Going back to the house on Jackson, I’m going to have to call that an incorrect remembrance. Fouke neither saw the guy enter the house, or walk away from it. He only assumed later that he walked away and did not live there. That’s a pretty big bet when all you had to do was go back and knock on the front door and see if Zodiac answered, or if not him then if the owner saw the guy who was at his door step.

And we are supposed to believe that a guy who can’t get his story straight remembered 40 years later the exact address that he saw for one second and didn’t write down?

I still find it extraordinarily hard to believe that without "stopping" this suspect, how Fouke got THAT much detail, right down to how high the zipper was on his jacket, to the pleats on his pants, elastic cuffs, and just assuming Welsh ancestry. And this is being seen at night time…that’s a lot of fine details for just "passing by" someone.

We can speculate till the cows start wearing wingwalkers about the details here. The real question is whether Fouke lied for decades about the nature of the encounter – or not.

Either he did – or he didn’t. That’s the core of it. All the pieces of the puzzle won’t fit after so many years, that’s to be expected. But the nature of the encounter is a simple thing. Either they just drove past him – or they stopped and talked to him. No room for misunderstandings or faulty memories there.

Whether Fouke did a perfect job in every sense on the night, or in the following days, or weeks – is an entirely different question.

As for his recollection of Z’s appearance – who knows? Perhaps he embellished what he did remember, perhaps he added a bit of detail from Pelissetti’s report. One thing he certainly could have done is to consult his notes: It was a murder, Fouke would have made some notes (as he was trained to do) – and he could have consulted these when writing up his famous memo.

Why wait? The answer is obvious. Whether it was on his own initiative or on orders from on high, what brought it about was obviously Z’s letter – no mystery there. Should he have volunteered this information (to Toschi or Armstrong, perhaps, or his immediate superiors) right away, or at an earlier stage? Sure – I think he should have. That has no bearing on whether he lied about the encounter, though – none whatsoever as far as I’m concerned.

Please forgive me if this has been mentioned. What I find curious is the final sentence of the memo. Foulke says he doesn’t know if Zelms saw the subject.

Once Foulke realized the subject was likely the suspect and raced back to look for him, wouldn’t he and Zelms have discussed what they did/didn’t remember about the guy? Or if Zelms hadn’t seen him, wouldn’t he ask Foulke why they were racing back to that spot?

I cannot understand how Foulke could not have known, a month later, whether his partner had spotted the subject.

I cannot understand how Foulke could not have known, a month later, whether his partner had spotted the subject.

What he says on this subject in the Rodelli/Dean interview simply amounts to: He saw what I saw, and heard what I told Pelissetti. His wording in the memo may look odd, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Zelms wasn’t Fouke’s regular partner. The pair of them probably didn’t discuss this incident at all subsequent to the night in question. And from Fouke’s POV what happened on the night was clear-cut: They drove past the guy, not knowing he was the perp, then received the updated description – then went in pursuit of the guy, figuring he had escaped into the park.

His arguably odd wording certainly does not indicate that Fouke was lying and had instructed Zelms to keep his mouth shut. What he says, in the memo, is basically: If you want to know what Zelms saw or didn’t see – go talk to him.

His arguably odd wording certainly does not indicate that Fouke was lying and had instructed Zelms to keep his mouth shut. What he says, in the memo, is basically: If you want to know what Zelms saw or didn’t see – go talk to him.

Norse, thanks again for your well-reasoned reply. I guess I was taking Foulke’s sentence too literally.

I guess I was taking Foulke’s sentence too literally.

I’m no authority on this matter, Marshall – I just offer my opinions, which others just as knowledgeable (not so say much more knowledgeable) will no doubt disagree with.

But in general I do believe there’s a tendency to read far too much into isolated statements in the Z case – and in particular, even, as regards Don Fouke and the events that night. But there’s a reason for this: Many of the statements we have are odd – or even contradictory.

Take the infamous "Welsh ancestry" business. A bizarre statement on Fouke’s part without context or elaboration which led to years of speculation before he finally cleared it up. And even after he did so, people are still seeking to read something fishy into it – no doubt in part because of the original confusion, which still lingers, in spite of a clarification which makes perfect sense (in my opinion) if one hasn’t already decided that Fouke is a fishy character.

It’s possible to pick all these statements apart and find holes and discrepancies all over the place. Is it necessary? Perhaps, in some cases. Perhaps not, in other cases. At the end of the day it means very little in the general Z context whether Fouke talked to Zodiac or not. Personally, I see no reason to believe Zodiac over Fouke. Why? Because I don’t see the logic in Fouke lying about it.

* Fouke decides to lie about the encounter from the very beginning – before it’s known to anyone that Zodiac is involved. Why?

* Zodiac, who has just escaped a close encounter with two cops he talked to and misdirected, makes no mention of this remarkable feat in his first post-Stine letter (but he does mention hiding in the park, taunting the pigs for not searching it properly). Nor in his second post-Stine letter. In his third post-Stine letter he finally mentions the encounter, on page 3 of his missive. Why?

Could there be any weight to my admittedly uninformed notion that they did stop and talk to someone from inside their car, a person they figured later must have been Z, but actually wasn’t? While this was going on, Z is in a position somewhere to observe this encounter, and then write to the paper that he was the man they stopped? Fouke has no way of knowing if this actually is Z but feels it’s very likely, and thus his own feelings or guilt is only further cemented by Z’s letter, when Z could just be using this encounter with an unidentified man, to further taunt the police?

