However if he had been scouting out potential locations in a police car, few people would have taken any notice.

Mike Mageau saw the car pull up, leave, come back… and it wasn’t a police car. Also, if the tire tracks that were old and mismatched were from Z’s car, they wouldn’t have been from a police car, which are very well maintained.

I think, generally, you have a point that a police car could cruise slowly, the guy inside (cop or killer) could stop near vehicles with a flashlight and holstered gun, and so on, but the problem is, Z wasn’t dressed as a cop at BRS or LB. So if Z was a cop, he’d have had to have either been undercover or off-duty, but in either case, not in a marked police car. A policeman out of uniform cruising in a black & white would’ve been quite highly conspicuous, especially if spotted by another cop. And a police car leaving the scene of a murder likewise would’ve been highly suspicious to police going towards the scene.

However if he had been scouting out potential locations in a police car, few people would have taken any notice.

Mike Mageau saw the car pull up, leave, come back… and it wasn’t a police car. Also, if the tire tracks that were old and mismatched were from Z’s car, they wouldn’t have been from a police car, which are very well maintained.

I think, generally, you have a point that a police car could cruise slowly, the guy inside (cop or killer) could stop near vehicles with a flashlight and holstered gun, and so on, but the problem is, Z wasn’t dressed as a cop at BRS or LB. So if Z was a cop, he’d have had to have either been undercover or off-duty, but in either case, not in a marked police car. A policeman out of uniform cruising in a black & white would’ve been quite highly conspicuous, especially if spotted by another cop. And a police car leaving the scene of a murder likewise would’ve been highly suspicious to police going towards the scene.

Richard Hoffman was in an unmarked police car the night of the LHR attack and, first on the scene.

However if he had been scouting out potential locations in a police car, few people would have taken any notice.

Richard Hoffman was in an unmarked police car the night of the LHR attack and, first on the scene.

Maybe I missed Red’s point then. I thought his saying that people wouldn’t have noticed a police car scouting out potential locations implied that it would be a marked police car. If people saw an unmarked police car, how would that be different, as far as noticeability, to seeing a non-police car?

However if he had been scouting out potential locations in a police car, few people would have taken any notice.

Richard Hoffman was in an unmarked police car the night of the LHR attack and, first on the scene.

Maybe I missed Red’s point then. I thought his saying that people wouldn’t have noticed a police car scouting out potential locations implied that it would be a marked police car. If people saw an unmarked police car, how would that be different, as far as noticeability, to seeing a non-police car?

Hi Marshall…just pointing out there were cops driving unmarked police cars–not in reference to RR’s post. Just throwin’ it out there.

Hi Marshall…just pointing out there were cops driving unmarked police cars–not in reference to RR’s post. Just throwin’ it out there.

Gotcha, thanks. I do think it’s an interesting thing to consider. When I lived in San Diego in the late 1980s there was a well-known case of a cop who pulled women over and killed them. But, the point of using a police car to seem non-threatening implies people know it’s a police car, and that fact (and Mike M seeing the car, twice) makes me conclude this wasn’t the case with Z.

However if he had been scouting out potential locations in a police car, few people would have taken any notice.

Mike Mageau saw the car pull up, leave, come back… and it wasn’t a police car. Also, if the tire tracks that were old and mismatched were from Z’s car, they wouldn’t have been from a police car, which are very well maintained.

I think, generally, you have a point that a police car could cruise slowly, the guy inside (cop or killer) could stop near vehicles with a flashlight and holstered gun, and so on, but the problem is, Z wasn’t dressed as a cop at BRS or LB. So if Z was a cop, he’d have had to have either been undercover or off-duty, but in either case, not in a marked police car. A policeman out of uniform cruising in a black & white would’ve been quite highly conspicuous, especially if spotted by another cop. And a police car leaving the scene of a murder likewise would’ve been highly suspicious to police going towards the scene.

Wow, you really have to explain everything in minute detail sometimes on this forum or people don’t get your meaning.

