I've been puzzling over this business of Zodiac being in the theater district when picked up by Stine.  I know there have been similar discussions before, but I have not seen a topic that specifically explores the possible use by Zodiac municipal transportation on October 11, 1969.

To begin, operating from the assumption that his escape from Presidio Heights would involve his automobile. That would be consistent with his other three canonical crimes whereby his car was the means of escape. In order for this to be a credible supposition, it follows that his car would need to be within a reasonable distance of his destination, reachable by foot in a relatively short period of time. As we know, the final location of Paul Stine's cab was the corner of Washington and Cherry street in Presidio Heights. We also know there are conflicting reports as to whether the final destination that Stine input to his fare sheet was Washington and Maple or Washington and Laurel.

In attempting to address this issue, again under the assumption that his car was within reasonable walking distance of the final destination, the question arises as to how Zodiac got to the Theater District, regardless of whether that means precisely the intersection of Mason and Geary or elsewhere in the vicinity of Union Square. That Stine picked up his fare in that area is also, as far as I can tell, an assumption based on an estimated distance traveled from Stine's taximeter reading at 10:46pm and the estimated time of death, 9:55pm. In other words, it's a guess based on Stine's previous fare, delivered to San Francisco International Airport, presumably some time after 9pm, his likely return route from this fare, US-101 northbound, and locations that would account for the charge shown on his taximeter at 10:46pm.

https://i.ibb.co/D4RKdTn/Stine-1046pm.png

*Note: I am aware of a source that cites the Westin Hotel on Powell Street. I am also unaware of any other source that independently makes this claim. The source in question is Detective Harvey Hines, specifically a report he compiled promoting Lawrence Kane as a credible Zodiac suspect. This same document states that, according Dave Toschi, a phone call was placed to the cab company at a payphone next to the Westin by Zodiac and therefore Stine was responding to this call from dispatch at the Westin Hotel. If this is a true fact, then it would make the taximeter estimate redundant and definitively locate the pickup in the theater district. Unfortunately, these are exactly the sorts of convenient facts that have made unresolved evidentiary issues appear to be settled when they actually aren't, and that's why I think it's important to preface arguments with the assumptions on which they are predicated. Therefore, while I hold that the starting location of Zodiac's cab ride is not a resolved issue, I am operating from the assumption that the pickup was generally in the area of Union Square or Mason and Geary, which are only a block apart in the theater district.

Consequently, if we presume that his car was near Presidio Heights, bearing in mind that presumption does not preclude the possibility that the Stine murder was extemporaneous, then I see two options for how he got downtown.

The first is that he took a cab.

That would mean he called the cab company from somewhere in Presidio Heights, a cab was dispatched to the address he provided, he waited for it to arrive, it did, and then took him downtown. It could have happened at any time of the day and in any area of Presidio Heights. Naturally, one would hope there would be a record of this and certainly if Stine had a half hour or more of downtime in the theater district without a call from dispatch, it doesn't sound as if there was a particularly large volume of traffic in northern San Francisco that night. Unfortunately, 50 years on, I think that's beyond the scope of what we can ever really know.

There is at least one problem with a cab, though. If another cabbie picked up Zodiac and took him up to the Union Plaza area, then there is a possibility that he would remember picking up a fare that fit the description released by SFPD in the days after Stine was killed, particularly given Stine was also a cab driver. That's not to suggest it's impossible that this hypothetical cabbie would be aloof or indifferent to the ramifications of a cab driver being targeted and murdered, only that the alternative would be more likely.

