This crime baffles me, it was utterly reckless, yet brilliant (not in a glorifying way) but just the nerve Z showed that night.

True, but it might appear brilliant simply because Z had to improvise and made moves more out of desperation than planning. One thing is certain, Z was very lucky that night. Had the description been of a white male, he would have been caught.

The theory that Z shot Stine at Maple and the cab rolled towards Cherry is not new, and there is pretty good physical evidence that supports it.
You can read about it here:
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/blog/m … aul-stine/

My take is that for the (Z drives cab theory) to have worked, the odds are that Z was in the front seat. A heavy set man jumping from the back seat in time to holds Stine upright and take control of the cab seems unlikely.

If we have Z taking control of the cab, the DOJ report, and the kids witness reports, the odds are that Z rode in the front seat.
Not the place to be if the plan was to shoot Stine. I also detailed the bizarre escape rout Z took in the very first post, asking how it could have been planned.

I for one think it was planned to a degree.

I do as well. Just not sure to what degree or for when but then that’s why we are discussing it.

TBH I don’t really see anything about this crime that is particularly different from the others. I guess we would have to clarify exactly what is meant by ‘planned’ in the context of a Zodiac attack.

PA, I know you have quoted LB as an example of planning and It’s easy to see why but I’m not sure it’s a reliable baseline. I’m not sure there is one in these crimes to determine pre-planned or not. As QT already said, that he had a gun with him and ready to fire might be all we need. If we go by LB it might be safer to say that it was the only one that was planned.

Perhaps the temptation here is to try and discover something about Zodiac beyond the norm or as you put it, outside of the box. PH is good for that because he could have been caught therefore it’s natural to consider less planning or even none. That however isn’t enough for me and it’s not entirely unexpected either. Someone, and I apologize for not remembering, had written a piece on the recent spate of cabbie robberies/homocides in that area preceding the Stine attack and it was on Mike K’s site while it was up. Given that, it’s not unexpected that there would, or could, have been more police patrols in that part of the city to try and cover those. Pretty negligent, stupid and sloppy of Z to then commit a murder right in the middle and the heart of those. I mean, did he not read the newspapers?

He did though, didn’t he? Then, as a white guy he hails a cab to a white neighborhood and kills a cabbie on the cusp of other identical crimes (and possibly escape routes) which I suspect some, if not most, at least either were or were heavily assumed to have been perpetrated by black offenders. The incorrect ID that went out that night possibly supports that.

So you see, we can’t just take the crime itself and ask was it planned because he nearly got caught? If we are going to analyze it we need to consider as many aspects and factors as we can and I’ve gotta be honest, I’ve only touched on one and already it could be argued that there was more planning went into this one crime than any of the others. The location, the victim, the timing (in historical context), the approach, the method, the escape route … etc etc.

I don’t know for certain but I err on the side of it being planned. My question is to what degree but that’s not the thread title lol. Those are some my thought’s on why I see reasons as to why it was as planned as the others were and hence not, NOT pre-planned.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

It helps to read the point of the topic before writing pages of blabber based on personal opinions. Point of this thread is that the PH crime seems to sloppy to be pre-planned.
Do I have proof of this? NO! But I ask that we look at this crime and think outside the box of what we have heard for 45 years.

Lake Berryessa was an example of a planned out Zodiac crime. He made a costume, had pre-cut rope and took precautions.
PH seems so damn sloppy that I have the theory it was not pre-planned.

Is that impossible? Is it impossible Z lived downtown and kept his car in PH, taking a cab to pick it up?
I’m fine with anyone believing it was all planned out, but to act like you know for sure what went down, 100%, you are a fool or a liar.

If there is no proof, then why state things in an absolute way, then attack those who disagree? Your opinion is not any more special than ours- and call it what you like, its still speculation, which is a fancy word for opinion. You are getting mighty defensive for someone merely "speculating". And look at the title of this thread- "Presidio Heights was NOT preplanned". Uh, pretty definitive statement for speculation, wouldn’t you say? Along the lines of good ol’ Cornwell’s "Case Closed"?
Pretty much everything outside of the fact that Paul Stine is dead and part of his shirt was ripped off is speculation. Period. We may not like it, but that’s the facts.
Perhaps you should have titled this- "My Theory: Presidio blahblahblahblahblahblah". Instead, you are playing either the fool, or the liar, by your very own bolded words and estimation. I believe that all of us here should adhere to at least the barest minimum of sportsmanship. I don’t think that is a tall order for any of us- who are, ostensibly, grown-ups.