What I was suggesting is this. He could have checked out areas in his patrol car during the day and then came back later in his private car e.g. at night time. Knowing the area well and having all escape routes planned ahead of time would be a distinct advantage for a quick getaway. I am not suggesting he did this on every occasion, but I am sure the Zodiac spent a lot of time driving around streets and back roads, looking for opportunities and getting to know certain areas well. A patrol car driver would be a perfect way to achieve this aim and nobody would have regarded his scouting activities as the least bit suspicious. The Zodiac’s crimes occurred over a very wide geographical area. Although this tends to rule out a patrol car driver who had only a limited patch of territory, he could have been employed in different places at different times in his career. To use Orr as an example once again, he frequently planned his potential arson sites when he was away at conferences.

Hi Marshall…just pointing out there were cops driving unmarked police cars–not in reference to RR’s post. Just throwin’ it out there.

Gotcha, thanks. I do think it’s an interesting thing to consider. When I lived in San Diego in the late 1980s there was a well-known case of a cop who pulled women over and killed them. But, the point of using a police car to seem non-threatening implies people know it’s a police car, and that fact (and Mike M seeing the car, twice) makes me conclude this wasn’t the case with Z.

I’m not so sure. Reason already stated in my post above.

I grew up in the country and even back in the 60s and 70s landholders were very suspicious of cars driving around the back roads repeatedly or driving very slowly, stopping and starting, doing u-turns, driving at high speed, for example. The roads away from the towns tended to be quiet, and cars were rather big and noisy back then, so people tended to take more notice. A car driving by at normal speed may not have raised an eyebrow, unless it was seen two or three times driving suspiciously around the area. On the other hand, a police car driving by a few times, stopping and starting, doing U-turns, driving slowly, may have caught people’s attention but would not have been treated as suspicious. Police cars are supposed to be the law after all, and doing patrols of back roads around farms would just be seen as the police doing a fine job. I hope this clarifies my original point.

I also was not suggesting that the Zodiac committed his crimes in uniform while driving a police car. That is just silly, because we all know from the witness descriptions that Z was not wearing a uniform or driving a police car. What I was suggesting is this. If Z was a patrol car driver he could have used it to stake out areas and get a good feeling for places and times in order to achieve the perfect getaway. Then come back in his private vehicle in plain clothes at a later time.

Was Hofffman himself ever checked out for being the Z? Is his height Z-compatibile?

The scouting-in-patrol-car angle is not something I would dismiss as such. We don’t know who Z was, and it’s not inconceivable that he was a cop (it has been suggested many times, in many forms).

However, for me there isn’t anything which positively indicates that he was one either. There are some details which could be indicative (just as there are others which could indicate that he was military, etc.) but it’s a bit too tenuous for me.

But, again, not dismissing the idea – the fact that he didn’t do anything which positively establishes that he was a cop obviously doesn’t prove that he wasn’t.

One thing worth pointing out might be this: If Z knew (most of) the areas he struck in pretty well to begin with, he wouldn’t have to do extensive scouting of the kind that might attract unwanted attention.

I believe (or suspect, at least) that he was familiar with both LHR and BRS. He didn’t have to scout – all he had to do was wait for nightfall, and then start searching for suitable targets.

Berryessa: He would have been familiar with the area, knowing which roads to hit to get in and out – and that’s all he needed, really. Precisely where he would strike would be a matter of where the opportunity presented itself in the form of suitable targets. And it wasn’t the sort of area where nosy neighbors would pose a problem even if he positively trolled around there all day.

PH: Very different location and very different thinking on his part, so the pattern goes out the window altogether for that one, regardless of who or what he was.

There isn’t really anything from the Zodiac’s writings or the witness testimonies to suggest he was involved in any career in particular. There are vague references to a whole range of eclectic symbols, ranging from ranching to the Marines to ancient mythology. Apart from his anachronistic and occasionally theatrical/affected style of writing, there is not much to go on really.

So I agree, he could have been anyone who travelled those roads all his life and was generally familiar with the entire area. A ranch hand, a traveling salesman, an ambulance driver, a linesman, a forestry/parks worker, a road maintenance worker, a taxi driver. The list is numerous. The thing that makes me wonder about a cop (or perhaps military intelligence) angle however is that Z seemed to be smart or lucky enough to stay below the radar while also taunting the police for many years.

He was clearly very lucky. All it would have taken is someone to have jotted down the plate number of a vehicle acting suspiciously in the areas of the crimes and he would have been caught.

