This crime scene was so poorly handled.

For instance, one report had James Owen heading home from work, while another had him enroute to work. One report had him leaving his home at 10:55 pm, while another had him leaving at 11:00 pm (he checked his cuckoo clock)…also they noted that his clock was 5 minutes fast. So, if that’s the case, and we go with his report that he left home at 10:55 (and his clock is 5 minutes fast), that would mean he actually left at 10:50 pm. It takes 19 minutes to drive from his house to the crime scene…which would NOW put him at the scene at around the 11:09 time frame, approximately 3 to 5 minutes after Gasser had passed the scene, and plenty of time to do the killing before Stella Borges comes along and finds the victims on the ground at approximately 11:15 pm.

So due to time discrepancies from 3 different witnesses, it looks to me like the Yours probably went by the scene heading back towards Benicia at 11:00 pm, Gasser around 5 minutes later at 11:05 pm….and then Owen at 11:09 pm.

I find it odd that the Yours and Gasser saw no other vehicles at the scene other than Faradays car…and Owen is the only one that places a car there as he "supposedly" passes by, and as Morf has pointed out, a very "generic" description at that.

The only person that says a car passed him going in the opposite direction (towards Vallejo) is also Owen. Wouldn’t the Yours or Gasser have also seen this car further up the road on their way towards Benicia?

LE takes Owens word for it that his co-worker decided not to drive thru Lake Herman Rd that night on his way to work.

Another oddity I find is that he "supposedly" heard a gunshot after he had traveled 1/4 mile or so away. That sounds odd to me for several reasons. 1) It’s 22 degrees out, so the probability is very high that he had his windows up due to it being that cold out. 2) He had his radio on low..but I’m assuming loud enough that you could hear the music or whatever was being broadcast without having to strain to hear it. 3) Older vehicles weren’t as insulated as they are today, so road noise would have also been a factor, as well as the sound of your engine. 4) .22 caliber weapons typically aren’t that loud. That just sounds fishy to me.

And the other point that’s always puzzled me, and was brought up as well earlier. Betty Lou is running for her life towards the road. Forward momentum from running or even a very fast walk, plus the fact that you are being shot from behind…you’d expect her to fall forward with her head towards the road, not with her head facing back towards the vehicle. Falling forward would also account for the blood on her face (she likely bloodied her nose from the fall forward).

From the reports I’ve read, (and in my opinion, are a complete disaster of LE reports), Owen is your likely suspect in that case. He’s the one with so many conflicts and holes in his story.

How come he let them out of the car at all?

He’s using a .22 caliber pistol. Great for hunting small game…not so great for shooting thru glass and killing people.

It took 5 shots to the back with nothing impeding the bullets to bring Betty Lou down…and 1 shot at point blank range to the head to bring David down.

In other words, shooting thru a window with that small caliber of a weapon, and really inflicting damage to the point of death is very very difficult to do, whereas if you have them out of the car, with nothing in between, the likelihood of a kill is much more realistic.

xEnigm4x ,

Again, welcome to the board. 1st, I DO agree with your conclusion that Owen is a logical suspect in this case. You mentioned that the reports state that Owen was both coming & going to work. That was always confusing to everybody and it wasn’t until about 4 years ago or so when I started looking at all the people on Lake Herman Rd that night under a magnifying glass, and realized, that Owen was giving his statement to police at 8:15 am on his way home FROM work, and that he had witnessed the crime scene, the night before on his way TO work. Up until then, things were confusing thanks to the way the report was badly written, but none of the reports mentions Owen driving hom from work when he seen the 2nd car,it was pure confusion. It was so confusing that I had to correct Author, Robert Graysmith, who wrote in his book ZOdiac, that Owen was on his way home from Humble Oil. It was easy to understand why he would make that mistake based on the confusing way in which the report was written.

xEnigm4x ,

Again, welcome to the board. 1st, I DO agree with your conclusion that Owen is a logical suspect in this case. You mentioned that the reports state that Owen was both coming & going to work. That was always confusing to everybody and it wasn’t until about 4 years ago or so when I started looking at all the people on Lake Herman Rd that night under a magnifying glass, and realized, that Owen was giving his statement to police at 8:15 am on his way home FROM work, and that he had witnessed the crime scene, the night before on his way TO work. Up until then, things were confusing thanks to the way the report was badly written, but none of the reports mentions Owen driving hom from work when he seen the 2nd car,it was pure confusion. It was so confusing that I had to correct Author, Robert Graysmith, who wrote in his book ZOdiac, that Owen was on his way home from Humble Oil. It was easy to understand why he would make that mistake based on the confusing way in which the report was written.

Very confusing indeed. I just went back and looked at it again, and I see now what you are talking about.

