(I haven’t referred to the 1989 Documentary, because I didn’t
hear any statements in it made by Fouke, which were inconsistent
with the statements Fouke made in the 2007 documentary.)
Cheers

You need to watch it then because what he says in that is very different than what he says in "This is the Zodiac speaking".

Fouke states he got the update to a white male face to face (in person) from Pelissetti in 2007, which is totally different to what he said in 1989. The time of the attack ie: was recorded at 9:55 pm. The response (called in) was assault with intent to murder (police code 217) at 9:58 pm. http://www.zodiackiller.com/StineReport1.html

A few random thoughts:

We never found out where Pelissetti and Peda were when they got the APB – one guess is they were at Zim’s on California Street, a 24-hour restaurant that was a bit of a cop hangout. Zim’s was .3 miles from the crime scene.

Was it confirmed anywhere that the initial dispatch description was erroneous? By a statement from the dispatcher? By another cop who received the APB?

My thought is both Fouke and Pelissetti have had to come to grips with the events of that night – because on some level they both may feel they blew it.

Why didn’t Pelissetti immediately jump back in the squad car and pursue the suspect that Lindsey Robbins was pointing to at the top of Cherry?

And my guess is the initial dispatch was correct, and Fouke blew that. Otherwise there would be no need to change his story – he would have been acting appropriately based on the NM radio description he had to work with.

Was it confirmed anywhere that the initial dispatch description was erroneous? By a statement from the dispatcher? By another cop who received the APB?

That both Pelisetti and Fouke thought it was a black male says the dispather sent out the wrong ID, whether the caller was responsible or the dispatcher got it wrong is unknown.

Why didn’t Pelissetti immediately jump back in the squad car and pursue the suspect that Lindsey Robbins was pointing to at the top of Cherry?

Well, I’d say Pelisetti did what he should have done and that was to hustle the kids back into their house since there could still have been someone with a gun in the area.

I don’t believe it is known exactly what the guy said to Pelisetti about the shooter or where the shooter was when he told Pelisetti, but it seems to me the encounter Fouke had with the suspect, whether he stopped him or not, shows he was well out of the immediate area when Pelisetti arrived.

Either way, that might be why Pelisetti pursued on foot, he thought he was much closer, possibly still on Cherry.

Richard Grinell said;
"Fouke clearly stated in the 1989 documentary ""We proceeded
on Jackson Street towards Arguello continuing our search, as we
arrived at Arguello Street the description of the suspect was
changed to a white male adult".
Richard Grinell also said;
"Fouke states he got the update to a white male face to face
(in person) from Pelissetti in 2007, which is totally different
to what he said in 1989."

Your assertion is not supported by what Fouke said in 1989,
and you have incorrectly represented as one sentence, what
are in fact, two separate, individual statements by Fouke.
Here is what the actual audio is, in that 1989 documentary;
Fouke says;
"Since we were looking for a negro male adult, we proceeded on
Jackson St towards Arguello, continuing our search."
(Video cuts to Graysmith talking, then later we hear a
comment from Fouke),
"As we arrived at Arguello Street (sic) the description of the
suspect was changed to a white male adult."

It is not based in fact, (and it is somewhat unfair to Fouke), to
imply that later comment ‘proves’ that Fouke is making a different,
inconsistent statement compared to what he said in 2007, without
any knowledge of if or in what the context was, that he was making
the later comment in response to. For example, can you present any
fact that proves that (during where the Graysmith edit cut is), that
Fouke did not mention encountering Pelissetti, or that Fouke was in
fact in 1989 responding to previously raised questions from the
interviewer, one such as ;
‘Where were you and when was it that the Police Despatch radio
broadcast the corrected description of the suspect?’