*Note: there is a parallel example of this exact sort of thing in the investigation of the JFK assassination, specifically a cab driver named William Whaly had occasion to take Lee Harvey Oswald as a fare from downtown Dallas to Oak Cliff on November 22, 1963. Within a day of taking this fare, despite there being little of note to occur during that fare, Mr. Whaly reported his to the Dallas Police, picked out Oswald in a line-up, submitted an affidavit and would later testify to the Warren Commission about this fare. The amount of detail he provided in the affidavit is truly astounding if you a skeptical of the notion that a cab driver could be able to recall details about a passenger even if there was no immediate occasion for him or her to mark that fare in their memory.

https://i.ibb.co/VpHLdND/Will-Whaly.png

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340509/m1/1/

That leaves the second option; that Zodiac took a bus from somewhere in the rough vicinity of where he parked his car and ultimately arrived by bus in the theater district.

The San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI) has a long a storied history that is every bit as interesting as you might imagine. For the first half of the 20^th Century, much of developing San Francisco was accessible by street car service, and a merger in 1939 between MUNI and the Market Street Railway Company brought the total fleet of trolleys to just under 700. In the coming decades, however many of these streetcars would be replaced by buses, and by 1969 the city was constructing a new subway system called BART.

However, despite the steady disappearance of streetcar based public transportation from MUNI, the routes for the buses that would ultimately replace them remained largely the same and, hence, those routes retained the same name. For Presidio Heights, the MUNI route, active up until 2020, was called 3-Jackson. It was called that because the farthest leg of that route took the bus up to Presidio Avenue and Jackson Street. This was its last stop before circling California Street and Sacramento street and heading back towards the main Market Street thoroughfare, terminating at Bush and Sansome, at least in its most recent iteration. It was the 3^rd line of the 4 Sutter St. Lines.

https://i.ibb.co/BVvwP9y/3-Jackson-modern.png

https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/3_jackson_pdf_map.pdf

As far as I can tell, it is in no way appreciably different from what was used in 1969 for the 3-Jackson route.

https://i.ibb.co/jDxLPLM/MUNI-1969-3-Jackson.png

http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/munioperators/1973-municipal-railway-survey-1969-1970.pdf

(see pg. 26)

https://i.ibb.co/4TMbwh7/MUNI-Presidio-3-Jackson.png

So, in 1969, if someone wanted to get from Presidio Heights to the theater district or Union Square using MUNI, then there is a bus stop at Powell and Post that would put you directly in front of the Westin Hotel.

https://i.ibb.co/PDXnMzt/3-Jackson-Weston.png

I have seen no evidence of a bus stop at either Mason and Geary of Mason and Post. That's not a huge deal since it's just a single block, but it is noteworthy in my opinion.

More interesting is the other end of the route, specifically Presidio and Jackson, which is exactly two blocks east and one block north of Washington and Laurel. In contrast, it is five blocks from Maple Street and six blocks from Cherry Street.

https://i.ibb.co/23nFndY/MUNI-1969-3-Jackson-vs-Crime-Scene.png

Naturally there are a million “possible” ways for Zodiac to get to the relevant spot in the theater district including an accomplice or literally legging it the entire way either before the murder, to a parking place downtown where he left his car, or all the way back to Vallejo or wherever he was from. However, those options are also either highly speculative, needlessly convoluted or completely ridiculous. I think the two scenarios above represent the most straightforward scenarios for the timeline preceding the Presidio Heights murder based on evidence to which we have access, and in particular the use of a MUNI bus to get to Union Square seems the most likely to have culminated in the vacuum of citizen witnesses that we ended up with. I can more credibly believe Zodiac could go unnoticed on a bus than I could being forgotten in a cab. As for whether he spent any appreciable time downtown is an open question and we may never know. Again, that's assuming that he did actually go to the theater district. I am completely open to alternatives and am not married to this notion.

I read somewhere on another site, but cannot find the police report for this, that one of the officers who attended was told the direction Zodiac had walked off, and he ran after him.  He then encountered someone but this man wasn't Zodiac (I assume he wasn't covered in blood, and later determined not to match the description, although they were looking for a black guy) and that this man has not come forwards or been identified. Is it possible there were 2 in the car, and one got out at the first stop and then Z got out a block later.  This would could be used as a sort of misdirection, as they may have believed police would end up with 2 descriptions?