murder and the possible connection to Zodiac. Paul Avery wrote the article. As far as I know the murder is still unsolved.

You can read it here-

http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=110&t=1193

Scroll down to November 26th 1969, the article is titled "A Zodiac-Like Ambush".

Long time poster The Foreigner started a thread on the Colar murder at TomV’s, questioning whether or not Colar might have been the "shabbily dressed Negro" that Zodiac was referring to in his letter. I’m pretty sure she also made the same post at our old forum but I can’t find it.

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/4 … o6w2-lIiM8

You would think if he was the shabbily dressed negro he would have told somebody about it—-then if he got killed his confidant would go to the cops. Also, for what it’s worth, he’s not shabbily dressed in that newspaper photo. He has a tie on.

Sometimes I dress nicely and sometimes I don’t…

Probably not the guy, but I think the point was it looks like the cops looked into it.

You would think if he was the shabbily dressed negro he would have told somebody about it—-then if he got killed his confidant would go to the cops. Also, for what it’s worth, he’s not shabbily dressed in that newspaper photo. He has a tie on.

If you noticed the caption on the image of Colar in the SF Chronicle article it says that it is a painting of Colar. I don’t know of many people who would sit for a portrait of themselves shabbily dressed. Just because the picture of Colar shows him to be nicely dressed doesn’t mean that he dressed like that all the time.

Zodiac’s victims at the time the letter mentioning the Shabbily Dressed Negro was written had been two young white middle class couples. He went on to attack another young white middle class couple and Paul Stine who was also white, under 30 years old and middle class. Ralph Colar was 56 years old and black. There would have been no reason to connect him to Zodiac and investigate the murder as possibly having been committed by Zodiac save for the fact that a Shabbily Dressed Negro was mentioned in his August 1969 letter to the San Francisco Examiner.

Yeah, he probably made up the shabbily dressed negro to throw the cops on a wild goose chase. There’s no evidence that the black seaman who got killed was waiting for the pay phone behind the Z. He left the phone just hanging there, though, is that correct? Instead of hanging it up properly. Why?

Yeah, he probably made up the shabbily dressed negro to throw the cops on a wild goose chase. There’s no evidence that the black seaman who got killed was waiting for the pay phone behind the Z. He left the phone just hanging there, though, is that correct? Instead of hanging it up properly. Why?

The Zodiac hung up the receiver at BRS "When I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car."
He learnt from this mistake at Napa, where he left the receiver off the hook.

Notice the emphasis on revealing the color of his car: "The man who told police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45 rather shabbly dressed. I was in this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cop when he was walking by. When I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car."
There was no need to mention this and his final line could easily have read "the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me." The over emphasis on drawing attention to his car may simply have been a ruse to disguise the fact he was on foot, having already driven home and returned ‘car-less’ to the payphone, in an attempt to not reveal he lived close by.

Yeah, he probably made up the shabbily dressed negro to throw the cops on a wild goose chase. There’s no evidence that the black seaman who got killed was waiting for the pay phone behind the Z. He left the phone just hanging there, though, is that correct? Instead of hanging it up properly. Why?

The Zodiac hung up the receiver at BRS "When I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car."
He learnt from this mistake at Napa, where he left the receiver off the hook.

Notice the emphasis on revealing the color of his car: "The man who told police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45 rather shabbly dressed. I was in this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cop when he was walking by. When I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car."
There was no need to mention this and his final line could easily have read "the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me." The over emphasis on drawing attention to his car may simply have been a ruse to disguise the fact he was on foot, having already driven home and returned ‘car-less’ to the payphone, in an attempt to not reveal he lived close by.

Good point, or maybe his car was white, or maybe it was a white girl that saw him, or nobody at all.

Right, he obviously would not have revealed the true color of his car. But this was one of his earlier letters, so LE didn’t know yet who they were dealing with. They might have wasted time checking out all brown cars and all shabbily dressed negroes as well.

I thought there was a third-party confirmation of this shabbily dressed negro coming forward. No?

I thought there was a third-party confirmation of this shabbily dressed negro coming forward. No?

Think he even came up by himself..somewhere from the police report, if I do remember correctly.

QT

Ok, so assuming this witness exists, Z didn’t walk to the phone booth, he drove. This implies that he didn’t live super close. If this is the case, then for me it makes the time gap even more intriguing. Z using the time to go home, and then walking over to make the call, would be a very plausible reason for the gap of time. I would think that if he did indeed go home following the attack, and lived close enough to the phone booth to walk there, he would choose to walk not drive. Obviously this is built on assumptions, but food for thought.

Bens….

Since we don’t know where Z went during his 40 minute break, we can’t really say it even implies he didn’t live close by. He just might not have gone home first. It for sure is a mystery to all of us, he could have gone anywhere within 20 minutes of the phone booth and then driven to the booth to make his call. Just no tellin what he did in that timeframe…..

The reason this black male doesn’t appear in any of the police reports is totally logical from a witness protection standpoint, fearing possibly the Zodiac may return to the area for retribution.

I’m not sure this makes sense given that we’re talking about internal reports. He doesn’t appear in any of those – unless there are parts we haven’t seen.

At 12:47 AM Mrs Johnson PT&T operator called. The above call was traced to a coin operated telephone at Joe’s Union, Tuolumne and Springs Road. The call was traced by Betty MAIN whose supervisor would not allow her to make a statement at this time…

Let’s say you’re right: It would’ve been technically impossible for them to actually trace the call. And the reason why they knew precisely where he had called from, is that there was a witness (the shabbly dressed negro) who overheard him. I can buy that, as such, not least if it can be demonstrated that it was technically impossible to trace the call.

But I don’t see any logical reason why they would think it necessary to include the above (fictional, blatantly untrue) detail in an internal report.

And I find it difficult to believe that we wouldn’t have had a somewhat definite description of the car our UNSUB was driving released to the public along with ,quite possibly, another sketch. Guess the phone rang and later on he assumed a BM that was nearby had reported it and that that was how they found the location of the phone