The thing with the 8 year old is that he named a person; a person LE certainly looked in to. I don’t know if us finding out who that was would have any bearing. It would be interesting, but I’d like to think LE already looked at the man.

Well you a right. What if the man’s fingerprints didn’t match prints LE had of what they believed were the Zodiac’s. The man denies being there at the crime or any knowledge whatsoever about these matters. It wouldn’t be hard to promote the child’s account as being wrong. And if the named suspect lived in the Presidio, perhaps he was of a high echelon. Somebody who nobody would ever believe could do such a thing.i don’t know about others, but I sure want to know that name.

Just something I’m throwing out there based on Foukes own statement……..Fouke states that he and Zelms were patrolling the east side of the Richmond district and heading northbound on Presidio Ave and had passed Washington street, when they got the call.

He next states, when asked what speed they were travelling when the encountered the WM…."before we seen him we were travelling about 35-40mph on a 25mph limit street before slowing etc…

I put Fouke and Zelms back a bit on the corner of Presidio Ave and Washington street and measured the route ( same way , north on Presidio, west on Jackson and south on Cherry to the crime scene) it’s 0.66 miles. I also ignored Fouke’ s own estimate of MPH and reduced it to 20mph perhaps allowing for stop signs ( not sure what it would take out of them or what part they played). The estimated time would be 1 minute and 58 seconds.
I don’t know if there’s a flaw here but I think I’m stretching things in their favour. Based on that, I’m surprised they were not first on the scene or at the very least, there before Pelissetti started walking!

Just something I’m throwing out there based on Foukes own statement……..Fouke states that he and Zelms were patrolling the east side of the Richmond district and heading northbound on Presidio Ave and had passed Washington street, when they got the call.

He next states, when asked what speed they were travelling when the encountered the WM…."before we seen him we were travelling about 35-40mph on a 25mph limit street before slowing etc…

I put Fouke and Zelms back a bit on the corner of Presidio Ave and Washington street and measured the route ( same way , north on Presidio, west on Jackson and south on Cherry to the crime scene) it’s 0.66 miles. I also ignored Fouke’ s own estimate of MPH and reduced it to 20mph perhaps allowing for stop signs ( not sure what it would take out of them or what part they played). The estimated time would be 1 minute and 58 seconds.
I don’t know if there’s a flaw here but I think I’m stretching things in their favour. Based on that, I’m surprised they were not first on the scene or at the very least, there before Pelissetti started walking!

Very good point.

I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. What this means, at the very least, is that one of Pelissetti’s versions simply has to be dismissed:

In one version he claims to have walked around the block (north on Cherry, east on Jackson, south on Maple – and back to the crime scene), plus having talked to the dog walker, before meeting up with Fouke somewhere on Cherry. This simply cannot have happened – unless Fouke got out of his car and pushed it towards Jackson/Cherry.

At one point I did consider the possibility that Fouke and Pelissetti may have responded to different dispatches, i.e. that Fouke responded to a second dispatch. But this leaves us with an aggravated version of the NMA/WMA problem – because surely the second dispatch would have included the amended description of the suspect, which makes this scenario (Fouke responding to a second dispatch) impossible unless Fouke is downright lying about the Z encounter on Jackson (and I for one don’t think he is).

I didn’t understand it that way Norse…..I thought/think Pelissetti encountered Fouke and Zelms on his initial search for Z…he met up with Fouke again "later". I believe that’s it but stand to be corrected.

To the best of my knowledge the dispatch call went out at 9.55pm and Pelissetti responded to the scene at 9.58pm. Give him another few minutes? to herd the kids back to the house, check on the cab/stine return to the kids and getting the amended description, make the call to let everyone know and then proceed cautiously up Cherry where he met Fouke.
My point was if everyone got the initial dispatch at 9.55pm…it should only have taken Fouke 2 minutes tops to reach the crime scene ( and probably much sooner). He should have got there first. He should have been there at 9.57pm
It may be an indication that he stopped along the route…to talk to Z!

I didn’t understand it that way Norse…..I thought/think Pelissetti encountered Fouke and Zelms on his initial search for Z…he met up with Fouke again "later". I believe that’s it but stand to be corrected.

Well, it stands to reason that he must have met up with Fouke more than once that night. What I’m referring to is a version of that night’s events in which Pelissetti’s initial meeting with Fouke seemingly doesn’t take place until after he’s been around the block.

He’s omitting A from one version and B from the next, though, so it’s very confusing. I don’t think he’s being evasive or deliberately misleading as such – he’s just less than clear and comprehensive in his (re)telling of the story. Which is extremely annoying for a poor bastard who’s trying to make sense of this.

As for who should have arrived first at the scene, we’re suffering from a lack of data, I think:

We know roughly where Fouke was when he got the dispatch – but to my knowledge Pelissetti’s actual whereabouts isn’t mentioned anywhere (is it?) He says himself that they happened to be very close to the crime scene, though – possibly considerably closer than Fouke and Zelms.

