Seems like a lot of he said she said when it came to that night. A "Mexican-American" did see her at the library that evening. He mentioned her writing in her blue notebook with a blue ball-point pen. (Inside Detective). If that isn’t a keen observation, I don’t know what is. lol

Where did your read about someone walking through that alley Richard? Same article? Perhaps I missed it?

Yes, the girl who saw the man smoking, hence the retrieval of the cigarette butt for DNA testing. You can find it on Tom’s site.
"At about 9:30 o’clock the night of the murder, a female student passed a man standing in the alley where Cheri would be attacked just minutes later. Although they didn’t know each other, the female student and unknown male said "hi" to each other. The stranger was standing in the shadows. It was later determined that from his vantage point he could have easily watched Cheri’s VW Bug while she was in the library. Several years later, RPD showed the female student a photo lineup which contained Barnett’s picture. Although she could not identify anyone in the lineup, she initially had described clothing on the unknown male that matched what Barnett was wearing the night of the murder."
http://www.zodiackiller.com/BatesDNA.html

Hmm, I’ve always thought that meant she saw him in the alley as she walked down the sidewalk on the street, but maybe not.

Why would she be walking in the alley? Was it a shortcut? I though it sort of ended at the vacant buildings.

Don’t quote me on this but I have an idea. I personally have taken classes at RCC in the last 8 years. I know the current library is on a corner of an intersection. Without looking at any comparison photos right now, I know the alley is currently some annexed building used for a art gallery (or has been at some point when I was on the campus). You might have parked on the street to be outside the library which would force you walk past the alley depending on where you are. I have no idea where the car was exactly parked. I’ve seen the photo of the parked car but couldn’t possibly make out on a map where that is in relation to the alley. The parking lot most students use is directly across street form the library and next to the football field. I hope some of what I said makes sense and clears this up. I honestly need to see a layout of parking to get a better idea of why she passed directly past the alley.

EDIT: One theory I heard somewhere is (maybe that History Channel series had this) she was lured away by the killer to the alley as a result of her car being disabled. If the killer worked at the library certainly could have known no one other than staff would be wanting to intentionally go near the houses which was owned by the school.

Hope, This is a photo of RCC taken in 1966, the red dot indicates where Cheri Jo was murdered and the green dot is about
where Cheri Jo’s car was found.

The two photos of Cheri Jo’s car were taken at the police station after it was towed away from the crime scene, as far as
I know there are no publicly available photos of Cheri’s car at the crime scene.

Okay that makes sense then. She didn’t park in any parking lot. She was on the side of the street. Still wonder why? Wouldn’t the large building on the far right be the library? The parking building that most use is directly across from it (which I assume existed back then). Today I am fairly certain you can’t reach the campus on that street from the direction the car is parked. So it looks like street access changed. Why would you park there? I think the cafeteria is the building next to the car. She did have food discovered in the stomach.

Besides a map, does anyone have a list of the building themselves? This would help clear up (possibly) why she parked in that spot?

Cheri Jo was found 200 feet from her car. The large building where Monarch put the green mark was the library building then (can’t speak for now), and of course the houses where her body was found are no longer there.

Hope, the section of the building outlined in yellow was the RCC library in 1966, as you can see it was very small, it’s floor
space was only about 35′ X 75′ feet, so with about 65 people in the library that night it’s hard to understand why no one
remembers seeing her that night, it’s also hard to understand why no one noticed her having car trouble with her car
parked so close to the library entrance. how could the library staff that locked up that night not notice her having car
trouble ? It must be that the timeline and sequence of events must be very different than the conventional narrative.

The large parking building on the north side of Terracina Dr. was not there in 1966. (it was built sometime after the year 2000)
and yes the configuration of Terracina Dr. has changed since 1966, back then it was a two way street with parking on the
south side of the street. today there are palm trees planted in the middle of the street where Cheri Jo parked her car that
night.

Some good perspective here: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=102

With regards to the timeline of Cheri Jo’s death, is there any confusion there? Wondering if the killer’s
timex stopped at 12:23 am when Cheri Jo ripped it off him during the struggle ? Seen a photo of that watch in another thread showing 12:23 time.

What I was thinking was is if she stayed at the library right up til closing at 9pm then there’s over a 3 hour gap if she was killed 12:23. Even more of a gap if she left library around 6:30. So no matter what the correct length of her stay at the library was, there are sizeable time gaps, so what were her whereabouts in those gapp times ? But I’m no expert of any kind.
I would think the investigators involved would have determined all this, and about the watch.

What kind of watch is the Timex? A Google search tells me they continued making mechanical watches till the late ‘70s. I’m not a analog watch user but don’t you need to wind up mechanical watches at some point? This might explain why the watches was stuck. The possible three hour gap could simply be Cheri doing something she wanted no one to know about. Has the photo from within the library been cofirmed by anyone to be Cheri? If so who could have taken that photo?