I still roll my eyes at the ranchers around Lake Herman. Years after the event they mentioned seeing a man trespassing on their land at the time of the Zodiac killings and before then, who was carrying a gun and shooting at things. When they approached the man he would say "What are you doing here?" as if he owned the place. They would tell him he was trespassing and he would leave. This really makes me wonder, because surely if a man was trespassing, behaving strangely, carrying a firearm and shooting, someone would have took down his car details and plate number. Also why didn’t they tell this to the police? I am sure if they had mentioned it, a detective would have asked them to help with a police sketch. Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved? Or maybe a local police officer never bothered to pass on the information. This lack of public co-operation was evident throughout the Zodiac case. I suspect it was partly to do with fear of retaliation, but also to do with apathy. Maybe the ranchers only worried about their cows and had their own problems to deal with? The thing is, this guy doing target practise on their land could well have been the Zodiac, an idea which the ranchers were very open to consider.

I still roll my eyes at the ranchers around Lake Herman. Years after the event they mentioned seeing a man trespassing on their land at the time of the Zodiac killings and before then, who was carrying a gun and shooting at things. When they approached the man he would say "What are you doing here?" as if he owned the place. They would tell him he was trespassing and he would leave. This really makes me wonder, because surely if a man was trespassing, behaving strangely, carrying a firearm and shooting, someone would have took down his car details and plate number. Also why didn’t they tell this to the police? I am sure if they had mentioned it, a detective would have asked them to help with a police sketch. Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved? Or maybe a local police officer never bothered to pass on the information. This lack of public co-operation was evident throughout the Zodiac case. I suspect it was partly to do with fear of retaliation, but also to do with apathy. Maybe the ranchers only worried about their cows and had their own problems to deal with? The thing is, this guy doing target practise on their land could well have been the Zodiac, an idea which the ranchers were very open to consider.

Are these ranchers findable? I wonder if they would recognize pictures of the Stine sketch, or photos of POIs. Also, a longshot (pun intended) if they remember where the guy was shooting, and at what. For instance, a tree that might still be standing, with a bullet or two still in it. Possibly ballistic tests could match it to the Z shootings. The reason this would be so important is that it would settle the issue of whether Z had mental issues.

IF this was Z, it reminds me of Ross walking into his former apartment and heading straight for the butter in the fridge, as if he owned the place.

"Marshall" Are these ranchers findable? I wonder if they would recognize pictures of the Stine sketch, or photos of POIs. Also, a longshot (pun intended) if they remember where the guy was shooting, and at what. For instance, a tree that might still be standing, with a bullet or two still in it. Possibly ballistic tests could match it to the Z shootings. The reason this would be so important is that it would settle the issue of whether Z had mental issues.

IF this was Z, it reminds me of Ross walking into his former apartment and heading straight for the butter in the fridge, as if he owned the place.

Very good questions Marshall. Some of the ranchers have passed away, others in retirement. One fellow whose name I forget has commented on the case and he was the one who mentioned the trespasser firing a gun on ranches in the area. You may find him if you do a Google search. I think he lives in Vallejo now but his aunt owned the ranch on Lake Herman Road near the "lover’s lane" stop back in the day. I tried to make contact with him at one time but gave up. I note by some of the things he has written in the local newspaper he does not regard amateur sleuths very highly. So be a bit wary of that if you try to contact him.

Ah ha! Just found these in my notes:

Copyright: Benicia Herald. [Date Unknown] ALBERT LOSADO at the ranch where his aunt Stella Borges lived off Lake Herman Road. The family sold the ranch in the late 1970s. Bethany A. Monk/Staff

Vallejo man recalls night his aunt discovered first victims of Zodiac killer

By Bethany A. Monk
Assistant Editor

Stella Borges, a petite woman with jet-black hair and an aura of perpetual quietness, got into her Oldsmobile the evening of Dec. 20, 1968 to drive the spirally byway of Lake Herman Road.

Borges was headed that night to pick up her grandson, Danny, after his recital at Benicia High School.

It was a cold night — so cold, say those who remember it, you could see shadows of your own breath.

Stella put on her coat and climbed into her spacious car with her daughter, also Stella — or “Baby Stella,” as the family called her. She was teenaged Danny’s mother.

