Apparently the gate did sit farther back at the time of the murders.

http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/from_fo … e_zod.html

Thank you very much Seagull ! It looks much larger then than now . If z parked futher in towards the gate , it would be much harder to see his car coming from Vallejo. The crime scene drawing shows that Davids car was not next to the railing , I wonder if he was about to leave when Z stopped him ?

Why I asked was because if the gate was further back that would give Z a place to back into and then drive out straight making it easier to miss BLJ’s body. Looks like that’s the case.

Very interesting pic..it shows that someone might have felt disturbed by a parked Faraday/Jensen car… whose property is it?

QT
(from ‘Kristallhütte’, 2,600m)

Why I asked was because if the gate was further back that would give Z a place to back into and then drive out straight making it easier to miss BLJ’s body. Looks like that’s the case.

While I think that is entirely possible, and a theory of mine is that Zodiac was backed in facing Lake Herman Rd for an easy escape,we have to remember that Owen places Zodiac’s car as facing the gate

Very interesting pic..it shows that someone might have felt disturbed by a parked Faraday/Jensen car… whose property is it?

QT
(from ‘Kristallhütte’, 2,600m)

My guess is that the city of Benicia owned it then and now, that gate leads to the gun range used by BPD and VPD.

Why I asked was because if the gate was further back that would give Z a place to back into and then drive out straight making it easier to miss BLJ’s body. Looks like that’s the case.

Perhaps you are looking at the crime scene drawing and judging the narrow space by that very poor drawing. (It is not to scale), if it was then David’s car was about 28 feet long !
The amount of feet from the bumper to Betty Lous body is probably correct,( Even though it looks much shorter ).Count how many feet it was from the telephone pole to the car, from the car to her body add those and you can get a better idea of how large that area was.

I still think Betty Lou ran around to the other side of the shooters car for protection from the shooter, if she was trying to run towards the street, it would have been closer to run in the other direction. David was standing next to the cars open door , Betty Lou could have been standing on his left side when David was shot. Unless there was enough room for her to stand on his right side closer to the door? The direction she took, tells me the shooter was to her left when she started to run .

The tire marks shown in the crime scene photo must have been made the next morning when the pictures were taken and not by the cars the night before. If the police said that there were no tire marks found then there weren’t any.

I just want to add to Sandy’s thinking on this in general. Regarding the road and the bends and the dips and turns. Owen was used to this journey, I would assume, and as such probably felt comfortable enough to use dipped beams when necessary. That and the possibility that Z was further in from the road given were the gate was back then (I had considered that too in the past). It leads me to lean towards it not being outside of the realms of possibility that Owens did see a second car but only got a glance it at.

The "lacking in chrome" statement further supports that in my mind because why is that relevant? well it’s relevant because chrome reflects so basically I think Owens was saying " I did see a second card but it was hard to make out because I was observing, for a few seconds, what my headlights picked up." This maybe suggests to me that his headlights might have been dimmed since he was relying on reflection (in hindsight) to make sense of what he remembered. Also, for us Europeans, let’s not forget that in the US they drive on the right which narrows the field of view approaching that bend from Vallejo, the other way the rambler is in the way.

If this were the case (no way to know really, is there?) then what else could he have missed?

I think with this case, anything is possible and I consider all possibilities…even the shooter being on foot.

We know there were people out there walking around with guns. Other activity in the area. A drug bust that had taken place. Who knows…there could have been someone who bailed from there and thought David had something to do with it.

Officer Bidou stated he drove by and that you would be able to see another car there, if one were there. Owen said he saw one there, so I’m not sure why now we would think the other car was out of view. ??

I don’t think it was out of view but I think that, for whatever reason, Owens had less of a chance to ‘observe’ it clearly. I was pitch black wasn’t it? so the only window of opportunity is within what’s in your headlights and for how long. That is affected by your speed, the setting on your beams and where your attention is focused regarding the road and how the road turns and how you drive yourself approaching a turn.

Was saying I guess that there’s plenty of variables that could account for Owen’s ‘uncertain’ description of the second car and variables that I don’t consider unlikely.

The on foot thing hasn’t been ruled out by myself either I have to say. I was thinking about that and there’s no reason to assume he wasn’t. I mean consider PH, he was on foot, technically, ie he didn’t drive away in his own vehicle from the scene, he walked…..perhaps to where his car was? The reason we do is because of Owen’s sighting of a second car. Is there a reason that second car had to be Zodiac’s? I know the window is tight but is it tight enough for that not to be Zodiac but another random couple who pulled in and then changed their mind? Or something? Zodiac waiting in the shadows and observing the scene before striking. He might have been at that at BRS. Observe, drive in, leave, no one passing then drive back and go for it. Even for blitz attacks he seems to employ some sort of precursor. Like on the spot casing.

