Unless Z was in active army or worked as a civvie on base at the time and didn’t want to be dropped right next to the base and draw suspicion to it maybe?

If he was dressed the same, and in dark clothes that would suggest either he planned to kill at some point that night or that is what he normally wore. Now if it was dressed to kill then sure…Stine could have been a victim of chance or timing.

If it was planned then it went a bit astray and he had to improvise a bit.

I read somewhere about someone surmising that Stine may have just pulled the car over and not put it in park but had his foot on the brake. Z may not have realized this and shot him, then Stine’s foot released the brake and Z had to react quickly to stop the car. Maybe he had prepared for killing Stine but that simple mistake caused some semblance of fear in Z and he reacted to rectify the situation causing a bit of chaos in the moment.

I would hazard a guess and say that this was his most exhilarating moment in all of his killings.

There’s a 3rd option for escape… he didn’t escape until the next day because he was hiding out in the home of a friend on Jackson St.

fingerprints on the cab if crime was planned = it was planned but the plan wasn’t that good or the plan went awry when the cab lurched forward b/c it wasn’t in park.

why wouldn’t he wear gloves = he never seems to have taken any real precautions other than the mask at lb and even that wasn’t done very well as several people saw him pre-mask.

z sat in front of car = i think he only sat in the front when he was going through stine’s things and ripping the shirt, otherwise he sat in the back like a normal passenger.

as for parking at d and dropping off at a, he likely figured it would be a straight shot getaway to his car. does anyone know if any/all of washington, maple, cherry and/or jackson were one-way streets at the time?

It was planned to go to Washington and Maple per the log book when he entered the cab .
Washington and maple is where the most prestigious home/ mansion in SF was located ,which most residents would have an image in their head of .
the U drives or turn arounds at jackson and the ends of cherry and maple were a heavily used parking spot for non residents I read.

the 9pm -10pm time is a police shift change for the most part
I beleive the purpose of Stines killing was to get control of the cab then Z would assume the roll of cab driver to get more victims very easily and in inconspicuously , to carry out the 12 killings he mentioned or as many as possible.
i say it was planned carefully but did not go exactly as such and it was of course his most daring killing .

Is there anywhere to find Stine’s log book to see all of his fares for that day?

Is there anywhere to find Stine’s log book to see all of his fares for that day?

It was the start of his shift, IIRC.

Wouldn’t that fare book still be in SFPD’s custody?

There’s a 3rd option for escape… he didn’t escape until the next day because he was hiding out in the home of a friend on Jackson St.

That’s not a bad idea, although I think one would connect the crime one block away with the guy hanging out in your house.

One thing that bothers me…The Zodiac made very detailed remarks regarding the events that transpired after he escaped. Now, how would he know any of this information unless it was printed in the paper or if here still on-scene? One wonders, and this is just a theory, if he took to his car and then, instead of driving away, drove back and watched from afar, or drove around. Somehow, he knew the movements and actions of the police even though he was supposedly already out of the area.

As for not planned…doubtful IMO. Why park your car and then head downtown and then shoot a guy for what amounted to nothing right at a corner if you’re not trying to commit an actual crime? and why kill Stine? The guy was likable as can be. If The Zodiac was so unstable as to shoot an armed, random cabbie, then how did he comport himself throughout the other 364 days of the year?

Two other things…parking in PH is tight. Not a lot of space. You can see this in images from the relevant era, and of course even now. Parking on the street in PH is a premium luxury.

And I cannot see Zodiac hanging out in a yard, instead of the Presidio, when the dogs could not follow his scent beyond the park. Pretty sure they would have picked up on him right there in the yard on Jackson.

I think the simplest theory fits. He chose to kill someone in San Fran, upping his game. Cabbies are easy and anonymous. You can hail one and not a single soul will see you. You can then instruct them to drive to their own funeral. He parked his car in a dark, secluded placed and either walked or took a bus downtown. He then, after killing Stine, returned to his car and drove away. Perhaps he parked somewhere or drove around, catching the action like an arsonist watching his own smoldering handiwork.

One wonders if the crime was a dry-run for his "anonymous murders". He makes it look like just another cabbie killing but takes Stine’s shirt for proof-of-concept to show the city he can kill anyone anywhere with impunity. He probably planned on revealing the murder as his handiwork anyway, but wanted to see how it could initially appear as nothing more than another robbery gone wrong, as it was originally reported. This would give him credence later when he claimed bodies that were not his own doing.

JMO.

…parking in PH is tight. Not a lot of space. You can see this in images from the relevant era, and of course even now. Parking on the street in PH is a premium luxury.
JMO.

Not true at all. There is plenty of parking in that area, even today. Houses are big with few driveways. Population is not as dense in that part of town. Much easier to park there than most parts of town.

…parking in PH is tight. Not a lot of space. You can see this in images from the relevant era, and of course even now. Parking on the street in PH is a premium luxury.
JMO.

Not true at all. There is plenty of parking in that area, even today. Houses are big with few driveways. Population is not as dense in that part of town. Much easier to park there than most parts of town.

Never lived there, but from what I’ve seen in photographs of the era, and even today, street space, not including driveways, was comparatively limited to, say, a residential neighborhood in an average city, such as the suburbs of Boise, for example.

I recall looking at images of the crime scene not long after Stine was murdered and seeing vehicles almost hanging off the corner curbs. Perhaps during the day when people are at work there’s more room, but at night? Dunno. And The Zodiac killed about at 10pm, which would be after everyone had already arrived home.

