Well, that’s interesting, and I have a ton of questions, but I’ll ask just one:

If the car arrived at the exact moment the child was watching the Zodiac disappear down Cherry, why didn’t the police immediately take off after him? How did he get so far down Jackson as to enter the park, and why didn’t Fouke and Zelms apprehend him? I understand there was a report about an NMA versus a WMA, which came later, but if the cops arrived right as the kid was looking down Cherry at the killer, why didn’t someone, anyone, go racing after him? Didn’t that take precedent over inspecting the cab and interviewing the kid?

Okay, so reading it again, I still don’t see how the police missed the Zodiac or how he had enough time to get where Fouke saw him if the police arrived at the exact moment the kid was watching the guy disappear down Cherry. Had to have been more than few moments afterwards, not at the exact moment. And why didn’t Pelisetti go roaring down Jackson? How did he arrive on that street AFTER the Zodiac had been seen by Fouke and after disappearing into the park?

Thanks Tahoe. I definitely saw that report a few years back so that’s probably where I remember those facts from. Z did seem to spend a long time at the scene faffing about and the kids did seem to offer up pretty detailed descriptions of him so I think the composite is definitely of some use. We probably all agree that body type, shape of face, colour and style of hair, type of glasses, etc are probably reliable indicators but I think we can discount the artist’s impression of his eye shape and where his wrinkles were!

The PH sketch could be absolutely accurate. I’d personally never rule anyone out based on that sketch though. Perhaps, only the kids had input into the sketch. Maybe Fouke and/or Zelms had some input. Maybe they did stop Z and speak to him. Maybe they were within inches of his face. I doubt we ever really know the complete truth. It is my understanding that Toschi (and Pelissetti) both think Fouke stopped and talked to a person that at least resembled the sketch (a person they thought to be Z). So, With all of this info who did Toschi pursue the hardest? Who did Toschi think was most likely Z? Yep, a person that looks in NO way like the PH sketch. Toschi was someone as close to the case and as involved in all aspects of the case as anyone. However, It seems he didn’t put much faith into the sketch. Just one way to look at it.

OH DEAR
Police in Bolivia were ridiculed in 2009 after releasing an amateurish sketch in a bid to help solve an eight-month-old murder case. But the last laugh was on them as they arrested a suspect.

Lots of these.

Just goes to show how these composites or police sketches can look like anybody.

Well, that’s interesting, and I have a ton of questions, but I’ll ask just one:

If the car arrived at the exact moment the child was watching the Zodiac disappear down Cherry, why didn’t the police immediately take off after him? How did he get so far down Jackson as to enter the park, and why didn’t Fouke and Zelms apprehend him? I understand there was a report about an NMA versus a WMA, which came later, but if the cops arrived right as the kid was looking down Cherry at the killer, why didn’t someone, anyone, go racing after him? Didn’t that take precedent over inspecting the cab and interviewing the kid?

Okay, so reading it again, I still don’t see how the police missed the Zodiac or how he had enough time to get where Fouke saw him if the police arrived at the exact moment the kid was watching the guy disappear down Cherry. Had to have been more than few moments afterwards, not at the exact moment. And why didn’t Pelisetti go roaring down Jackson? How did he arrive on that street AFTER the Zodiac had been seen by Fouke and after disappearing into the park?

Yes, it’s puzzling.

Just about everything the cops did (or didn’t do) that night is puzzling in one way or another.

The kid actually follows Z some distance on Cherry, sees him turn the corner – and that’s when AP arrives. The kid tells him that the suspect just turned east on Jackson.

What I would do is jump back in the car and speed after him – or get my partner to do the same: There were two of them, on top of everything else.

AP, however, spends time ushering the kids back inside (which was prudent, no doubt – but Peda could have done this and, which is something that becomes clear from Dean’s account, they knew that the killer wasn’t hanging around in the immediate vicinity, he was up on Jackson by now), gets on the radio and then proceeds on foot after the perpetrator.

It looks pretty odd, all things told.

Makes one not so confidant with the story told.

Makes one not so confidant with the story told.

