Craigfitzer, I think you could be right about him being on foot. My future husband and me were there on the night of the 18th, two days before Jensen, and Faraday were killed. It was very cold, like in the 20’s. My boyfriend had a 57 Chevy. It was his birthday, I was 18 at the time. We pulled in facing the gate, and turned off the engine, the car windows almost immediately fogged over. We were just there a couple of minutes when I told my boyfriend that I could feel someone staring at us, and I wanted to get out of there! He, who never had a intuition in his life, told me he could feel it too. He started up the engine and we left. The farther away we got the better I felt. It was two days later that I read in the paper about the couple that died there. I will never ever forget that feeling. No one was parked there but us, it was dark and very cold! We will be married 44 years in May! That was a long time ago.

I happen to know Stella Borges, just through doing her hair. I was going to the Beauty School at that time, and did her hair occasionally. She told me about finding them. She never got out of the car, she could clearly see they were dead, or close to it. She said, she just took off, and got help. I wanted to share my own story, and feeling about him maybe parking and walking, or lying in wait for someone?

MHoward…

A very valid point, and one I know we’ve discussed before on the boards, but it warrants repeating for sure. Interesting what you experienced, maybe even life altering for you and your husband. It has been reported I think by the hunter’s there on the 20th, or the Your’s who pulled into the area and saw the hunter’s that evening, about 10 minutes before the murders took place, saw David’s car also parked at the gate. So David moved his car shortly after they left the area. Maybe David/Betty Lou felt the same thing you did, or saw someone lurking, and felt safer by being parked closer to the roadway.
Did you ever go to LE and tell them what you had experienced? They may very well have blown you off. What does what you experienced have to do with 2 nights later, well maybe nothing, then again maybe everything. I’m sure they locked into the killer driving into the area, when in fact he could have walked into the area.
Are you familiar what the area beyond the gate was like in 1968? I know there were some residences below back then, how many I don’t know. Was there just one driveway that led to the places below? If so, that would make it more difficult for a walker to just walk through someone’s property and up the hill to the site. Or was there a road down below the gate where anyone could have pulled over and walked up the hill? I was going to google the area below, but then I would only be seeing what it looks like now, which very well could have changed in 46 years.
I’ve haven’t read until now from anyone who was there within a couple days of the attack. It’s a very interesting story, and the fact that you both got a weird feeling of being watched is really interesting. glad you are still with us. I think we’re given these feelings for our protection, and it’s always good to listen to them when they come to us. May have very well saved your life.

I doubt this is a revelation to most of you, but there was at least one place, and a barn and some kind of outbuilding still exist. Due to a slight elevation change, these aren’t visible from the road. Maybe they are if you go far enough down the gravel road–not sure. Also not sure if those structures are still there or if they’ve been removed since the Googles last snapped a picture.

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Isn’t that the road to the shooting range on the other side of the crime scene gate? From what I can tell it looks like the crime scene near the top of your picture ? There is another road to the right of the crime scene that is a short walking distance, where someone could park a car if that is what you think the shooter did. Being that another car was seen parked near Davids car moments before the shooting, I tend to believe the shooter didn’t walk there.

Mhoward, you say your husbands birthday was Dec 18th ? I mention this because of a phone call made by someone to Mel Belli’s home, who said his birthday was Dec 18th.

Isn’t that the road to the shooting range on the other side of the crime scene gate? From what I can tell it looks like the crime scene near the top of your picture ? There is another road to the right of the crime scene that is a short walking distance, where someone could park a car if that is what you think the shooter did. Being that another car was seen parked near Davids car moments before the shooting, I tend to believe the shooter didn’t walk there.

Mhoward, you say your husbands birthday was Dec 18th ? I mention this because of a phone call made by someone to Mel Belli’s home, who said his birthday was Dec 18th.

@ Sandy, Yes, Dec 18 th. I know it is strange. Zodiac claimed that was his birthday,or someone claiming to be him. I know it was Paul Stines. Weird.
@Bayarea60’s, No,I did not speak of it to LE, nor to Pam, after her sister died. As far as LE, It was a strong feeling on both our parts, but seemed too out there to report a feeling. As far as Pam, her sister died, telling her my story, seemed light, and of no true value, as her sister died due to this creep! I did not want to lessen her sisters death by telling my story, when they were going through grieving for her, It just did not seem the right thing to bring up to her,If you understand what I mean? Told my friends, but not my mama:) As far as knowing what was behind the gate, I thought there was a reservoir,and I had heard people did hunt back there. I think ducks, or pheasants. I have never been behind the gate, and if I recall correctly, I thought it had a padlock on it. It was some kind of cyclone fencing, with a gate back then.

MHoward……

I never realized there was that extended of a road behind the gate. I wonder if it was like that in 1968? I thought that area, beyond the gate, had more trees in ’68. It was reported at some point in time on the boards that there were residences back there. Don’t know if that was factual, how many, etc. I myself didn’t ask about Pam…I could understand someone not coming forward on a feeling. I would think LE wouldn’t react very strongly to that….I researched that shooting range way back when, and I recall it was once a military installation where I guess personnel would go up there to shoot, and that military would also fire off larger ammunitions out there. So I guess there being a road, could have been the military put in an access road, and that it was there in ’68.