The pair drove the familiar curvy road that night amid the darkened hills ever-so-slightly illuminated by hints of moonlight. They left the Tony Borges Ranch, where the elder Stella lived with her husband in Vallejo, near the outskirts of Benicia. “Baby Stella” lived across the road with Danny and her husband in a ranch her dad, Tony, had built for her; they called it “Stella Ranch.”

There were no other neighbors, just the sounds of occasional cars traveling the scenic route between Benicia and Vallejo. That night, Stella and her daughter drove the familiar curves in the road, passing Lake Herman. Less than a minute later, they came to a strong leftward curve where drivers had to slow down. On that curve was a turnout, the entrance to the Benicia Water Pumping Station that had long ago become a popular “lover’s lane” where young people parked on the gravel, gazed at the stars and did a little “necking.”

As the elder Stella, then in her 70s, drove past the turnout, “she saw the car with the headlights and the bodies of the people lying out there,” her nephew, Albert Losado, told The Herald last week. The women didn’t know it but they had just driven past the first known murder scene of the now-infamous Zodiac slayings.

Just moments before, two Vallejo teens — Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Faraday, 17 — had been shot and left to die on the gravel.

“There they were, laying on the right side (of the road),” Losado said. Faraday’s station wagon still had its lights on. The headlights from Stella Borges’s Oldsmobile swept over the empty car and the bodies on the gravel. And she panicked.

“She just took off and headed for Benicia as fast as she could honking her horn,” Losado said. When they got to Benicia, the elder Stella “started flashing her lights on and off … trying to get the attention of somebody.” Losado said his late aunt eventually found a law enforcement official and reported what she’d seen.

Earlier that year, Losado said, his aunt had reported seeing a strange man outside her ranch house a handful of times. The stranger would park his car in front of the house, which completely unnerved her, he said.

In his bestselling book, “Zodiac Unmasked,” Robert Graysmith reported that Stella Borges often saw a man outside her ranch. He would swim in the nearby creek. “The big man,” Graysmith wrote, “swam in the cold water and stood like an apparition at her gate.”

Losado told The Herald that his aunt, who died in 1973, would often see the man drive on Lake Herman Road. His stopping outside her house to stare at her happened more than once, he said.

“She would tell us that she would see this guy driving up and down the road, and I would hear from other people also that he was constantly seen out there on Lake Herman Road. I guess a few times he stopped and stared at her. Gave her the chills.”

In the military at the time, Losado, then 20, took great interest in the Zodiac case. He remembers once while on leave in the fall of 1969, when he and his brother, who had just brought him home at the end of Lake Herman Road, happened upon an eerie situation.

“On the way back (from picking me up), he’d come back down Lake Herman Road, the same way that we drove back home, and there was a log across the road down there in the hollow, down at the bottom as you’re coming up by the lake, by gate 10.

“And (my brother) says ‘Holy smokes. Don’t get out. Let me back up.’ So he backed all the way up the hill and we turned around and drove back to Vallejo the other way, cause this log was right there, and it wasn’t there before when he came down to get me.”

The log was near the murder scene Losado’s aunt had reported 11 months earlier. This happened only a few months after the Zodiac had called the Vallejo Police Department to report “a double murder” at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo.

The brothers were worried.

“That’s why we didn’t get out of the car,” Losado said. “So my brother says, ‘Let’s just back up and get out of here.’

“So we got home and we called the police, and they said, ‘Oh, that’s probably nothing.’ They had no interest in it.”

But Losado and his brother did. “How could you say it was nothing? How did the dog-gone thing get there?”

That wasn’t the only peculiar thing that occurred at the time, he said.

At the family’s ranch on the other side of American Canyon, a man would often run around on their property shooting guns. When Losado or family members approached him, “He’d say, ‘Who are you, what do you want?’” Losado also remembers a ranch hand acquaintance who was checking on his cows at 4 in the morning on Lopes Road. “He turns around and some guy is standing right behind him. And the guy says the same thing: ‘Who are you, what do you want?’” The man tried to grab the ranch hand, who swung the round part of his hay hook. “The guy ran to the turnoff at Lopes Road, jumped in his car and took off,” Losado said.

