Witnesses Bingo Wesher, Robert Connelly and Frank Gasser observed an empty 1959/60 white Chevrolet Impala parked up in the turnout at 9.00 pm. It was a bloody cold night, and this or these person/s may have hopped out to urinate, but there is a very real possibility this was the Zodiac for many reasons. We know that the Zodiac likely targeted areas where victims could be found, in other words he had familiarity with these areas. Lake Herman Road has several options, firstly it has many lovers lane style turnouts along its length, secondly it has Blue Rock Springs Park just a stones throw from it northwest tip and thirdly it has a lake, pretty much exactly the same distance from gate #10 as the distance from his Hartnell’s car to the crime scene at Lake Berryessa. His options were kept open. This unoccupied vehicle makes perfect sense if the Zodiac original intent that night was to go hunting at the Lake on Lake Herman Road. In the Bus Bomb Letter he stated "What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun. If you notice, in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or darck spot in the center of the circle of light about 3 to 6 inches across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike in the center of the black dot in the light. All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose; there was no need to use the gun sights".
This was, if true, totally unnecessary. When he pulled up alongside Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday’s car, a hunting sight was not required, he could have simply stepped out of his vehicle and fired through the window of the Rambler, exactly like he did at Blue Rock Springs Park. A torch would have sufficed. That is unless his original plan that evening was to head to the lake to do a spot of hunting, whereby a sighting implement may have come in more useful and indicated his true intentions that night. On December 20th he was simply scouring the area, his ideal option was the lake, but when this failed he still had the Lake Herman Road turnouts and Blue Rock Springs, it was just by chance that the first two attacks happened in this particular order.
At Lake Berryessa he may well have been scouring the area as well and I don’t mean earlier when spotted by the three young Angwin girls sunbathing. Lake Hennessey is only 17 miles due west of Lake Berryessa and he may have been familiar with the whole area. Lake Hennessey has turnouts, rest areas and fishing exactly like Berryessa and the Zodiac may have trolled this area also. At the end of Sage Canyon Road, past the lake, it hits Rutherford, CA and this is right next to St Helena, where the three teenagers visited the A&W earlier in the day and spotted a silver or light blue Chevrolet 2-door sedan with California plates. He may not have been following them, but could have spent time scouring the lake areas, and we know the Bryan Hartnell/Cecelia Shepard connection to St Helena.