I think it would have been easy for someone in the backseat to get out of the cab, close the door, open the passenger door and pull Stine towards himself to cut his short (if not done so before). Surely we can’t say that Z was on the front seat. Rather would say he sat on the right side of the cab, due to the entrance wound not being on the back of Stines head but rather on the right side. But not even that one for sure, imo.

QT

The question I should ask at this point is this: why was Z heading towards Jackson & Maple?

Planned or not, strip everything else away. That is the major question of this crime scene.
Z directed the cab to A, ended up at B but then walked back towards D.

Why? Where was he going?

The question I should ask at this point is this: why was Z heading towards Jackson & Maple?

Planned or not, strip everything else away. That is the major question of this crime scene.
Z directed the cab to A, ended up at B but then walked back towards D.

Why? Where was he going?

If anyone knows anything about those particular streets or lived there at that time it would be nice to ask.

I have a couple thoughts on it. He originally didn’t plant to kill Stine and decided that the streets were unusually quiet that night and took the opportunity to kil, or he planned to kill Paul at one stop and either realized he had written the stop down so he asked him last minute to drive one more block and killed him there, or he planned to kill him at the original stop but there were people hanging out there.

If anyone around knows the area they could probably say if the area had people outside on whatever corner most nights. From the reports, the police encountered quite a few people. Could just be that he pulled up to his original stop, saw too many people around and decided to go one more block.

My thought is the latter…someone was at his original planned killing spot so he moved a block down, then had to double back to get to his planned escape route.

If there were people out or even one person, why do you think he’d go only one block? Wouldn’t you think he’d at least go several blocks or around the corner? It is usually very easy to see or hear unusual commotion a block away.

If there were people out or even one person, why do you think he’d go only one block? Wouldn’t you think he’d at least go several blocks or around the corner? It is usually very easy to see or hear unusual commotion a block away.

Not if his intended destination is D. He could look down the block from A and see if someone was there while in the cab, have Stine move to B, which would block D diagonally by the housing/buildings between them then either walk back the way he came or down the path he took, come out on that corner and anyone there would think nothing of it….that is if his intended destination was D. Maybe there was a group of people hanging out at that loop at the end and he could see them once he got to A.

The question I should ask at this point is this: why was Z heading towards Jackson & Maple?

Planned or not, strip everything else away. That is the major question of this crime scene.
Z directed the cab to A, ended up at B but then walked back towards D.

Why? Where was he going?

Yes. That is indeed the question. The most obvious escape route leads straight up Cherry and into the woods, so to speak. The only plausible reasons for turning east on Jackson are that he was a) headed for his car which was parked somewhere on Jackson, further east from the spot where F and Z spotted him or b) headed for a residence on Jackson. If he was simply aiming to get away from the crime scene his route makes no sense. The first thing to do would surely be to get away from the residential area – which he could’ve accomplished easily simply by heading straight north on Cherry.

If he had a getaway car somewhere on Jackson (presumably not too far from the Jackson/Maple intersection), this begs all sorts of questions too. One possibility is that Maple/Washington was indeed an ideal spot – as suggested by Mike R earlier. Perhaps he intended to kill Stine there and then head north on Maple to reach his car (a short enough stretch to traverse on foot) – but something prevented him from doing this and he had to go the extra block before he could strike.

However, I have my doubts about this getaway car business. It seems risky to leave a car in a strange (and posh!) neighborhood for any length of time, not knowing who might notice it. Others have suggested spots along W Pacific where a car might be left more safely. But that leaves us with his puzzling choice of movements – if his car was parked along W Pacific, why didn’t he take the obvious route straight north on Cherry? And on it goes, I guess.

But, yes, the question is – undoubtedly – why the hell did he turn east on Jackson? That is a key question in this case for my money.

EDIT Moving last post to different thread – as it isn’t really on topic here.

N.