In Graysmith’s book he mentions a yellow cab robbery twelve days before the Paul Stine murder, bearing a strong similarity–almost same MO in close geographic locale–enough to make it appear like a rehearsal.
Twelve days before, there may have been a dry run for the Stine shooting. At 11:00 P.M., September 30, 1969, Yellow Cab driver Paul Hom snagged a fare at the Mark Hopkin’s Hotel. The passenger asked to be driven to Washington and Locust Streets, three blocks before Washington and Cherry Streets. At the destination, he asked Hom to continue along Washington to Arguello Boulevard, then proceed north into the Presidio for several hundred yards. Abruptly, he pulled a long-barreled revolver and robbed Hom of $35 in cash. The cabbie, forced into the trunk, pleaded with the robber to spare his life. Later he was released, unharmed, by M.P’s.
I can only find one mention of this on the forum and next to no mention on the internet more generally. I’m imagining Graysmith got this from LE since he quotes SFPD Captain Marty Lee (one imagines, it’s not invented). Yet, can anyone clue me in as to why this isn’t better known or more remarked about?
Is Zodiac copy-catting or is it something more? Was it reported in the Chronicle or Examiner for instance?
EDIT: I read on and it mentions the Chronicle:
After Stine’s murder, Captain Marty Lee, basing his conclusion on an “amazing similarity of M.O. between criminals in two cabby cases,” said he believed the robber to have been Zodiac. The Chronicle thought so too. “One of the luckiest men alive,” it reported, “taken for a ride by Zodiac, but lived to tell about it.” One discrepancy could not be explained. Hom’s robber was only twenty-four, “135 pounds with black hair and eyes,” and dressed in “blue denim jacket and dark slacks.” But Zodiac was undeniably a stocky, older man. Did he have a young accomplice who had scouted out the scene for him, rehearsing the Stine killing? Was that where the answer lay?”
Interesting. Don’t know anything about it.
I read these forums a lot, and there’s only one C&P’ed thread, pasted from elsewhere that makes mention of it. What’s interesting is that, since the description of the robber is at odds with the general description of Zodiac, it would on face value appear that Zodiac gained inspiration from the crime. If this was the case, then that gave him twelve days to carry out the Stine murder, already having acquired the blueprint for its accomplishment. As such, I’d love to see the original reporting of the robbery.
Accordingly, the Stine murder looks preplanned rather totally impulsive, but organised in a very short time period. We know that Zodiac was an adaptive killer, willing to change up his MO. Yet, perhaps this gives us some insight into how he did so. Unlike the other murders, where he had to scope the location for opportunity and ideal victim type, all he needed in this case was a gun and available cab. This is perhaps why the tempo increased with the Stine murder, since the window for planning and execution was much shorter.
If Graysmith is the source, take with a basketball-sized grain of salt.
No mention of this incident on Newspapers.com whatsoever. They carry the Examiner, Napa Valley Register and Sacramento Bee, but not the Chronicle. Call me cynical, but does it sound to anyone else like he’s trying to imply that Allen had an accomplice for PH? 
Most of that book is ALA propaganda.
Edit: Yellow Book is sprinkled with Marty Lee quotes from the news, but it doesn’t appear that Graysmith ever interviewed him.
Can’t find it here, either.
https://sfchronicle.newsbank.com
Hmmm, that’s a lot of detail, even for a Graysmith embellishment, but the fact it’s not mentioned elsewhere is super dubious. Graysmith’s timeline puts Sgt. Lynch interviewing Allen during that twelve day gap. I also really dislike the implication of an accomplice.
Oddly, there was a Paul Hom who was a UC Davis medical student around 1971, and who later became a public health director, and founder of an NGO farmworker clinic in Sacramento.
It was covered on this site 5 years ago
https://servimg.com/image_preview.php?i=129&u=14983612
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
Thanks Richard, I did actually check your site, to see if I could find any mention. This helps a lot.
