I could not figure that one out either.

My theory is that the dispatcher asked for a description of the perp, the child on the phone probably responded with some form of "dark, dressed in black/dark clothing" and it was misinterpreted as dark skinned.

My theory is that the dispatcher asked for a description of the perp, the child on the phone probably responded with some form of "dark, dressed in black/dark clothing" and it was misinterpreted as dark skinned.

That would make sense. I was just wondering if anyone knew for sure. Looked through a bunch of other threads and it didn’t seem like there was a definite answer.

Some people…I don’t know who, probably Horan… think that it never happened and they just said that later to cover up that the guy just walked away past them.

That is in some way believable. It seems pretty odd that SFPD would reveal that info to the public, but it kind of makes it seem like they screwed up even worse than if they hadn’t said it at all, so I’m not sure about that.

Personally I think the dispatcher was almost certainly quickly writing down notes as the kid gave info. He would have written WMA for white male adult which was standard LE notation. However, I think that when he relayed the full description to all available police cars, he simply misread that part out as NMA (negro male adult).

Depending on your handwriting it can be very easy to mistake W’s, M’s or N’s when scrawling down info quickly.

Has anyone ever asked the witnesses if Pelisetti ever said anything to them about a black suspect when he first arrived on the scene? I’m guessing "No," since it’s never come up, but if he did, then it obviously couldn’t be some cover-up story.

I was just curious to see what some of you guys thought about this. Why do you think dispatch said that the suspect was black? Could it have been just purely accidental? I would like to think so, but how the hell do you make a mistake like that?

I think I can answer that with a pretty good guess. Back years ago people drank during work. You just don’t see it so prevalent these days. Cops in the 1950’s and 60’s drank on duty. I know all about it. From the horse mouth I got that info. Watch the show Mad Men on television, they show all the drinking that went on. I saw all the men drinking all day at work
when I was a kid. My dad was A lineman for the electric light company. All those guys did all was drink. Some smoked pot, the young guys at the time. In the afternoon they would finish early and come back to the house to drink before they went in to the garage with the big line trucks. I think in San Francisco it would have been party central in the 1960’s. One can only imagine. We are in good strong unions up here so we can do these things with little fear of repercussions. I started work in the 1970’s and I did my share of drinking on the job too. But anyway, that’s why they screwed up in most probability.

You’re saying you think the dispatcher who took the call was drunk?

Some people…I don’t know who, probably Horan… think that it never happened and they just said that later to cover up that the guy just walked away past them.

That is in some way believable. It seems pretty odd that SFPD would reveal that info to the public, but it kind of makes it seem like they screwed up even worse than if they hadn’t said it at all, so I’m not sure about that.

Yes. There are several things they could have said which would have made them seem less incompetent if the intention was to cover up the presumed blunder on Fouke’s part – they could have just flat out denied ever having driven past Z in the first place, if they were so inclined.

There’s another, specific problem with Horan’s claim: According to Horan, the man Fouke passed was not Stine’s killer, but a random passer-by who had nothing to do with the murder and who looked nothing like the man witnessed by the teens. Well, if that’s true – why on earth didn’t Fouke/the SFPD simply go with this story (which even had the great advantage of being perfectly true)? He wasn’t stopped because there was no reason to stop him: He looked nothing like the perpetrator and clearly had nothing to do with the crime. Problem solved, no embarrassment for anyone involved.

My take on the NMA/WMA mix-up is simply that it’s too…stupid, to flukey, not to be true. It was one of those things – and that is that.

You’re saying you think the dispatcher who took the call was drunk?