Ah yes, I’m with you now…apologies. It is curious that neither of their initial reports make mention of the encounter at Jackson and Cherry.

On the second issue, I have no info at to where Pelissetti responded from ( while it would be interesting to know it is secondary) but the point went to Fouke and Zelms and why they should have been there sooner than they were. That’s working from the assumption that both cars received notification from dispatch at the same time…9;55 pm. It took Pelissetti 3 mins to get there, it should have taken Fouke 2 mins, working off his own words. It’s also hard to reconcile ( since they were not there sooner and considering their respective positions when they did meet up) why F&Z apparently were not aware of the update.

Ah yes, I’m with you now…apologies.

Not at all, my friend – it’s not easy staying on the same page given the nature of that page!

On that note, presuming we are now on the same page regarding the first-on-scene business: Yes, I see what you mean. The only thing I can bring up as a possible counterpoint is that your estimate (how long would it/should it take Fouke to reach Washington/Cherry from his starting point) is slightly off. We’re talking pretty fine margins here, after all.

How long would it take Pelissetti to:

* Get out of the car/survey the scene quickly/assess the situation
* Talk to the teens
* Get on the radio
* Reach the point on Cherry (pretty close to the Jackson intersection) where he met Fouke

Now, combine the above with the possibility that it might have taken Fouke longer than just under two minutes to reach the scene – and what are we looking at?

Put it like this: How much longer must it take Fouke for the generally accepted sequence of events (Pelisetti first on scene, meets up with Fouke somewhere on Cherry) to be plausible?

Another question might be:

If Fouke did indeed pull over in order to talk to Z – how long would this have taken?

And then we have this…

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/5 … PuRMvnF_DF

And then we have this…

http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/5 … PuRMvnF_DF

Hehe – yes. As if things weren’t sufficiently unclear with just Fouke and Pelissetti (plus partners) in the mix…

I don’t know what to make of that story. I remember a theory of sorts proposed by Ed Neil too (on one of the older versions of Tom Voigt’s board, IIRC), which had to do with the oft repeated story that Zelm’s widow claimed that her husband had confirmed – to her – that Fouke and Zelms had indeed talked to Z.

Basically, what Ed proposed was that Zelms had recalled (and told his wife about) a different encounter with a subject (not the one Fouke describes in his famous memo) the pair of them did indeed talk to. Now, whether this has merit or not isn’t really the point – but what is interesting about it is that it should remind us of two potentially very important things:

1. It was a long night which followed the Stine murder. Not to mention some long days following the realization that Stine was actually a Z crime. Many people besides the few we know about were no doubt involved, both officers and persons of (varying degrees of) interest.

2. We clearly don’t have all documents/reports/whatnot pertaining to the Stine case. There has to be LOTS of material pertaining to the investigation we have never seen.

Norse wrote :-

On that note, presuming we are now on the same page regarding the first-on-scene business: Yes, I see what you mean. The only thing I can bring up as a possible counterpoint is that your estimate (how long would it/should it take Fouke to reach Washington/Cherry from his starting point) is slightly off. We’re talking pretty fine margins here, after all.

How long would it take Pelissetti to:

* Get out of the car/survey the scene quickly/assess the situation
* Talk to the teens
* Get on the radio
* Reach the point on Cherry (pretty close to the Jackson intersection) where he met Fouke

Now, combine the above with the possibility that it might have taken Fouke longer than just under two minutes to reach the scene – and what are we looking at?

Put it like this: How much longer must it take Fouke for the generally accepted sequence of events (Pelisetti first on scene, meets up with Fouke somewhere on Cherry) to be plausible?

Another question might be:

If Fouke did indeed pull over in order to talk to Z – how long would this have taken?

Ultimately you are correct….when all is considered the timings are too tight to be able to make definitive conclusions. Plus of course any possible exchange between Fouke and Z would only measure in the seconds and we could never say that was where the time was used up.

Just on the timings from Pelissetti’s end ( not sure what difference it makes if any)….we do have a clarification of sorts. Dispatch call 9;55pm……Pelissetti responds 9:58….Z is just leaving the scene. When Rossomo timed that walk for his geographical profile he estimated it at around 3 mins ( same time Z offered in his claim)
That actually makes things worse because we would then be speaking of the encounter with F&Z circa 10/10.01
F&Z must have been in a coffee shop. I’m stumped!!!

I have this "Zodac notes" document on my old laptop – which is both useful and useless (because it sometimes lacks information about WHERE the hell I came across this bit and that). But for what it’s worth:

Pelissetti arrived at the crime scene sixty seconds after having received the dispatch. He was on his way home, having just gone off duty, when he got the dispatch (so it was pure coincidence in that sense, he wasn’t on his beat).

The problem, as you can guess, is that I don’t know where this information comes from – I would think it has to be one of the interviews.