JDean’s story, I take it?

Well, we probably shouldn’t take that as 100% gospel – after all, it was years after the fact when he talked to them.

Still, just going by what Pelissetti himself says – in the original report – the fact is that he decided to a) get the kids back inside, b) get on the radio and c) follow the killer on foot.

Meanwhile his partner – did what? That’s the question. There were two of them and they had a car – which they opted not to use in the pursuit of the suspect. I just find that odd.

Part of it may be procedure, I suppose. Part of it may be – to put it brutally – that it was “just” an ordinary taxi mugging gone wrong at the time.

For what is is worth (posted by Wrench 2012)

http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/forum/ … =21&t=1401

From retired LE Jim Dean:

I have talked to the Robbins kids extensively and they are a remarkable couple of kids. …Some background… This is an upperclass neighborhood (Duh!) The Robbins father was (maybe still is) a renowned surgeon. At the time of the murder, the senior Robbins was about a block away attending a formal dinner at the Belgian Embassy. You can begin to get the status and education of the family. The kids (1 and 2 were 16 and 13 Respectively) were having friends over for TV, Popcorn, games, etc. There was no alcohol as some have suggested.

As both Robbons kids were the oldest, their statements were the given the most weight. Also they were the least traumatized by the event. One of the kids (not sure which) noticed a cab parked outside (in that now famous spot) with the interior lights on. (I have to insert my personal experiences here.. In the late 60’s the American cars were large and roomy. I drove an identical police car many years ago and can tell you the interior dome light was very bright. It was even brighter when you removed the opaque plastic lens that covered the bulb. We (police) did it so we could more easily read/write reports in the car, and I noted that cabs also removed these lens covers for the same reasons: to be able to read/write reports, trip tickets, make change for passengers, etc.

So when 1 told me that the light inside the car was like a spotlight, it was so bright… I knew what he meant (even though he didn’t).

To continue…the first kid at the window said the driver looked "sick, or something". 1 and 2 went to the window and saw the driver laying across the front seat, head toward the passenger door. His head was in the lap of another man (passenger). 2 saw blood and said out loud, "he’s stabbing that man." She was seeing blood on the victim and saw the glint of a knife, so she assumed a stabbing was taking place. (No shots were heard by anyone)
We know now that Z was cutting off a large piece of Stine’s shirt with the knife.

At this time, 1 went downstairs to get a better look at what was happening, while one of the kids upstairs called the Police. Downstairs, the lights were off, so 1 knew he could not be seen from the outside. He got close to the window and watched his actions. He was shortly joined by 2. They both watched and observed in silence as Z pushed the driver to an upright position behind the steering wheel, exited the car and walked around the rear of the car and opened the drivers door. Stine had fallen over onto the seat and Z pulled him back up into the seated position and had some difficulty keeping him upright. Once upright, he was seen to have a rag, or something like a handkerchief and began to wipe down the door area and leaning over the driver, part of the dashboard. Whe he was finished, Z calmly walked to Cherry St. and walked North.

Not many know this, but 1 (being 16. feeling immortal, and beleiving the susp to be armed with only a knife) ran out his door to see where Z was going. He ran to the corner of Cherry and watched as Z continued his casual pace right up to the corner of Jackson & Cherry.

At this exact point, the first SFPD car arrives with two officers. One, Palesetti, approached 1 and tried to extract what was happening. The other officer went to the cab and found the bloody victim. While Palesetti asking questions, 1 was trying to explain that the susp was in sight on Cherry St. By the time Palesetti got the point, they both looked and the Z was gone.

The assumption was Z continued North into Presidio Park and the resultant search extensively covered this area.

Palesetti followed a different path East on Jackson in the event Z had turned East. What happened next is for another story.

But, I want to tell you how the sketches came about. Within 48 hrs of the murder, Tochi had recruited a young uniformed cop named Juan Morales, who was said to be a good artist. He asked him to talk to the kids and see if he could work-up a composite of the susp. Morales sat down with all the kids and slowly developed the first sketch. Most of his input he took from the two oldest (1&2). Within a day or so, someone (not sure who) decided it was a bad idea to have multiple people contribute to a composite. So Morales sat down with the kids again and after a time, determined that 2 was the most artistically inclined, and the most observant of facial features. So, he did the final sketch from only 2. When done, all the kids looked at it individually and agreed that was VERY close to the man they saw on that night."