Still though, him being the very last person to report coming across the crime scene before the bodies are found by Stella Borges, and the fact that his stories have so many other holes in them, to me, would garner way more looking into by the LE than they did on him in my opinion.

Let’s look at his first report @ 8:15am on the 21st. These are when his facts should have been the most accurate and still fresh in his mind.

1) He states he left the house at 10:55pm (19 minutes would put him at the scene at 11:14pm)
2) He gives a reasonable description of Faradays car, the years are off a bit, but a station wagon, boxy type, and neutral colors
3) He says he can’t make out the description of the other car or even its color (even though at this point he’s saying it’s about 10 feet away), which is still a relatively close distance.
4) No mention of hearing what he thought might have been a shot fired.
5) No mention of another car passing him along the way going towards Vallejo.
5a) Either he wasn’t asked or he never told at this time about occupants of either vehicle (whether he could see anyone in or around the cars)

Now let’s look at his report @ 12:20pm on the 24th (3 days later)

1) This time he left the house at 11:00pm (19 minutes would put him at the scene at 11:19pm)
2) Just before reaching the scene another car passed him (going in the opposite direction towards Vallejo) near the Borges ranch.
3) This time he remembers seeing the cars, but they were only 3 to 4 apart not 10 feet as stated previously and still no description of the "other" car.
4) This time he states he saw no occupants in or around the cars.
5) This time he remembers that once he’d gotten about a 1/4 mile beyond the scene, he thought he may have heard a gunshot even though we have to assume that his windows were rolled up and his radio was on low.

Now lets look at the synopsis:

Mr. Owen gives a very generic description of the other car, saying it was dark, lacking in chrome and very close and to the right of the victims car and says he didn’t see any persons or activity around either car.

Now lets just say you are Mr. Owen and you’ve already given one statement the morning after the killing took place. You’ve told LE that you left the house at 10:55pm, and they come to the conclusion that it takes 19 minutes to get to the crime scene from his home. That would have LE thinking he arrived at the scene at 11:14pm.

Well you can’t have that. How could both witnesses arrive at the scene at nearly the same exact time, yet you see 2 cars and no bodies, but Stella Borges sees 1 car and 2 dead or dying bodies?

Next statement you give LE’s is that you left your house at 11:00 pm, which would put you at the scene at 11:19pm. You see 2 cars and no bodies.
Well, that’s strange isn’t it, that 4-5 minutes AFTER Stella Borges has seen only 1 car and 2 dead or dying bodies, you see 2 cars and no bodies at all?
Oh ok, I see, it’s a mistake. LE’s have discovered that your clock is 5 minutes fast, which puts you back at the 11:14pm time frame.
But hmm, there we are again, both of you arriving at nearly the same time and seeing 2 different things, and you also see a car heading towards Vallejo, and Stella Borges saw no vehicles going in either direction?

Truth be known, his first time was accurate (the 10:55pm statement, with a 5 minute adjustment for his clock being fast, really making it 10:50pm)
That would put him at the scene at 11:09 pm and with 5 or 6 minutes to spare to do the killing and get out of there, before Stella Borges comes along.

That 5 minute discrepancy is one VERY LARGE discrepancy when you’re trying to get away with murder and you were the last person to have been thru the area before the bodies were found.

Why LE’s didn’t investigate him more, I’ll never know.

You are assuming Stella’s times are accurate.

You are assuming Stella’s times are accurate.

Yes, I am, give or take a minute or so.

If we go by her statement, it adds up. She comes across the scene at approximately 11:14/11:15pm. She races (60-70 mph) into Benicia trying to flag down LE’s. She states she passed no other cars. So that shows the killer had left several minutes before she arrived, otherwise she would have overtaken them on the road at her high rate of speed. At approximately 4 to 5 minutes after leaving the scene, she flags down Pitta and Warner north of I-680 in Benicia.

December 20, 1968 approximately 11:19pm PST Stella Borges flags down two Benecia police officers just north of Interstate 680. Captain Daniel Pitta and Officer William T. Warner immediately proceed to the scene no later than 11:22pm PST.

She finds them at approximately 11:19/11:20pm, takes a minute or two to describe what she has seen, and then Pitta and Warner take off toward the scene no later than 11:22pm. Considering what they had heard from her, you’d assume they drove at a high rate of speed to, and would arrive at the scene between 11:26/11:27pm or so and survey the scene, and in just a few minutes they send out word over dispatch of a 187.

Remember LE’s were very concerned with timing. They called to verify everyone’s time, ie; Owens clock being 5 minutes fast, Yours clock being 7 minutes fast, even Borges’ being 1 minute fast…you’d think if they did that, they’d know what time Stella Borges found and reported to THEM about what she’d seen, and what time THEY (LE’s) headed to the scene.