Who knows, what I’m telling you is people were very different back then. Yes many people drank on the job. It was the norm. People went out at lunch and "had a few", believe me when I tell you. How else do you account for such a blunder. The cops are driving down a quite street with nobody around except for this guy one block away from the call location. The cop stated that he observed the white male suspect lower his head as their prowl car approached and walk up the steps of a residence. And the guy was coming from the direction of their call. You a have got to be kidding. You know they should have asked the guy for ID and for the subject to wait in place for an officer to question him, as he was so close to the scene. That’s about as simple and easy as it gets. Whether or not this man was the killer is one thing, the fact that a potential witness was allowed to vanish without getting his name, address, etc. is simply preposterous. And perhaps I’m all wet, and
It was just blatant incompetence.

You know they should have asked the guy for ID and for the subject to wait in place for an officer to question him, as he was so close to the scene. That’s about as simple and easy as it gets. Whether or not this man was the killer is one thing, the fact that a potential witness was allowed to vanish without getting his name, address, etc. is simply preposterous.

It stands out as very odd, no argument there. I don’t think the most obvious explanation is that the officers in question were drunk on the job, though – that’s what we’re still talking about, right?

Fouke’s explanation is very simple: They were looking for a black man, hence they didn’t bother with the man in question beyond determining that he was not black. Plausible? More or less. But it nevertheless seems very odd not to ask the guy a few simple questions – after all, he could very well have seen something of interest. It’s hard not to judge the whole thing as at least partly incompetent, but then again we do have the benefit of hindsight – not to mention the benefit of knowing what Fouke and Zelms had no idea of back then, namely that the perpetrator they were looking for was the Zodiac killer.

As far as the officers knew they were responding to a dispatch about a shooting incident involving a cab driver. Routine stuff, one could say. It’s safe to say that they would have acted very differently had they known the true nature of the thing.

And then…Foukes’ partner, a rookie, was killed in action a few months later. Was he getting ready to tell the true story? Whatever it was? He was sent in first in a bust, right?

Here in theory is part of the police dispatchers message to Donald Fouke "Be on the lookout for a black male adult, blond-reddish hair and crew cut" and nobody questioned this in 1969. Didn’t somebody once say the police were trained to be observant. Surely it is not standard police dispatcher training to take the whole description from the teenagers, and then when you inform the responding officers you actually omit virtually everything about the description and just say 5’10" black male, as some people have said, to attempt to explain away this discrepancy.
Donald Fouke was given black male, 5’10", crew cut, blond/reddish hair, glasses, 200 lbs, dark clothing and Donald Fouke passes a man fitting the entire description apart from the color, surely his interest and police training must have suggested this could be the guy or at least pricked his interest, not withstanding that not many black people had crew cuts and blond hair in 1969 as described in the police dispatch.
When Donald Fouke approached the man on Jackson Street, he, like we all do is look at the persons face, after all he is supposedly looking for a BMA, so why then bother to pay any attention to his elasticated cuffs and tan engineering boots. Also the biggest giveaway that he was looking for a white male, is if realizing the guy was a white male when he was looking for a black male, his immediate focus should be on looking for this black male once he passed the mystery man on Jackson Street, yet he described this white man as ‘graying at the rear of his hair’. Why is Donald Fouke bothering with detail like this, the man is white, the back of his head is not important if you are looking for a black male.

Also take a look at Donald Fouke’s scratch "I respectfully wish to report the following, that while responding to the area of Washington and Cherry Streets a suspect fitting the description of the Zodiac Killer was observed by Officer Fouke walking in an easterly direction on Jackson Street and then turn on Maple Street. The suspect was not stopped as the description received from communication was that of a negro male. When the right description was broadcast Officer Fouke informed communications"

The scratch says "a suspect fitting the description of the Zodiac Killer was observed by Officer Fouke."
So the suspect did fit the description he was given by dispatch, except the BMA part, but this was ignored on account of one discrepancy despite everything else matching. And again BMA with blond hair and crew cut. Come on.

And then…Foukes’ partner, a rookie, was killed in action a few months later. Was he getting ready to tell the true story? Whatever it was? He was sent in first in a bust, right?

It didn’t quite go down like that. Many times Zelm’s death has come into question. This pretty much answers it all:

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