James Dean worked as LE in Vallejo, in the 70’s on the cold zodiac case. He worked hard at obtaining information, and I totally appreciate his police work and dedication. He’s still looking at things & answers any email I send him. Sandy and I have been lucky enough to have meetings and lunch with him a few times.
Credit should be given to Sandy and Myself for inviting him to Morf’s forum to share some of his knowledge, findings and information. Wrench/Bentley shared the information with Zodiac Killer Facts, which was good of him. Sometimes sharing information, the credits get lost, or where the information originally came from. Also, by closing down Morf’s old forum some of the information didn’t get moved over.
I thank James Dean again for being kind enough to share his findings with us at Morf’s forum per Sandy and My invite.

Zincerely, Zam*

Just came across this, and thought this thread was the best to bump:

The sketches above were made by a police sketch artist using actual photos of the people depicted – not mere descriptions, as in real criminal cases. Now, does that mean the artist was…terrible? No, not necessarily. It only means that identikit software was involved, and that police sketches in general are pretty far off the mark.

A Scottish university did a study on composite sketches which brought about some pretty interesting results. Among other things, they had a group of students describe people they knew to a police artist, who would then make sketches based on the descriptions. The resulting sketches were shown to people who knew the subjects, and the recognition ratio (so described) was 3%. That’s insanely low.

Part of the problem is that police artists focus on details: What did his nose look like? How big were his ears? Were his eyes symmetrical? And so forth. And they have to do this, of course, not being able to work from a full picture (literally speaking). An artist drawing someone’s face from recent memory or from a model doesn’t work along those lines: He or she draws – precisely – the full picture, not an assemblage of isolated parts. Even a rank amateur might be able to catch someone’s likeness far better than someone using an identikit (but the latter is pretty much all you have to work with if you haven’t actually seen the person in question).

What the police artists come up with is usually somewhere in the ballpark – but the ballpark is huge. And witnesses are generally terrible when it comes to faces. What they confirm when they say "yeah, that looks like the guy" is just that the sketch looks like their own mental image of the guy. And the latter simply isn’t reliable in most cases. It’s usually highly flawed. And most witnesses are – to make matters even worse – likely to suffer from a particular form of bias: They want the sketch to look like the guy, so they’re inclined to think that it does.

There are exceptions to this, which should be stressed, but in general sketches are…sketchy. There is little doubt about that.

The relevance to us – Zodiac buffs – should be obvious. The fact that NN resembles either of the known composites in the case is interesting at best. It should never be considered a crucial point.

So, if you read Rodelli’s book, Lindsey Robbins couldn’t even identify Kjell Qvale as the man he saw in 1969 based upon the way he remembered him in the 1970s (Robbins apparently knew Qvale’s son but didn’t meet KQ until the 1970s, when he looked different…longer hair, no glasses). So, even if the Presidio Heights sketch was accurate, if KQ is Zodiac, Lindsey Robbins could not recognize Qvale just a few years later!

Also, if Kathleen Johns is a Zodiac victim, KQ could not be Zodiac because he looked different in 1971… what are the odds that Kathleen Johns would recognize that KQ looked like the PH sketch but Lindsey Robbins would not?

Even if the PH sketch was dead on in 1969, Zodiac could have looked very different by the early 70s (does John Lennon in 1964 look similar at first glance to John Lennon in 1974?).

First of all, I don’t remember when the Johns incident occurred, but Zodiac took belated credit for it in July 1970. So it was nowhere near 1971.

And, KQ was still rocking the short hair and glasses in early 1970. (I know, because I found the picture.) I have no idea when Lindsey first met him or when he officially transitioned into his 1970s game show host look.

Here’s what I’ve ended up with on my today’s composite approach.

edit: added some weight.