Borges checked her clock,and was confident what time she left her house,and due to the distance from the crime scene,and speed that she drove, she estimated her arrival time. To their credit,police checked her clock and found it 1 minute fast,which means she was at the scene 1 minute sooner than she thought. That would have put here there at the exact same time as Owen,which simply could not be correct. Since she raced from the scene at a high speed,and met the Benicia police at 11:25pm, they raced back to the scene taking 5 minutes to get there,so they assumed that she had taken 5 minutes to get from the crime scene,and that she had been there at 11:20. That’s where the 6 minute window comes from, the established time between Owen passing and Borges finding the bodies. My problem is, if it took 5 minutes for police to get to the scene, couldn’t have taken Borges(not driving a police car)longer to travel the same distance? That would mean that Borges may have passed the scene at 11:18 or 11:19,and that 6 minute window could really be 4-5 minutes. No matter what, Zodiac had to have narrowly escaped without being seen.

Owen was a retired enlisted Air Force man. Is there anyway to get records of what units he was in or where he was stationed? If we could get some pictures of him from back in the 60’s, or even earlier, it would be very helpful.

I know from being in the Army myself, every unit I was ever in, we always took company photos or sometimes platoon photos.

I’ve seen the picture of him on here in his later years, and I must say, the face is strikingly similar to the sketches.

If we go by her statement, it adds up. She comes across the scene at approximately 11:14/11:15pm. She races (60-70 mph) into Benicia trying to flag down LE’s. She states she passed no other cars. So that shows the killer had left several minutes before she arrived, otherwise she would have overtaken them on the road at her high rate of speed.

Please forgive me for jumping in at the end of a thread I’ve incompletely read, but 60-70 mph on that stretch of LHR is easily exceeded by even a moderately proficient driver. I’ve done it more than once. Now, maybe there are other factors of which I’m unaware that argue against a suspect leaving eastbound on LHR closer in time to Mrs. Borges’ departure (my knowledge of the exhaustive details is far less than what most of you know), but the fact that she passed no other vehicles, although somewhat suggestive, is very far from definitive.

Borges checked her clock,and was confident what time she left her house,and due to the distance from the crime scene,and speed that she drove, she estimated her arrival time. To their credit,police checked her clock and found it 1 minute fast,which means she was at the scene 1 minute sooner than she thought. That would have put here there at the exact same time as Owen,which simply could not be correct. Since she raced from the scene at a high speed,and met the Benicia police at 11:25pm, they raced back to the scene taking 5 minutes to get there,so they assumed that she had taken 5 minutes to get from the crime scene,and that she had been there at 11:20. That’s where the 6 minute window comes from, the established time between Owen passing and Borges finding the bodies. My problem is, if it took 5 minutes for police to get to the scene, couldn’t have taken Borges(not driving a police car)longer to travel the same distance? That would mean that Borges may have passed the scene at 11:18 or 11:19,and that 6 minute window could really be 4-5 minutes. No matter what, Zodiac had to have narrowly escaped without being seen.

Also worth noting in this situation, is you have to take into account, once they were told, the LE’s made a bee-line straight to the crime scene (taking 5 minutes) and just assumed it took her 5 minutes to drive from the scene and to find them. That’s not necessarily true. I’d gather she didn’t just get into Benicia and "boom" there they are, I’m sure she had to do at least a little searching to find a police car, which would mean it probably took her LONGER to find them and report what she had seen, than it would have taken them to just drive straight to the scene after she had reported to them.

Owen was a retired enlisted Air Force man. Is there anyway to get records of what units he was in or where he was stationed? If we could get some pictures of him from back in the 60’s, or even earlier, it would be very helpful.

I know from being in the Army myself, every unit I was ever in, we always took company photos or sometimes platoon photos.

I’ve seen the picture of him on here in his later years, and I must say, the face is strikingly similar to the sketches.

Owen told me that he retired out of FE WARREN AFB just prior to moving to Vallejo in 68. I tried to get his military file, but it apparently was destroyed in the great warehouse fire back in the 1970’s that destroyed much of the Air Force records at the time

Well, isn’t that just convenient?

Anyone good at finding out where he was born and went to school? Maybe at least get some pictures of him in his high school days?

Well, isn’t that just convenient?

Anyone good at finding out where he was born and went to school? Maybe at least get some pictures of him in his high school days?

He was from Michigan, but I have not been able to find a high school photo of him.I think he likely graduated around 1948

1948 sounds like a likelihood, seeing as he was retired from the military. If he did 20 years coming right out of high school, that would put him in Vallejo around ’68

I probably won’t have any luck, but I’m going to scour the interwebz to see if I can find any James Owens from Michigan, born around 1930’ish

This is a photo of him from the 1950’s or 60’s(publicly available on the net)