My initial thoughts regarding the possibility of a ‘Zodiac on foot’ theory at LHR was twofold really. The first was that I was fairly surprised how it seemed to be generally accepted that Z was in a vehicle that night based on the claims of one witness who’s two statements are inconsistent at best. James Owen goes from stating that the second vehicle was parked 3 ft away from, and parallel to, the rambler to it being 10 ft away. Now that isn’t something you could allow for and put it down to memory distortion over time because his first statement has the date and time of Dec 20, 1968 11:52PM and his second account is dated as being given on Dec 24, 1968 at 11:12. In four days the suspect vehicle has moved 7 ft.
Then he doesn’t mention the fact that he thinks he heard what sounded like a shot fired shortly after passing the scene, even though he knows when giving this first interview that the teenage couple had both been shot to death and only remembers its 4 days later.
Then there’s James account of another vehicle having passed the scene going in the opposite direction to him as he was coming up to the Garvel gated entrance but nobody has ever come forward to confirm that it was them. Then Owen seems to have what I would call a rather convenient selective memory as he is able to remember and describe the first vehicle, the one that we are not disputing was there, in great detail. Then the second vehicle that nobody else saw he can’t even give the slightest description of saying Make: Don’t know. Model: No Idea. Colour. Pass, next question. Any detail at all: I’m afraid not. Well Isn’t that convenient? The car that we all know that definitely there and also know its make, model, colour etc that being Dave’s Rambler Mr Owen remembers with vivid clarity. The other vehicle, the one we would all be extremely interested in hearing a description for…..nothing.

Now we all know that in Pacific Height that if the claims of Fouke, Pelissetti and the SFPD are true, then Zodiac has all his Christmases come at once that night in regards to how he was able to escape arrest. To be that incredibly fortunate once is statistically extremely unlikely but now we’d have to not only accept he can simply vanish and elude a police force in Pacific Heights, but if he’s driving on Lake Herman then we’d have to believe that once again he has committed homicide and that the response is swift from both Benicia and Vallejo direction and that, despite this, Zodiac happened to somehow dodge every single one of the responding units. It’s just had to believe that he could be this lucky once let alone on a consistent basis.

It’s like winning the lottery twice. In Britain the odds of hitting the Jackpot are one in fourteen million. With odds against even one jackpot win, the statistical probability of becoming a two time jackpot winner within a 10 month period is almost nill. In fact, if such a thing were to occur, then I bet there’d be an official investigation into it’s legitimacy.

I mean you could even say the same ror similar for his escape from Lake B. The one road in and out of Lake B is a long winding county lane like road that runs for miles and miles. How can he get away without being seen or driving straight past responders?

Well, if Harry Houdini were alive in Z’s time then Harry himself would probably agree that he is the second best escapologist on Planet Earth. The Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of Escapology is Zodiac. You give him an impossible scenario to escape from, he’ll do it.

One of my favourite TV shows years ago was The Equalizer. His add said….

Odds against you? Need Help? Call the Equaliser.

Step aside Edward Woodward, you are no match! Replace the add…

Odds against you? Need Help? Call the San Francisco Zodiac! 555….

So, what do you all think about the possibility of the .22 shell that was 20 feet away being the last shot and not the first? As he’s getting back into the car he see her move or hear’s her groan and takes one more shot for, good measure.

So, what do you all think about the possibility of the .22 shell that was 20 feet away being the last shot and not the first? As he’s getting back into the car he see her move or hear’s her groan and takes one more shot for, good measure.

I think,he wouldn’t have shot all the way from there if this is the case. I think it’s possible that Zodiac was BACKED IN,and that would have put his driver’s side door all the way over in that area. Maybe he got out and started walking around the front of his car towards the Rambler, and Dave felt something was wrong,and started his car up, or put it in reverse or something,and Z fired from near the front of his own car towards the Rambler, or in the air, in an effort to get Dave to stop. Maybe that’s the shot that hit Dave’s car.If this scnario happened, then it likely makes James Owen the zodiac, because he would have been flat out lying about zodiac’s car being side by side with the Rambler, and facing the same direction,and if he’s lying, then he is likely zodiac. The sketch below is what Owen claims he saw when he went by. If you imagine Zodiac’s car backed in, and he fired a shot as soon as he got out of his car,that casingwould eject to the right. I added the red circle as the aprox area where a shell casing would wind up if this scenario happened. The sketch next to it shows where that stray casing wound up,and my scenario makes this look like a real possibility. As much shooting that went on, all of those shell casings wound up neatly where they should have wound up,except for that one 20ft away.