Your 2007 quote of Fouke references information received from
Pelissetti, but again, what fact can you point to that proves that
Fouke in 1989 wasn’t in fact referring to information Broadcast
over the Police Despatch radio?
I hope you can understand my concern that it’s easy to assert a
negative opinion of someone, but it’s better to ensure that a view-
point on any particular thing someone does or says is based in fact
& is not actually a non-factual based interpretation of what they said
or did, or is just as reasonably explained by an alternate set of
circumstances.
———–

In regard to the other point you raised, I provided alternate scenarios
that can act to explain the apparent discrepancy, so I can only reiterate
again my standing offer placed to you, that if you know someone with a
Beenverified account who can provide us with his email address, then I
I am happy to make the effort to contact Pelissetti to obtain an answer
to the outstanding question of ‘did Pelissetti encounter Fouke in Cherry St
after, or before, Pelissetti walked up Jackson street looking for the suspect‘.
Cheers

All I can say, is if both officers received the initial broadcast at 9:58 pm (it doesn’t really matter the exact time, it could be 9.59, 10:00, whatever) then Fouke didn’t head to the crime scene – he headed away. Had he gone straight to the crime scene he would have met Pelissetti at the crime scene and would have been present when the kids gave Pelissetti the amended description.

Something about the timeline is badly wrong, and always has been. The statement of the Robbins kids is incompatible with Donald Fouke for one responsible that night. Let us say Donald Fouke received the initial broadcast at 9:58 pm. His journey from Presidio Ave/Washington to the intersection of Jackson/Maple is 810 meters (approx 1 minute journey time). The time would be 9:59 pm when he spotted Zodiac here.

The journey on foot travelling at an average speed of 3.1 mph from the crime scene to Jackson/Maple is approx 3 minutes. I calculated it exactly to 2 minutes 50 seconds (p.s. 2 cops pulled a goof abot 3 min after I left the cab). Therefore Zodiac left the crime scene at 9:56 pm, about 1 minute after the kids first noticed the cab that night.

But if Zodiac then headed up Cherry (approx 1 minute), the killer would be at the top of Cherry at 9:57 pm. The Robbins kids said they pointed out the attacker to Pelissetti approaching the corner of Cherry. Therefore, they must have done this at 9:57 pm. But Pelissetti didn’t even receive the initial broadcast until 9:58 pm and had to travel to the crime scene.

There is something very wrong with either Fouke’s or the Robbins kids account. They are wholly incompatible. Or, the Robbins kid and Fouke were viewing two different people, and two responsible’s that night. Whatever the case, we are dealing with statements that don’t line up.

Zodiac directed the cab to Washington & Maple,but for an unknown reason, made Stine go one block further to Wash & Cherry. Later, when Z writes about it, he does not mentions Wash & Cherry,but rather Wash & Maple again. A couple reasons possibly. One, he wasn’t familiar with the area,and didn’t know that Cherry was the street a block up, or, he wanted to call attention to Washington & Maple for some reason. As an experiment, I am looking for any mentions of Washinton & Maple in CA newspapers in Sf, and in other towns. Found one mention in Santa Cruz, posted here. Is there any other Wash & Maples in CA?

Another possible reason is that he wanted to disguise the fact that he knew somebody that lived at Washington & Cherry.

Why would he commit a crime where someone he knew might spot him?

I don’t think he was worried about anyone recognizing him, because he probably didn’t live there. It is obvious to me his destination was closer to Maple st, he didn’t want to make it easy for police to figure out he needed to get to Maple, so to throw them off , he had Stine go one more block to Cherry.

The reason that I think I am correct, is he was seen heading back towards Maple , that was the last place he was spotted. I do not believe he headed into the park to hide there, but went towards the park into a back door apt that faced the park on Pacific Ave. He was able to watch everything from that back door apt, with out being spotted by the police who were looking for a robber. There were two homes on Jackson that were being renovated, he could have been one of the workers on those projects. Instead of driving back and forth from Vallejo where I believe he lived, he may have decided to rent the small apt.

The thing is that Donald Fouke didn’t do anything terribly wrong that night. If he was indeed duped by the killer, this only happened because of the flawed description (the original dispatch) he was – at the time – working from. Hardly a huge embarrassment. And Zodiac wasn’t a part of the equation: it was a run-of-the-mill shooting, nothing out of the ordinary.

And yet – if Fouke talked to the killer, he decided to lie about it almost immediately: not lie about a Zodiac encounter, but lie about a trivial incident which took place in connection with a run-of-the-mill shooting (the general context being one in which Fouke, personally, didn’t do anything wrong).

