I think it’s quite possible they showed the young lady some mug shots.

It just troubles me why Fouke never reported the encounter, and only did so when Zodiac himself wrote one month later that ‘Cops pulled a goof’. I mean it can’t be that Don knew he’d just let ‘Zodiac’ walk away and feared the public reaction because nobody knew at that point that Zodiac was the culprate.

I mean I am te first to realize that human beings are never going to be perfect and will always make mistakes, but there is incompetence, and then there is criminal negligence. It took over a month for Fouke to report the incident, and even then it was due to Zodiac’s provication. And it took him thirty-eight years to tell us that, actually, the guy walked onto a driveway and towards a house!

Don Fouke is not a stupid man, nor do I believe he is incompetent to such a great extent. In my opinion, there has to be some reason why he didn’t report the incident on Oct 11 (when the name ‘Zodiac’ wasn’t even suspected as being involved), and why when he then did make his report, stated suspect was last observed ‘going North on Maple Street’, when in fact he was actually last seen going towards a front door of a house!

Not according to A.P, he says that he broadcast the suspect description within minutes of arriving and having been told by the witnesses that the man they were looking for was White. He then says he walked down Cherry, onto Jackson and down to Maple Intersection, spoke to the dog walker, turned, walked back up Jackson, turned onto Cherry, and to quote A.P directly "And at that point, Officer Don Fouke, accompanied by Rokkie Officer Eric Zelms, pulled up very quickly".

Again, whichever version is correct is open to argument, the question I would ask is why the accounts seem to differ and don’t match up at all?

I think they line up enough to give us the picture that Fouke only became aware of the new description after encountering Pelissetti and being told about it.

So your saying that Pellisetti decided not to alert all other responding units himself via his one radio/frequency, and decided instead to tell a few of his bosses, who subsequently broacast another radio message to then untits on the grond with the updated information? Was A.P on a different redio frequency to fouke? Did the radio Pellisetti used to contact headquarters the same radio or frequency as that of the one used by SFPD Patrol Officers/ And finally, did A.P have a radio with the ability to inform responding units that there had been an ammendment, or is the proceedure for broadcasting urgent and critical updates with each other, they must first inform headquarters? I mean, if Patrol Car No.1 wants to alert Patrol Cars 2, 3 and 4 to a vital new change in a suspects description because Patrol Car 1 knows that cars 2,3 aand 4 are on their way, would patrol car No. 1 first have to tell the more important people at Headquarters so that they in turn can then tell patrols 2, 3 and 4? Why do Patrol cars have radios if they appear to not communicate with each other, or are not allowed untill word comes down from Inspector level that they may do so?

My understanding is that patrol cars aren’t able to broadcast to each other – that all messages have to be relayed through a station, usually back at the headquarters. Pelissetti gets the description from the kids and radios it back to headquarters, who then broadcast it to Fouke and all the other responding units.

Well that sounds easy, but this encounter took place on a street at a junction where many people my have witnessed the police speaking to a man from their homes, or the man walking his dog, any other citizen close by who saw the police speaking with a man etc. And I never claimed any agency was blocking an internal investigation, I just said one didn’t seem to have been carried out. And more importantly than the dispatcher’s alleged mistake, any detectives, Inspectors or Chiefs ask Don why he failed to mention a suspect having been seen by him and why he witheld that information and crucial eye witness description of the man untill the offender himself wrote to the press telling them about it before SFPD knew? I mean what logical reason do you think you can give to Fouke not giving vital suspect info such as what he was wearing, age, hair, weight, height, aswel as location of sighting etc? Did Don simply forget seeing him? I’d say theres almost Zero chance it just slipped his mind. Did he not mention it because he had not apprehended the man and feared the reaction of his peers and public? Well as I said, he has an easy answer to that, it was not his fault, the dispatcher had fed him incorrect suspect details, why didn’t he just say that if it really happened that way and divert the blame where it would then belong, at the desk of this dispatcher?

If you read this article…

http://www.mikerodelli.com/2interview.htm l”> http://web.archive.org/web/200605041715 … rview.html

… Fouke states that some kind of debrief, during which he talked to someone about his encounter, may very well have happened at the Richmond station house, directly after the shooting. I don’t think Fouke submitting the memo a month later necessarily meant that he withheld the info until Zodiac claimed to have spoken to him. He clearly states in his interviews that he had no reason to be afraid of disciplinary action over what happened that night. Perhaps up until Zodiac sent the letter, all he had done was verbally tell his superiors about the incident; Zodiac’s claim may have prompted him to properly put it in writing to set the record straight. Why his superiors apparently did nothing with any verbal reports of his is another story, however.

"My understanding is that patrol cars aren’t able to broadcast to each other – that all messages have to be relayed through a station, usually back at the headquarters. Pelissetti gets the description from the kids and radios it back to headquarters, who then broadcast it to Fouke and all the other responding units."

So SFPD Patrol Officers, in 1969, had no way what-so-ever to contact each other while out on the streets? (Thats not me being sarcastic, I honestly dont know)

… Fouke states that some kind of debrief, during which he talked to someone about his encounter, may very well have happened at the Richmond station house, directly after the shooting. I don’t think Fouke submitting the memo a month later necessarily meant that he withheld the info until Zodiac claimed to have spoken to him. He clearly states in his interviews that he had no reason to be afraid of disciplinary action over what happened that night. Perhaps up until Zodiac sent the letter, all he had done was verbally tell his superiors about the incident; Zodiac’s claim may have prompted him to properly put it in writing to set the record straight. Why his superiors apparently did nothing with any verbal reports of his is another story, however.