I’m sure this can be quashed by much more knowledgeable people than I pretty quickly, but just adding a theory that I hadn’t seen discussed.

Could there be any weight to my admittedly uninformed notion that they did stop and talk to someone from inside their car, a person they figured later must have been Z, but actually wasn’t? While this was going on, Z is in a position somewhere to observe this encounter, and then write to the paper that he was the man they stopped? Fouke has no way of knowing if this actually is Z but feels it’s very likely, and thus his own feelings or guilt is only further cemented by Z’s letter, when Z could just be using this encounter with an unidentified man, to further taunt the police?

I’m sure this can be quashed by much more knowledgeable people than I pretty quickly, but just adding a theory that I hadn’t seen discussed.

This is entirely plausible, in that Zodiac saw the encounter from the third person perspective and effectively pretended to be the one stopped. The only problem with this argument is that the sketch drawn up by the three teenagers is virtually agreed upon by Donald Fouke as the unidentified male he observed. We know the teenagers saw Zodiac, and if they were accurate, then it can be confidentially stated that Fouke likely saw Zodiac, as his visualization of the man is nigh on identical to the three teenagers, thereby negating the idea that Zodiac was only viewing from the shadows.

Could there be any weight to my admittedly uninformed notion that they did stop and talk to someone from inside their car, a person they figured later must have been Z, but actually wasn’t? While this was going on, Z is in a position somewhere to observe this encounter, and then write to the paper that he was the man they stopped? Fouke has no way of knowing if this actually is Z but feels it’s very likely, and thus his own feelings or guilt is only further cemented by Z’s letter, when Z could just be using this encounter with an unidentified man, to further taunt the police?

I’m sure this can be quashed by much more knowledgeable people than I pretty quickly, but just adding a theory that I hadn’t seen discussed.

This is entirely plausible, in that Zodiac saw the encounter from the third person perspective and effectively pretended to be the one stopped. The only problem with this argument is that the sketch drawn up by the three teenagers is virtually agreed upon by Donald Fouke as the unidentified male he observed. We know the teenagers saw Zodiac, and if they were accurate, then it can be confidentially stated that Fouke likely saw Zodiac, as his visualization of the man is nigh on identical to the three teenagers, thereby negating the idea that Zodiac was only viewing from the shadows.

Yeah, I’d guess having two sets of people seeing someone of practically the same description 5 minutes apart who were two different people is unlikely. On another note, do we believe Zodiac when he says he hid in the park afterward? Does he need to lie at this point? He’d already gotten away with the murder in the middle of the street and then slipped through an encounter with Fouke and Zelms. Does he need to also mock them further by lying about hiding in the park?

I don’t think he was hiding in the park in the manner indicated in his letter. It’s too general to be taken seriously, IMO. I think he may have escaped in one way or another via the park, but he wasn’t hiding in there while they were searching for him (which is what he indicates). If he had done that, they would have caught him.

As for taunting them – if he had actually talked to them, and misdirected them, I think this is what he would have taunted them with straight away – not this non-specific park business.

It’s theoretically possible that Z could have observed Fouke and Zelms stopping a passerby from some hiding place, but what was said above strongly speaks against this possibility.

Others have suggested that Z managed to catch Fouke’s encounter with Pelissetti (which would have taken place shortly after Fouke passed Z) – and that it was this which inspired him to conjure up a non-existent conversation between himself and the cops.

Guess he was inside Bloch’s house, watching the scene from above. From there he could have seen all the cops motorcycles without being seen..

QT

I don’t think he was hiding in the park in the manner indicated in his letter. It’s too general to be taken seriously, IMO. I think he may have escaped in one way or another via the park, but he wasn’t hiding in there while they were searching for him (which is what he indicates). If he had done that, they would have caught him.

It makes perfect sense that if he had no car parked somewhere near Jackson and Maple and escaped via the park to another location ie; car elsewhere or on foot to a nearby residence, he would and did evade detection. The police had accumulated to the west on Arguello Boulevard, this makes sense as this is the most wooded area for concealment. The Zodiac certainly would not have returned back to Jackson, into the lions den. The north escape route is extremely open with little coverage. The most plausible escape route is east through the park into more wooded area and away into the Cow Hollow area. He may have lived here or parked his vehicle, but crucially it provides separation from the madding crowd. No police as far as I am aware swept the park from this direction with tracker dogs, but they did comb the park in a dragnet from west to east, and north to south, but not east to west, so which way would you escape.

Unless I’m misreading you, that would be in line with him escaping via the park, which I concede is a possibility.

I doubt it went down that way, though. I think he did have a car parked close to Maple (Spruce has been suggested as a plausible location).

If he had no car in the area, his movements make little sense. If you plan on escaping into the park (or via the park, or whatever) the obvious route goes straight north on Cherry. Z turned east on Jackson for a reason. I lean heavily towards that reason being a very simple one: His original plan was to have Stine stop at Maple/Washington, from which he would have headed straight for his car (which could have been parked on Spruce).

Z was a car man, he depended on his car for his getaway at LHR, BRS and LB. I find it overwhelmingly likely that he was parked fairly close to the Stine scene as well, and that getting back to his car featured heavily in his plan for that night.

Norse: I think you’re dead on about Z having a car parked nearby. Question is, why the initial stop? And, why the obviously public crime scene when, heretofore, he’d favored private places, like Lovers’ Lanes?