It’s a curious one, this crime, but for whatever reason I can’t discount Zodiac having pulled it off. By that I mean that I feel it was him and not anyone we know, at least not anyone we know that was there that night. Ah who knows, I lose focus halfway some posts lol. Good discussions though.

Trav , I agree.
Tahoe, Probably because it could have been out of the view of at least some that drove past ? I find it interesting and very important to me, that Owen rememberd the other car didn’t have any chrome.
If anyone wants to look at a very old post of mine telling about the car I was followed by in the "winter of 68"in Vallejo. I said that car didn’t have any chrome either, so for me it could be the same car, which was a golden brown Mercury Comet. The one with the bucket seats and a center console, like what K. Johns discribed.
The lack of chrome stood out , because most cars driven by teens and young adults back then , had lots of shiny chrome and fancy hub caps.

Sorry about posting my (just now) thoughts on this here but it’s relevant to things I said in my previous posts. We can always move it later if need be.

Regarding being on foot. Is there an even mix? Ok, I know I’m including CJB and KJ in this but it’s relevant to the ‘pattern’ if you can call it that.

CJB – On foot, car (allegedly parked elsewhere)
BLJ & DF – ??
BRS – In car
LB – most likely in car, probably at scene
PH – On foot, car (possibly parked elsewhere)
KJ – In car

My ‘feeling’ is that there might be a pattern here because it’s either, use own car at scene or have it (possibly nearby). I can’t explain the comfortableness I feel from some things but this doesn’t feel uncomfortable. I think it’s basically because between all of these crimes there’s only one variation, an either or. And the dispersion looks to me like "I did that last time but I need to remain random", kind of approach?

Traveller – You said "I was pitch black wasn’t it?" As we know it can be almost as light as day when the moon is full and fairly light on a half moon, which really could change how we look at everything if that were the case on December 20th 1968. But if you check out the chart below you’ll see that you are right it would have been "pitch" black, almost no moon.

Sorry, if this is old news.

My ‘feeling’ is that there might be a pattern here because it’s either, use own car at scene or have it (possibly nearby). I can’t explain the comfortableness I feel from some things but this doesn’t feel uncomfortable. I think it’s basically because between all of these crimes there’s only one variation, an either or. And the dispersion looks to me like "I did that last time but I need to remain random", kind of approach?

To me it looks like simple necessity of each situation as the lay of the land dictates, I don’t really see more to it than that. LB and KJ are two good examples when he really had no choice but to use his car, PH dictated that he use a taxi.
What would maybe be useful to know is how easy it would have been to use one of the small side roads off LHR to park up and walk to the crime scene, in particular a route that goes unnoticed by the hunters.

Interesting that, if the timeline I’ve just checked to refresh my memory is correct, James Owen is the only person to see a second car – with no evidence of tyre tracks or anyone else reporting this second vehicle to back him up. Considering the anomalies in his account I’m surprised more people aren’t wondering if Z was on foot from another part of the area and the car never existed.
Another interesting point in the timeline is that the Yours state that David put his hands on the wheel when they went past – having been a teenager in a car in a dark, remote area myself in days long gone I can fully see how he might be a bit jumpy when another vehicle suddenly turns up, so not only does Z have a tight window to operate in he probably had to act extremely quickly when he pulled in to catch DF before he could get his own car on the move.

All things considered it’s actually starting to sound more likely that Z attacked from the bushes on foot than via car. It is an easy solution that clears up a few questions and has only one problem …… the statement of James Owen.

Well, Zodiac was technically on foot when he attacked at Lake Berryessa too, so this wouldn’t seem far fetched and it fits with the idea
of Zodiac being a hunter, as he himself claims. Whoever killed these young kids at Lake Herman Road seems to be the same man who
committed the other murders, allowing us to eliminate Stella, the Yours, the Sheepherder, and who else. The police gave the Hunters
plenty of time to cover their tracks, not interviewing them until after the Yours came forward. James Owen didn’t need to come forward,
but he did voluntarily, and he may have just been mistaken about another car being there, especially without being able to give any
description at all. Bottom line, some innocent kids were brutally murdered that night by someone who was there. And it seems to have happened
around 11:15pm when several parties report being present. A lot of action for a cold lonely road in Solano County. And why did the killings have to
continue?