It always amazed me, that despite the fact Donald Fouke was driving and was supposedly focusing on the road, as well as sidewalks, disregarding the less than ideal light and parked vehicles, he was able to describe the grey hair at the back of Zodiac’s head, his elasticated cuffs and waistband, tan engineering boots, his eyes (although not the color), zipper type jacket and brown wool pants in a matter of seconds as he purportedly rolled on by, yet, he wasn’t sure if Eric Zelms saw anything, despite the rookie officer being closest to the sidewalk. Donald Fouke saw Zodiac heading up a stairwell and heading up Maple. Donald Fouke even saw Zodiac in the next block down in the documentary featuring Mike Rodelli’s suspect. Donald Fouke then headed to Arguello, that then changed to Cherry 18 years later. This has little to do with memory, because the details haven’t become sketchy, they have evolved into something completely different. If Donald Fouke didn’t stop the subject on Jackson Street as he attested, and his eyesight was as good as the description he gave belies, then why did he need 5, 10, 15 seconds to determine the guy was white. He said himself, "seeing it was a black man we continued". Surely Donald Fouke spotted the color of the man’s head before he got to the tan engineering boots and grey hair at the rear. Once you’ve decided it was a white man, and you were looking for a black man, why are you scanning this man with more detail than the terminator. But stopping this subject to inquire if he had seen a black man makes sense, since you would have regarded him a possible eyewitness in the general area. There is no shame in admitting you did your job, especially considering you have been given the NMA description.

I agree that the extremely detailed description is a very compelling suggestion that they got more than just a quick look at the guy and that it seems like the kind of information that they obtained by actually stopping and speaking with him. Could it be though that Fouke to some extent adopted the description of the cloths from the Robbins? It seems possible that unprompted he did not remember such detail but when he (possibly as much as a month later) heard the other witness description it resonated with him and coloured his memory of what he actually witnessed. The only reason I can think of for Zelms (who I agree must have observed at least as much as Fouke that night) being cut out of the ordeal is that Fouke and Zelms did not themselves know how crucial their sighting was until the November letter and therefore hadn’t discussed what they saw. Because they didn’t regularly work together and weren’t personally investigating the crime they perhaps hadn’t spoken since that night.

Good point about some memory refreshing going on after hearing the teens description. Very possible some of that went on.
And Zelms too. I’ve always sensed that Zelms silence had some to do with his being a rookie at the time I believe I read somewhere. He was probably overwhelmed somewhat with the level of superiors that were suddenly asking for things from him and probably was being protected some by his peers and immediate supervisors. Not really a ‘sit down and shut up, you don’t know jack rookie’ thing, but more of a ‘we got this, we know this is overwhelming for you being brand new’ type of thing.

It sounds like both Pelissetti and Fouke at various times changed/or amended their stories.

I agree with Richard – when you put it in perspective, the Zodiac’s story seems more solid.

No, I suppose it doesn’t matter if he spoke to Zodiac or not, or went into the park, or whether the 340 cipher has a garbled message, or why Zodiac wore a costume. Unfortunately RTF, if we didn’t discuss these subjects that essentially won’t solve the case and restricted ourselves to just topics that will solve the case, like fingerprints and DNA, then 99 % of all the stuff discussed on this forum and Zodiac websites would be rendered redundant and pointless…

Thanks, Richard. I do understand that it is a valid and worthy Z topic of discussion. It just thought I might be missing something here, as some strong views and opinions were being expressed.

I do like reading the articles on your website, and understand that you have put much thought and effort into tracing Z’s footsteps via the Fouke/Pelisetti/Robbins accounts. And yes, what else can be done, if that is the limited info we have to work with? Trouble is, it’s like arithmetic using variables that vary in each telling and retelling.

No matter how slow or inept the policing might seem to us civilians in such examples, it’s admirable that these low-pay, workaday cops go into the vicinity of a crime with the distinct possibility they might wind up shot by some armed cabbie-robbing junkie.

And, we shouldn’t forget that adrenaline is flowing like crazy, and that self-preservation is not a choice but an instinctive imperative – and that their accounts of events are made when they have returned to the normal, safe-mode human state. That’s why i thought it a little harsh for Fouke to be dubbed an out-and-out liar in his scratch, or a cover-up conspirator or whatever us armchair experts wanna throw out there.

I’m not saying this avenue is not worth looking into or questioning, but it completely clashes with Fouke’s statement from 11/12/69. He writes that he did not know if Zelms saw Z or not. He would be running a huge risk writing that if the Inspectors talked to Zelms. If Fouke is lying, he was lying since this memo,and if he did really talk to Z,then his Partner, Zelms had to cover for him.

Zelms reportedly told his wife that he and Fouke had spoken to the killer, “face to face,” and that the man was calm and answered questions.
I, no doubt, believe Zelms wife over Fouke.
And I have always been pretty suspicious concerning the killing of officer Eric Zelms, only 2 1/2 months after the Paul Stine murder, January 1, 1970.
Was he killed in a setup to silence him?

I don’t think Zelms was murdered to keep quiet, but I DO think Zelms and Fouke told each other "we keep this between us."