Ok if Fouke told the other superior officers then that is fair enough. Maybe thats why he now denies stopping a suspect. A.P said Fouke told him he had stopped the suspect and spoke to him, but Fouke denies it to this day so maybe word came down from higher level to Fouke along the lines of ‘Don’t tell anyone you stopped and spoke to the man whatever you do, it looks bad enough already’?

The SFPD were always at a disadvantage on that night. They didn’t know they were responding to a Zodiac crime. They tried to do what they could and tbh it was pretty good if you ask me. We look at it from the POV after the fact with more details. At the time they were just responding to an attack on a cabbie, they wouldn’t even have known it was a homicide until they got there because according to the kids they thought he was being stabbed, there’s no record of them saying they thought he was dead. At the time the officers were responding not investigating – they didn’t know what they were dealing with until they got there and even then they didn’t know the truth of the situation. As with many, many similar events at the time, if they were likely to assume anything it was that this was possibly connected the rash of recent cabbie robberies and attacks and probably deliberately done for that reason by Zodiac to create misdirection from the get go.

It’s all very well nitpicking over the mistakes but when you have a very narrow window to act then there will be mistakes. We seem to focus on these as being some hidden clue but in the reality of that night no-one was hunting for the Zodiac, they were just doing their best to find a perp and one who most likely planned his escape as opposed to someone blindly fleeing a crime.

The SFPD were always at a disadvantage on that night. They didn’t know they were responding to a Zodiac crime. They tried to do what they could and tbh it was pretty good if you ask me. We look at it from the POV after the fact with more details. At the time they were just responding to an attack on a cabbie, they wouldn’t even have known it was a homicide until they got there because according to the kids they thought he was being stabbed, there’s no record of them saying they thought he was dead. At the time the officers were responding not investigating – they didn’t know what they were dealing with until they got there and even then they didn’t know the truth of the situation. As with many, many similar events at the time, if they were likely to assume anything it was that this was possibly connected the rash of recent cabbie robberies and attacks and probably deliberately done for that reason by Zodiac to create misdirection from the get go.

Trav I completely agree with you that it’s easy for armchair critics, thats why I have said several times previously that I really don’t like being so critical or harsh towards Fouke and the events as they occured that night.
However, it makes no difference whether SFPD were aware of who had committed the crime or not, that is irrelevant at the time. I really have tried to not be so critical of the actions of some of the Officers that night and I have tried, believe me, to go over every single reason why this and that happened, but I just keep arriving back at the same conclusion and this is, there is just no excuse for Fouke not reporting the incidenct on the night it happened and that doesn’t matter whether it was his decision not to do so, or someone at senior level. A Police Officer, who is a trained observer, see’s a suspect who matches the description given by the teens, and who is now able to give description of facial features, heights, weights, clothes, hair and whatever else he may have seen, and he doesn’t come foreward, or has someone higher up ‘suggest’ that it may be Officer Don Fouke who now has the right to remain silent, doesn’t really matter. By not reporting that for the public benefit, he/they are witholding evidence. Also, 1969 memo tells the its reader that ‘Suspect last observed going North on Maple St. Fast Foreward a meer Thirty-Eight years, and now we discover, apparantly, that Zodiac was, quote: "Putting his head down when he spotted the police, then turned into an entrance way of a house. And by entrance way, I mean stairs that are concrete that lead to a path that leads to a front door…. Never saw him get to the top of the stairs". So, which is it then, did you last see him dashing off toward the presidio’s rural landscape, or toward a front door?

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound too negative, and me being British doesn’t help because i’m always concious and very aware that some readers may think i’m some stuck up British twit who is delighting in ranting about how incompetent the SFPD are and I honestly assure you, that isn’t at all what I am doing. It’s beyond Incompetence IMO and spills over into Criminal Negligence.

It may will spill into criminal incompetence. The point is that we can’t change what happened. I just think that we may be looking at the events of that night from the wrong perspective. We need to look at them from the POV of what we know and not about what LE did or didn’t do. Sure, maybe they did screw up but I can’t, for now, see how that helps us. There’s a chance that we might gleam something from Z’s behavior on that night and subsequently his admission and apparent detailing of the events.

Perhaps, at best we might answer some questions but in the task of finding this guy, are they the right questions? I don’t know but sometimes it’s ok to let some things be unknown just because they may well be dead ends.

I see what your saying and you have a point. I understand what your saying, and agree that if the hope is that we discover who this man was, then it is, obviously, better to concentrate on what we do know about him and what we do know he did than to speculate as to why LE may or may not have logged a report. I totally agree with that.

All i’m saying here is, it’s also important to question things that police did or didn’t do, like Fouke not reporting that the suspect was last seen going toward the front door of 3712 Jackson St, because if we don’t, we could overlook one of the biggest clues as to his identity. I’m not suggesting that 3712 Jackson would lead us directly to Zodiac, the chances of him actually living there or knowing someone that did is minimal but if there is a slight chance that it might, don’t you think we should at least try? I mean while I agree that its more important to concentrate on what we do know, the reality of it is, what we do know of that nights events comes directly from LE and Zodiac himself , none of us were on Cherry St that night. And while Zodaic does offer evidence to support his claims of being able to see the search, I wouldn’t want to rely on him as the sorce of our info. So LE is has to be.

It spills into cover-up.