I checked on Google Earth, and not very comfortable with current information versus how things were in 1968. 45 years is a long time for things to change. But what I did find was the gravel road beyond the gate has a name (now?) its Addison Ct….Addison Ct. turns into W. Channel Road….West Channel Road ends at E. 2nd St.
Off to the right (north) of W. Channel there’s a whole housing development there, I’ll go back in and go to street level to determine, if I can, the approximate age of those homes. My thought is those homes weren’t there in ’68. I’ve never heard them mentioned at all by anyone as being relevant to the area back then.
We know the military ran a shooting range and other operations? out there during the 50’s and early 60’s. So they would have roads (I would think all gated) to get to their various installations. So the gravel road beyond the gate would run all the way to E. 2nd St. (probably another point of entrance for the military). and I would think that too would be gated with a lock. May have been other roads as well, I don’t know.
I can see where it would be possible, maybe even a better plan, course Z didn’t always use, like PH, maybe the best plan possible. And then there’s Owen’s claim of the other vehicle.

Bay, I came across some aerial maps of the Humble Oil area the other day. These maps date back to the 30’s and go into the 90’s. Maybe even the 2000’s. The thing I hated about these maps is that it didn’t show Lake Herman Road. Now I did see the tail end of old Lake Herman Road. It didn’t connect to East second street at the time (thinking about 65′ but might be a tad earlier or a tad later. Just don’t recall off hand.) It dead ended on another winding road that then, in turn, dead ended on what would be East 2nd street. There also appeared to be the possibility of a road off to the West of Old Lake Herman Road. It was not as defined. I thought at the time that this was the same road as the pumping station would have been on. If it was actually a defined road, it too, did just like Old Lake Herman Road did : dead end on an unknown winding road that dead ended on East second street. Off to the side of where Humble oil would later be is nothing but farm land. I didn’t get to see everything to the west though. Keep in mind though I am going from memory. Will look today for certainty.

Soze

Soze…..

Thanks for the input. I found the military site I’d found once before. It doesn’t give any useful pictures of the area, but what its documentation includes is descriptions of what was located there and what the area was fully used as. It wasn’t just a shooting range, but was actually a munitions station. So there was large gauge military arsenal there. So I’m sure the area was fully contained, and the military I would think would have living quarters there. The docs refer to numerous installations built on the site. I’m recalling a run in that the hunter’s had with someone who lived down that gravel road. From what I’ve seen of the pics and where the oaks are the hunter’s would have been hunting maybe a 1/4 – 1/2 mile down the road. I’ll have to go back and check TV’s site. I’m thinking this was something that the hunter’s actually mentioned to the Benecia police. Like someone came outside, and the hunter’s decided to start making their way up to their truck. I’ll have to go back and look for that account.
There are like 200 homes that have been built to the SW of the LHR site. There are many Industrial Equipment sites down by the E 2nd St. location, they appear to be mostly heavy duty equipment sites. I don’t know if they were there in 1968.

Welch Chappie, While reading your post, I had an idea that I didn’t think of before. Perhaps the reason Zodiac didn’t make a call after he shot Paul was because he was staying in one of the homes or apts. in that area, making a call would be very easy to trace. If he had a car he could have driven to a phone booth to make the call that he seemed to like to do after a crime. I don’t think he had a car at that time, maybe it was in a body shop getting repaired, because it had been in an accident with a cab a few days before perhaps ?

I think there’s many things Zodiac didn’t do that night that tend to suggest he was heading for a property in the area with the main one being his ignoring of the Cherry street Presidio entrance. If I’m a serial killer and I have just executed a cab driver in the middle of a street and my intended destination for escape was the grounds of the Presidio then I’m going to get there by the quickest and most convenient route available. Z doesn’t, he stays on the street when he must surely have already known that police were responding because Pelissetti said when the call came over the air of the incident that "We fortunately were very close and responded to that corner and were able to do so with red lights and siren and got there very quickly."
We know that as the teen makes the call to 911, Z is still at the cab and it’s safe to assume that the 911 operator gave the details almost instantly to the dispatcher who also instantly relayed it to patrol officers so Zodiac is very likely to hear Armond coming as he’s walking away down Cherry and yet even in this situation he ignores the quick escape. Also, he recalled details of the search of JK playground so he must have been there somewhere.

And I, like you, used to think that he didn’t phone because he was in a property close by and while I still think he was in a property, I think the lack of a bragging phone call to alert authorities to his latest slave collected may have been simply because he already knew the police aware of it because if by some miracle he didn’t hear Armond’s siren coming along Washington street, then he certainly knew by the time he got onto Jackson street because he couldn’t fail to see Don and Eric’s police car, he even put his head down and turned his back to them and up some steps to avoid them seeing his face.

Soze Asked…..

"Just so, I am clear, are you saying the hunters were hunting south of the crime scene or are you referring to another time? I don’t recall seeing anything about a run in mentioned to the police. I suspect they mentioned a run in with the Yours but haven’t seen that".

Soze…..

Hunter’s were hunting down the gravel road, raccoon hunting, I would guess down around where you can still see all those oaks, maybe 1/4 – 1/2 mile down from gate?
I recall they said it took them 10 minutes or so to make their way back up to the gate. I looked on TV’s site a little. Somewhere I recall the hunter’s stating something to the effect that someone, turned on a light at their house, came out of their house, while they were hunting. Couldn’t have been but a couple houses down there back then. I’ve only been able to find that there was one house down there. I imagine it belonged to the owner of the property back then. I’ll look and see what I can find.