Certainly space in all forms within San Fran is a premium, relative to many other cities. That’s why it costs so much to live there. Well one reason, anyway.

Regardless, I cannot even remember why parking is part of the discussion…perhaps someone was suggesting The Zodiac parked along Jackson? Well, I would gather that’s unlikely for a number of reasons, one being that such a tactic would have been foolhardy at best, given that there’s plenty of space beyond the park to the north, and one would imagine interlopers are well-spotted as in any neighborhood with crime-conscious denizens such as PH.

That’s my take from what I know.

those homes are $$$$$$$ the one the kids viewed the cab from was for sale in 01 at $4,000,000
the one at Washington & maple ( mansion ) was a few years ago lowered to $25,000,000.
with that $$$, the couples living there would most likely be out and about at 9 pm-midnite on a Saturday at a restaurant, a show ,movie , event .
many of those homes sit raised 6′ up off the street to view the cars parked on it you would have to be at a window
about 1/2 do not have drives so if you had company over they would park on the street which makes it a normal occurance to have strange people parking all around and not really something odd.

I understand that much, certainly, but having experience with this first hand, I know people are quite…suspicious of others in their given neighborhood. I myself have raised such suspicions, and my brother was once rousted by the police for momentarily parking, outside his father’s own house, thanks to a nosy neighbor.

And The Zodiac would have no intimate knowledge of the activities of the people within that neighborhood. All he would know is that he is in a locale for which he does not belong, committing a grade-A gas chamber-eligible felony, not to mention being The Zodiac, California’s then-Most Wanted. He would know that once the alarm was raised, after the discovery of Stine’s body, any and all strange occurrences and appearances would be suspect.

Trust me, there are people who rush to the window each time an individual parks outside their home, and they often take good notice of plates and descriptions. PH would have been, then, likely no different.

For instance, if he parked outside a home on Jackson, he would have incurred a great risk of a homeowner, or some other concerned party, noticing his car, and they would also have noticed him walking away, to apparently no place in particular, which would have created variety of concerns. (Recall that The Zodiac referred to a shabbily-dressed Negro appraising him and his car, so such things would not have been alien to The Zodiac’s thinking at all) Once the crime of murder was broadcast immediate to the neighborhood, a report of him and his vehicle would likely have been proffered to the police.

Quite simply, criminals, the smarter ones anyway, do no take such chances. They would choose to park their car where it can be left and accessed without much attention. You, the criminal, would not park your car around the block from the location of your latest premeditated murder, not if you possess any wits about you. i certainly wouldn’t. I’d park it somewhere dark and obscured, somewhere clearly allowed by law, and then put distance between it and my future crime. Only if The Zodiac were planning on being discovered during his crime or right thereafter would he choose a location immediate to the crime scene.

I know of property crimes in which individuals robbed a store, or shoplifted, but parked their car in a location from which they could escape completely unnoticed, waling to the crime scene. Certainly The Zodiac would do something similar.

As for people out and about…well, there was enough people at home for a few of them to immediately notice him, and there was some reason The Zodiac instructed Stine to move the cab from Maple to Cherry, and it wasn’t because the cab started rolling uncontrollably, either. So there must have been more than a few people in the area. Recall Pelisetti’s claim about the man waling his dog, for another example.

Also…a location such as PH is fairly older and more conservative, compared to the younger, more liberal crowds, so all-night gallivanting on a weeknight would be a less of a "thing" in PH, imo, which is again a good reason for The Zodiac to have chosen PH over, say, Ashbury Haights. Makes more sense, in his context, to find a rather darkish, secluded and quiet neighborhood in which to make his departure, and I have no doubt The Zodiac never imagined his crime that night would be so quickly detected, thus there was no need for him to pre-plan a quick escape.

A slow, easy walk away from the scene and deep into the woods is just about right. That’s what i would do. No way at all I’d ever park on that street for the commission of a murder.

JMO.

Hi-

The more research you do on this intersection, the more interesting it becomes as the choice for the one Z provided to Stine (i.e., Wash/Maple). I’ m not sharing my research at this point because I’ve shared so much over the years (Stine eyewitness interviews, Fouke interviews, Gary Stewart handwriting fiasco, etc.), but if I did the research you probably can, too. Wash/Maple has some interesting characteristics that make it unique in some ways and, for that reason, safer than many intersections.

I say it was pre-planned except for the excursion to Cherry.

Mike

Hi-

The more research you do on this intersection, the more interesting it becomes as the choice for the one Z provided to Stine (i.e., Wash/Maple). I’ m not sharing my research at this point because I’ve shared so much over the years (Stine eyewitness interviews, Fouke interviews, Gary Stewart handwriting fiasco, etc.), but if I did the research you probably can, too. Wash/Maple has some interesting characteristics that make it unique in some ways and, for that reason, safer than many intersections.

I say it was pre-planned except for the excursion to Cherry.

Mike

I agree with you, that the destination given to Stine was pre-planned for any number of reasons. He was house sitting there. He had a Family member that lived close by. He had his car parked there. Etc,etc One key thing we disagree on however, is that Z lived very close to that intersection. The people around that intersection were mostly upper class, or pretty wealthy, or well to do, something I personally do not think matches Zodiac-hence his worn,mismatched tires at Lake Berryessa