With last Friday marking the 45th anniversary of the Zodiac’s debut on Lake Herman Road, I have been revisiting the early crimes. We know that Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau visited Mr. Ed’s drive-in before heading to Blue Rock Springs on July 4, 1969. We all know what happened next. There remains some controversy about whether they were followed there. In later years, Mageau has spoken of a chase and this is the version that appears in Graysmith’s book. Graysmith also notes that David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen stopped there on their way to Lake Herman Road the previous December, though I can’t seem to find this detail correlated in the police reports (no surprise there).
But all of this does have me thinking. Zodiac, in his first three attacks, established his preference for a particular and extremely rare victim-type: young couples, either school or college-aged. While I’ve long assumed that he found his victims by trolling the locations where experience told him he could find them, locations marked by isolation and a lover’s lane history (Lake Berryessa being the notable exception, though you can find young lovers idling in rural parks on almost any summer evening so he wasn’t breaking the pattern all that much), I’m starting to wonder whether Zodiac perhaps initially began envisioning an outlet for his murderous fantasies by hanging out at drive-in restaurants such as Mr. Ed’s.
We can assume the killer worked full time during the week and was a bachelor. It’s not a stretch to think of him as a regular at fast food restaurants, stopping for a meal after his shift, lingering in his vehicle, watching the happy, fresh-faced teenagers alight upon the parking lot for a quick bite before leaving to consummate shared affections of the sort that likely eluded him. Maybe, then, it’s not much more of a stretch to imagine Z surreptitiously tailing his young quarry to where he would ultimately cross the line from fantasy into action. (This is born out the by evidence: we have reports of what can only be described as at least one dry run preceding LHR.)
Ultimately, what I’m wondering is this: were the staff or Mister Ed’s or any other drive-in restaurants popular with local youth ever interviewed about their regulars? Was this avenue of inquiry pursued at all except to endlessly navel-gaze about Darlene Ferrin’s phantom stalker years after the fact?
"There are such devils."
-The Pledge
we have reports of what can only be described as dry runs in the weeks preceding LHR.
Can you elaborate on this please? I’ve not heard anything along these lines before.
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I was thinking about this last night, not your post PJ but this idea, this notion that Z might have been spying in plain sight to choose his victims.
I think I touched on that idea in my own post here just last night.
viewtopic.php?f=98&t=1259&p=12941#p12941
Maybe an expansion of your thinking?
“I don’t know Chief, he’s very smart or very dumb.“
The guy almost certainly hung out at the Vallejo IHOP.
Not inconceivable that he would’ve cased Mr. Ed’s .
Don’t forget, Lake Herman Rd witness, Peggy Your, worked at Mr. Ed’s drive in at the time of the murders, but I think we decided that she worked at a different one than Darlene had stopped at earlier the night of her murder
There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer
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we have reports of what can only be described as dry runs in the weeks preceding LHR.
Can you elaborate on this please? I’ve not heard anything along these lines before.
It’s in the police report. I was mistaken in saying it happened in the days or weeks before the Faraday/Jensen murders; apparently, it occurred only hours prior to the shooting. However, I have a hard time believing that Zodiac wouldn’t have engaged in some sort of trolling behavior well before LHR and I would be very interested in any evidence that bears this out.
"There are such devils."
-The Pledge
Mike stated in the P.D. report they turned around at the approximate location of Mr. Ed’s (never stopped) http://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR8.html
It does make one wonder why they would head there because they were hungry, then just turn around and go to BRS…no money on them either.
Was it because Darlene and/or Mike noticed this person and so they high-tailed it out of there? Or, maybe there was a person they were looking for wasn’t there and THAT is why they headed to BRS.
Mike’s story as always been a bit "off", not to mention trying to find "fireworks"…again no money in hand.
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
It’s in the police report. I was mistaken in saying it happened in the days or weeks before the Faraday/Jensen murders; apparently, it occurred only hours prior to the shooting. However, I have a hard time believing that Zodiac wouldn’t have engaged in some sort of trolling behavior well before LHR and I would be very interested in any evidence that bears this out.
Ah, yes – It seems too much of a coincidence that other people would be harassed on the same road earlier in the day. If it were a less isolated road I’d be more inclined to think it was just chance.
Check out my website: www.darkideas.net