Let’s assume that he did talk to the killer. What must have happened is this: Fouke is en route to the crime scene. He spots an individual who’s walking towards him on Jackson. This person does not fit the description of the suspect, but Fouke stops and talks to him nonetheless, wanting to know if he’s seen or heard anything: yes, the guy says, I just saw someone very suspicious running towards the park. Fouke speeds along, in pursuit, and then shortly after he receives the amended description via dispatch – and he realizes that he’s been duped.

Now, what should have happened next is this: not much later Fouke meets up with Pelissetti – and tells his fellow officer precisely what has just transpired. Because – well – why shouldn’t he? But what should have happened did not happen – did it? If Fouke talked to this run-of-the-mill perpetrator, he decided there and then – and for reasons that are anything but obvious to me – to lie about it.

The alternative is that he did tell Pelissetti – but considered it prudent to ask him (and Zelms *, one has to assume) to keep it to himself. Which Pelissetti agreed to do (he neglected to mention the incident in his report) – and, well, the pair of them have been lying about what happened ever since. But – again – why? They weren’t conspiring to cover up an embarrassing encounter with Zodiac. What compelled them to launch this cover-up was a trivial enough incident – which transpired because of an erroneous suspect description, not because Fouke screwed up personally. I don’t think that makes much sense personally.

The discrepancies, contradictions and whatnot are – well – they are what they are, I suppose. My take on it is simple: it wasn’t a Zodiac murder at the time. They weren’t exactly on top of their game, things were a bit sloppy, perhaps. And when they tried to recall the events twenty, and then close to forty, years later – they, unsurprisingly, didn’t remember too well what actually happened and in what exact order.

Bottom line: yes, something is clearly off here, what the various parties say doesn’t jibe, it’s a dreadful mess really – but that isn’t necessarily a result of anyone lying.

* Zelms seemingly believed that they had talked to Zodiac – at least according to his wife. Possible explanations for this have been suggested: Ed Neil once proposed that Fouke and Zelms (obviously) accosted plenty of people that night (very likely some shady types too), and that it was one of these Zelms mistakenly thought was Zodiac. Doesn’t really matter, though, the salient point would be that to my knowledge his wife never said anything about Fouke instructing her husband to keep his mouth shut (and he would have, arguably, if he was worried about the truth coming out).

Welcome back Norse !

Welcome back Norse !

Thanks! Figured it was about time I dropped by.

You make several good points, but my guess is there was never an ‘incorrect’ suspect-description in the broadcast. That would explain a lot.

In the context of a possible cover-up, it would – certainly.

Balance of probabilities, I suppose. If the NMA detail is bogus it means that Pelissetti knew the truth, omitted the incident from his report and – later – implicated at least one (unknown) dispatcher in this business. And both Peda and Zelms would have been aware that there wasn’t any NMA involved (so you’d think). Lastly – again – this is something which is set in motion not in the context of the Zodiac case. If the cover-up was initiated after everyone knew that Stine was a Zodiac victim – then, yes, it would have been much easier to buy it. But that isn’t the case.

Some other points which may be mentioned:

* Pelissetti’s report is clearly not very detailed (e.g. he neglects to mention that he, himself, encountered someone walking a dog shortly after the murder).

* We don’t have access to much of the material pertaining to the Stine murder.

* Pelissetti is on record stating that he doesn’t think the man Fouke encountered (whether he talked to him or not) was Zodiac – his reasoning being that Zodiac would have been covered with blood, a fact Fouke couldn’t have failed to notice. Which is a spurious argument, in my opinion, but that’s another matter: If Pelissetti was in on the cover-up, he offers this opinion in that context, you could say – which may or may not make sense.

* Zodiac doesn’t mention this incident straight away. He was very nearly caught, but managed to pull a trick on the cops – no small feat from his perspective. But he doesn’t mention this right away: the incident is only mentioned in his third post-Stine missive. In his first missive, he talks about hiding out in the park (evading the cops – a taunting remark on his part), but there’s no mention of the much more embarrassing (for the SFPD) Fouke encounter.

Wondering if any of Melvin Belli’s children were ever enrolled at Presidio Hill School?