I seem to have assumed the library was in roughly the same spot it is today but I’m proved wrong. This means my understanding of the campus is different. It seems smaller than it is today with the size of the buildings. Has the spot the body was found been determined to be exactly where she was killed? A big assumption thinking a struggle occurred farther away (closer to her car) and then dragged to me sounds logical. The detail about the killer putting up a fight in the Confession Letter is interesting but why would you go on to describe how easy it was to kill? That doesn’t add up.

We also have the letter from the librarian pointing fingers at Sullivan. It specifically says he was seen with a pretty girl. Who was that? Could Cheri have come into contact more directly with Sullivan outside of being library staff?

sandiland ? : "timeline of Cheri Jo’s death, any confusion ? wondering if killer’s timex stopped at 12:23 ?"

A : Ear witnesses said they heard "an awful scream at about 10:30 PM" so I think that’s the best indication of time of death we
have.
There are two photos of the watch, one reads 9:07 and the other 12:23, I believe the watch kept running after it was torn off
and the spring wound down and stopped running at some point, so I think the time on the watch in the photos means nothing.

hopesdead ? : "has the photo from within the library been confirmed to be Cheri ?"

A : One of the moderators here on ZKS contacted Cheri’s brother about that photo and he stated the photo is NOT Cheri Jo.

hopesdead ? : "has the spot the body was found on been determined to be exactly where she was killed ?"

A : Yes, one of the detectives said the soil was "churned up like a tractor had plowed it up", so it’s certain she was killed
where she fell, she put up a tremendous struggle to save herself.

hopesdead ? : "A struggle occurred farther away (closer to her car) then dragged ?"

A : In the crime scene photo you can see her large tote bag purse underneath her, so I think if the struggle started next to
her car she would have dropped the purse long before she got to the alley/driveway, also I think I read they found her shoe
prints in the soil of the driveway and it indicated she was walking a normal pace heel to toe until they got to the spot she
was attacked.

hopesdead ? : "Could Cheri have come into contact more directly with Sullivan ?"

A : Yes, possibly, Ross Sullivan’s brother Tim married Cheri’s classmate/friend Bonnie Bartlett in San Francisco about 1 or 2
weeks before Cheri’s murder. we know Cheri was in SF at about the same time visiting her Boyfriend but we have not been
able to determine if Cheri attended the wedding or not.(we also don’t know if Ross was there or not)

The struggle took place in the dirt where her body was found ,that was also where she tore his watch off , her car was parked on asphalt not dirt.

I believe she went with him, thinking he would give her a ride home, because her car wasn’t running. That was the reason he disabled her car, so he could offer her help. He stalled for time by pretending to be working on her car and to make sure the other students had left. ( No witnesses)

He may have had a gun with him as well to get her to walk between those houses, once he knew no one was around to see him force her into the ally. Or he could have used the same knife he used to kill her? I was going by what I knew about how he controlled Bryan and Cecelia, then pulled out the knife.

The girl who saw a man standing in the shadows of that alley way , had to be walking on the sidewalk, because that alley way didn’t lead to another street. It dead ended at the back of those homes.
He could watch Cheri’s car if he was standing on the north- west side of that alley way ( It was really a long wide drive way). Her car was parked where the green dot was on that picture and that was south-east of where the man was standing.

I have been to RCC and the crime scene many times and have spoken to people who went to RCC in 1966. That is a good way to get some answers.

Assuming this is Zodiac, then maybe this person was refining the way they attacked people. The attacks at night are by gun. In the day time you would draw a lot of attention if you used a gun and without a disguise, you risk being identified even more. At night you could use darkness as a cover. Going on that thought we can assume this was just a knife and later switched to guns as being a more reliable weapon since the knife was found broken. I take that as a big “what if” until it is 100% confirmed or denied as being Zodiac.

Tim Sullivan and Bonnie Bartlett married Oct 6th 1966 in SF.

The main reason I believe it was a Zodiac crime,is he was there at that time in order to write the notes/ letters. Also the tiny bible that was put in my car along with the Lake B killing costume, belonged to a Catholic person, she is the only Catholic victim that I know of.

My suspect who I believe is Zodiac ,used the same technique of taking my coil wire off of my car in Vallejo 1968. My guy friends stole one from another car, so I could drive home. The person who took my coil wire already knew where I lived, because he got there seconds before I did. I was able to get a good look at him and he is the same man who is still playing taunting games now. He writes just like Zodiac, he talks just like we are told Z talks, is the correct age group 75 to 80 about 5ft 8 to 10. Stocky with a belly that hangs over his belt, had brown curly hair and glasses. His hair has a lot of gray in it now, but still had a lot of hair the last time I saw him, which was about 5 months ago now. He was a construction worker, could he have been one of the workers seen at RCC the night Cheri Jo was murdered?

If it walks and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

Sandy wrote : "I believe she went with him, thinking he would give her a ride home"

Because Cheri’s car had it’s windows down and doors unlocked and her library books on the seat I think she went with him
to use the phone and intended to return to her car, or maybe she was forced to walk away from her car at gun point ?