Losado said it’s possible that these were random encounters. But given the strange nature of the case, he has always wondered.

He does know, however, that his kindhearted aunt — who lived with her husband in the ranch on Lake Herman Road from the 1930s to the late 1970s — was bothered for years by her discovery of the murder scene and her encounters with the man who would stare her down during his “visits.” So much so, she hardly every spoke about it, Losado said.

His cousin, the younger Stella, also had a real hard time talking about it, he said. Whenever he would question her about that night, “She just didn’t want to talk about it. She would shrug her shoulders and say, ‘I hope I never see him.’”

Bethany A. Monk/Staff

This is fascinating! Several mentions of this guy driving in a car. Are there any descriptions of that car to compare to each other or what Owens saw?

If this was Z, it could explain how he managed to fit those killings into such a tight timeframe – if he was already in the area lurking. The other thing that strikes me as really interesting is that it sounds like this guy had plenty of opportunity to kill some of these ranchers, but didn’t… It seems that the young couple making out is what angered him to murder.

What I wonder about, also, is this: Could he have been parked somewhere nearby, lurking, watching the hunters and the comings and goings of people, then when he saw his opportunity, return to his car, drive into the turnout, commit the murders, and then drive away? Which makes me wonder, when these witnesses say he got in his car and drove away, besides knowing what color and make of car it was, where was it parked?

I live in Minnesota so I can’t look the guy up. I wish someone here could start a compilation of questions we all have, consolidate it down, and ask the guy if he would answer them, and if he could tell us which of his still-living neighbors also saw this guy, so we could ask them about him, too.

The familiarity with this crime scene, the lurking, firing of guns, threatening disposition, the fact he was a large man, and apparent mental issues all fit very well to this guy being Z.

It says he once had interest in the Z case… I wonder if he was approached with fresh info we have on Ross, for example, and could rekindle that interest?

I agree Marshall. There are just too many things happening in this one small area for it to be "nothing", (as the police apparently regarded it back then). Well "nothing" could have been a whole lot of "something" if only someone had got off their ass and investigated it thoroughly! There was also a problem with lack of communication between small town police and big city detectives in those days. Often the local cops would not bother to tell the detectives anything unless asked specifically. So many details that should have been investigated thoroughly fell through the cracks. This makes me angry, and I am sure it also made the local people angry. Dismissing clues in a major homicide case, even apparently trivial ones like a log dragged across a road, is unbelievable, to say the least! If I had been a cop back then I would have been out there collecting bullet casings and digging bullets out of fence posts to see if any of them matched, just as you suggested.

I also live too far away to phone Albert Losado. I did try to contact Bethany Monk through the Benicia Herald by email, but found her to be un-contactable. It is strange that she writes about such a high profile case but does not provide any form of feedback or contact. I guess snail mail may be the only solution. I also think that if anyone on this board lives close to Vallejo, or in California for that matter, it would be well worth their time to make contact with the Herald and Losado.

Incidentally, there was a similar kind of case to this near where I live and because there were only two police assigned to patrol a very large area, an inquest found that the police had in fact been too frightened to investigate the crime adequately. Problems with under staffing and lack of back up in those days was a big problem in rural and semi-rural areas, and no doubt this is still the case in many remote areas. The police had good vehicle descriptions as well as descriptions of suspects, but they failed to act adequately. Finally a detective was assigned to investigate the case in depth, but he was on his own and also too afraid to venture on to the back roads which the felons frequented. These bad men managed to abduct and rape several women over several years, culminating in the brutal torture, rape, and murder of two young women. They left their bodies tied to a tree for several days before one of them must have returned to bury their bodies in a nearby forest reserve beside a road. Their remains were discovered by a local some time later in a badly decomposed state. One of the police officers was actually on duty the night of their abduction and he followed the sounds of gunshots and screams for some time, before deciding that he could do nothing on his own and returned to the station. The reports the police wrote were also shoddy to say the least. In fact on several occasions they did not even bother to write reports and had neglected to act on evidence and information presented to them by local people. I firmly believe that it was because of the understaffed and poorly trained police staff of the time, that the villains walked free. Apart from a few of them being rounded up and questioned at a later date, they all had made up solid alibis by that time. They lived out the rest of their lives as free men.