Yeah, I was actually thinking about that yesterday. Potentially pertinent info, if you attach any weight to this incident.
Search engines aren’t always tip-top. I’ve stumbled upon (for example) LB articles that didn’t show up when I used obvious keywords like "hartnell" and "lake berryessa," even though those words were in the articles.
It’s a difficult one to search. The name Hom returns any article with the word ‘home’ in it, on the SF Chronicle search engine.
There’s other ways that the Zodiac may have learned of the robbery (directly from LE for example). I’d be surprised if didn’t get small mention in one of the SF newspapers. Hom thought the robber was a hotel worker, and later Graysmith says a hotel employee was arrested for a subsequent murder, when another taxi driver robbery went wrong.
Robert Bromell, I assume? He was a busboy, and LE briefly thought that shooting might have been Zodiac. Kind of a greasy hippie-looking guy. Don’t know his height or weight. Claimed the gun went off when the cabbie tried to grab it from him. I wonder if Hom ever saw his picture.
Yup, messed his and a few other people’s lives up by taking a loaded gun to a robbery. Expressed remorse afterwards. What a waste.