Very interesting that this is the Vallejo Evening Chronicle. Graysmith only mentions the ‘Chronicle‘. If Zodiac was a Vallejo local, looking to take the heat off himself, then this article could be salient and non-trivial.
I was only able to find mention of a spate of taxi robberies in SF during this period and more generally a record of 4 taxi ‘slayings’ between 1967 and 1974.
Thanks Richard, I did actually check your site, to see if I could find any mention. This helps a lot.
Very interesting that this is the Vallejo Evening Chronicle. Graysmith only mentions the ‘Chronicle‘. If Zodiac was a Vallejo local, looking to take the heat off himself, then this article could be salient and non-trivial.
I was only able to find mention of a spate of taxi robberies in SF during this period and more generally a record of 4 taxi ‘slayings’ between 1967 and 1974.
This is all I did https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-ne … fake-clews
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
I don’t know if this is a problem …. but if it were an inspiration, it would appear to eliminate the Ray Davis killing.
It’s hard to say about the taxi cab murders. They’re such common targets in the Sixties. One theory I have had is that we should look at where the calls for unsolved taxi cab murders originate and where they end. That could give us an idea of what part of town Z lived in or worked in.
I also wondered if that was the same Paul Hom. True, Graysmith usually puts a spin on something, or omits details that don’t fit his narrative — or passes along somebody else’s BS — but he doesn’t usually make up stuff wholesale (though I’m fuzzy on how the myth of Allen flipping out and fleeing from Hartnell started). Sure felt like he was trying to crowbar an accomplice angle into the book, at any rate…i.e., "Allen might have had an accomplice, that’s why he doesn’t fit the description."
Odd this would run in a Vallejo paper and not SF. Peterson was well-known for covering Zodiac, but it’s an SF story.
Odd this would run in a Vallejo paper and not SF. Peterson was well-known for covering Zodiac, but it’s an SF story.
I was wondering about this too, since this was the first time that Zodiac has struck in SF. However, until then Zodiac was associated with Vallejo and the "North Bay area" at the time, so I can see why it ran as a local interest story. SFPD had clearly thought it was a Zodiac related crime at first, and the Vallejo Chronicle is just picking up on that.
Yet, Hom says that his robber didn’t match the Stine composite. So SFPD clearly changed their mind on that (but not before Capt Marty Lee could make some obligatory racial jokes in the papers).
I was put off reading the Graysmith book, but it has a few advantages (one of which is that its well written and is multi-layered). He also seems to have an inside track on the investigation, so throws up tidbits that aren’t found elsewhere. However, there’s also a lot of unresolved stuff in his account. The accomplice angle is woven throughout and this is clearly to fill some plot holes. My approach to it, is to read it as a good novel.
I don’t know if this is a problem …. but if it were an inspiration, it would appear to eliminate the Ray Davis killing.
The meaning and significance of Oceanside is tantalising, yet difficult to truly determine. My feeling is that the Hom robbery is chronologically closer, so we might speculate that it would be more prominent in Zodiac’s thinking (especially since it provides such a clear blueprint for how to expedite a crime in central SF and furthermore, escape!). Zodiac was definitely reading the Vallejo papers, no?
I wonder if Hom actually contacted the paper, because I simply can’t find any reference to this event in the S.F. papers at all.
Dave Peterson was the Vallejo police reporter I guess, so maybe he picked it up on the wire and then they anonymised Hom to prevent retribution. The story clearly only became ‘of interest’ after the Paul Stine murder, and was unreported before then, since it was only a generic robbery. Maybe taxi robberies weren’t much to report.
I guess "Taxi robber probably not Zodiac" makes a less compelling headline. 
It just occurred to me that you bring up a problem with this being the blueprint for the Stine murder. If it wasn’t reported in the SF papers, then how would Zodiac know about it? Since it was only reported in Vallejo after the Stine murder.
This is frustrating me. Where and when it was reported seems important.
