Hi CathyO,

That was a fantastic intro. Thanks for taking the time to compose/post it and thanks for joining us.

trav

Welcome CathyO, hope you find some interesting threads to read over the next months,

QT

Traveler and Quicktrader, thank you so much! Just something to, I think, occupy my time and keep me busy, really. My computer is so old and the screen is blurry, my ipad is cracked, my phone is too small, so I’m at the Napa college library here to look things up. They have some nice big screens for us old people to actually see! I like the data and theories on message boards, but it’s difficult to read clearly on a small screen.

I found the reports for Berryessa – SO as we say here in town or Sheriffs Office (35 pages), and the other was State of CA reports. Yesterday, I found a link to just individual files, and they were JPGs or pictures. This computer has the full professional version of Adobe Acrobat, so i put all the pictures in a folder, and "combined" them into one PDF file. However, when I attempted to print at home- the content was a bit blurry and blown up- it didn’t cleanly put th JPG onto an 8 1/2 x 11 page. I didn’t want to waste hours today fixing that- is there another link here or Tom Voigt’s site that has all the pages combined into one file? I swear there was, and I can’t find it, none of my searches are being productive. If either of you recall where that was and can point me in the right direction, I’d be very appreciative.

Grazie!

CathyO

Welcome to the board! It’s really interesting to hear about your encounter with one of those few who’ve heard what Zodiac sounds like! And the general atmosphere of Napa.

You’re doing a really valuable job going through the local newspaper archives. They haven’t really been explored much since they’re not as widely available online as for example San Francisco Chronicle or other such big papers are on Newspapers.com. There’s a similar limitation with the Vallejo papers. Hopefully you come across something curious!

Oh and being a woman in a computer job… I can feel your plight!

Thanks Joku!

I looked again at the ad for the "Riverside" brand tires. There’s a MW logo in it I didn’t see before, so the ad was from Montgomery Ward. Probably the nationwide tire guarantee would be at all MW stores nationwide, that would make sense.

What popped out as odd- MW had hours advertised at the store – they threw off my assumptions for the times. Mon, Tues, Wed., and Sat, they were open 9:30AM-5:30PM. Just Thursday and Friday they were open 9:30AM – 9PM. I had assumed that stores all closed by 5 or 6PM in the 50’s and 60’s from what my parents said. So perhaps instead of directly driving from home or work to his crime scene, he could have gone and hung out at a store killing time, not just at a bar. There’s also an ad for an indoor archery range, at 836 Main Street in Napa (phone booth where suspect called into Napa PD was at corner of Main/Clinton at Napa Car Wash per my notes, need to find exact address). So an interesting lead would be to find other ads in the Napa paper on what was open back then, what times. Where was the killer before the crime, that day, what did he do?

We don’t know if the killer was local, or out of town. We don’t know if he had previously staked out Berryessa, or the phone booth, or where he truly parked. I believe it’s important for me to not assume one way or another and need to check myself. While working in Napa, we had a cold case murder that was finally solved, and a double murder that was solved. In both cases, we in town made assumptions on the case, based on clues and leads, on who the suspect was. The cold case was at Fagiani’s bar, where the female owner was killed, while working alone (the co-owner was her sister Muriel Fagiani who lived for many years). Cold case, went on for decades, and we thought it was a local person. Turned out to be a drifter from out of town, solved through DNA, and he was already in prison. It’s a small town, and not like on a highway where people are just driving through our town to get to another big city or state, so we assumed it would not be a drifter.
https://napavalleyregister.com/news/loc … 3ce6c.html

In our other case that took a while was a double homicide of two women. One of the women was a beauty queen, perhaps Miss Georgia, very beautiful, had many male admirers. The clues in the case pointed to her, that the killer was obsessed with her, knew her, that type of thing. So police traveled around here, back to Georgia, even Alaska, all over getting DNA samples, interviewing, etc., and came up with nothing. They reviewed the evidence over and over. Cigarettes were found at the scene and added of course as evidence. But they finally looked a lot deeper (and by this time, you didn’t see many people smoking) and found that these cigarettes were a brand that had very low sales compared to other brands, so became rare. There was a third roommate, who was alive (I believe she wasn’t home on the murder night, which was on Halloween), and it was her fiancee who smoked this brand. So they eventually found the killer. But the killer was tied to her, not the beauty queen. I believe he was jealous of the closeness of the girls, something like that. There was no trial, I think he just confessed, so not as many details came out on it.
https://napavalleyregister.com/news/loc … 0f9e2.html

Thanks!

CathyO

RE: Napa phone booth where call was placed to NPD regarding Berryessa Building

Phone booth location was at 1231 Main Street. Today in 2019, and for past 25 years I’ve lived in Napa, it’s been parking lot near an old stone building that was originally a Chinese laundry. Was a deli when I moved here in 1993, then became a wine tasting building. Attaching a google maps pic of what it looks like now.

The ad I found for the Indoor archery range was located at 836 Main Street. However, that location is on the even side, and that is a two block park between !st and 3rd Streets, called Veterans Park. Been here since I moved here in 1993.

As far as going back to 1969 and the Zodiac – walking between these locations is only a few blocks in the downtown area currently. He also could have walked away from Main Street and street lights near the 1231 Main street payphone to a bar on Main via the Napa Creek, which then brought it into the Napa River.

When I started working for the City of Napa, I got to learn about all the incredible redevelopment that went on in the 70’s. Fellow employees would share their history, while walking downtown, of what building(s) were removed for redevelopment, and even buildings that were themselves moved from one location to another.

An interesting find from our local Napa Valley Register: this shows pictures from the very early 70’s before the buildings were razed. These are the pictures of when the Zodiac would be here. I can’t quite see yet a specific pic from Main where the payphone was. For the archery location at 836 Main, it does show the building location there at the Conner Hotel at Main/Third, which was demolished to make Veterans Park. https://napavalleyregister.com/news/loc … 78c.html#3

What do the pictures show overall that is of interest today? Many of these buildings are overall gritty, dirty, rundown looking. This area was frequently flooded by the Napa River, rents were cheaper is this area. It did take some time for redevelopment to take down the buildings and build new ones. It is definitely not the clean, touristy feeling you get today when visiting Napa. Much more of a blue collar feel that would also coincide with Vallejo as well.

There’s not a pic there of 1231 Main Street showing the whole block. There’s a pic at Main/Pearl, which is about 1/2 block away, and shows numerous old buildings. There should be some old city archives we can look through or go through the old Goodman Building Library. It was closed for some time after the earthquake. Perhaps they’d have some old photos which aren’t yet on the Internet that could be of interest.

Thanks!

Cathyo

Welcome CathyO.

Thanks for your input!

You will find some really great threads here. Seagull has posted a lot of information from these same newspapers and provided us some really great photos. I will try and link some when I can. We have had some nice discussion about the phone booth.

Glad to have you with us.

Seagull provided this to me. It’s really a great view of the car wash from above:

Hope this is a good addition to your files!