by Mark Hewitt
Fouke, reminiscing about the event, was adamant, “we never stopped him; we never talked to him.” Others would come to believe that Fouke did in fact stop and talk to the pedestrian. Fouke’s claim, firmly maintained for decades, would become a point of contention in the case, and emerge as a second enduring mystery of the attack, the unknown reason for Stine’s drive of one additional block being the first. Investigators and armchair detectives have argued for decades over whether or not Officers Fouke and Zelms stopped and spoke with someone as they drove to the scene of Stine’s death.
After regaining speed, the officers turned left onto Cherry Street and arrived at the cab one short block later, according to Fouke. They were halted there by Pelissetti, and informed that the perpetrator was a Caucasian male. Fouke responded by mentioning the initial broadcast, and then swore. “That was the suspect,” he yelled. Realizing that he had seen Stine’s killer moments earlier, he turned the vehicle around and raced back toward the Presidio.
He and his partner scoured the area for the man with a crewcut they had last seen as they drove along Jackson Street. They searched near Julius Kahn Playground and the area where Maple Street fed into the Presidio. There was much thick foliage in which a fleeing assailant could hide. They found nothing.
Fouke wrote no report that evening. Discussing the investigation years later, he stated that he did not file a report on what he had witnessed until a full month after the attack. He was prompted to do so when he saw a composite picture of the killer posted in the Richmond District Police Office, he claimed. Noting that the man he had seen resembled the composite, he set about writing an intra-departmental memorandum, also called a “scratch.” It was dated November 12 and was forwarded to the Homicide Division and added to the official files, not as an amendment but as additional information to detail and clarify events. When asked about his report, he told an inspector—it may have been Toschi, he wasn’t sure—that the man he’d seen was older and heavier than what he had seen in the composite.
But this delayed report, combined with Fouke’s later explanations, only raised more questions about the unusual events surrounding Stine’s murder.
***
Pelissetti’s description of his own actions that evening, once the scene was secure, markedly contradicted the information provided by Fouke. According to Pelissetti, when Fouke and Zelms arrived at the scene, it was Fouke who called out to him to see whether he had seen anybody (and not vice-versa). He had replied, “no.” He was firm in his recollection: Fouke had not mentioned to him that he had seen anybody or had stopped anybody.
Narrating events decades later, Pelissetti claimed that he retraced the escape route of the killer. He crept north along Cherry Street using all the self-preservation tactics he had acquired in his training. He wisely feared that the assailant could be around any blind corner or behind any car—and there were many alcoves and parked vehicles along Cherry Street. He didn’t want to end up like Stine and get his own “head blown off.”
When he arrived at Jackson Street, one block to the north, he explained, he had to decide whether to continue north or turn to the west or east to further his pursuit. Because he could see no one scaling the wall to enter the Presidio (where Cherry Street dead-ended into it), and seeing no one when he looked to his left or right, he made the arbitrary decision to turn right onto Jackson Street, proceeding east, paralleling the south edge of the Presidio. He was on the east side of Cherry and the road descended to the east, so east seemed the natural choice.
Navigating one block farther, he achieved Maple Street, and had another decision to make in determining which direction to continue. He was one block north of the taxi’s original destination of Washington and Maple Streets. By this time, he realized that his chance of catching someone was essentially nil, the murderer likely far away in an unknown direction. He turned to the right, and as he did so, he noticed a middle-aged man walking his dog. (This man in time would be identified as a wealthy entrepreneur and a possible suspect in the killing.) The man was older and thinner than the gunman Pelissetti sought and had no blood on him—residue of the crime that would have almost certainly have been present on the perpetrator. When asked whether he had seen anybody, the man with the dog replied that he had not.
Pelissetti recalled that when Fouke spoke to him that evening, the other officer did not mention that he had seen or stopped anybody on Jackson Street. Pelissetti claimed that when he communicated with him in the days after the incident, however, Fouke admitted to him that he had both stopped and interacted with someone. Pelissetti was as adamant as Fouke on this point. According to Pelissetti, if Fouke was now saying otherwise, he was not correct. The scratch written by Fouke did not comport with what the officer had told him in the subsequent days of investigation, he insisted. His memory was clear: Fouke told him that he had stopped a stranger, and that that stranger had told Fouke he had not seen anyone in the area.
Years later, Pelissetti did not believe that Fouke had seen the killer. He believed that Fouke had stopped and talked to someone, but that person was not the murderer, and had merely said “no” when asked if he had seen anything. The area was well lit, Pelissetti explained. Had the man on Jackson Street been the killer, he would have been covered in Stine’s blood, and it would have been obvious to anyone who stopped him. Pelissetti was certain that it could not have been the murderer who Fouke had approached.
To further complicate matters, the murderer himself told a third variation of events. It was the killer’s tale that would, in time, be widely reported and repeated, achieving the status as the accepted version, despite being of highly questionable veracity flowing from a dubious source. Though it would be no stoop for a killer to lie, it is possible that his version was more accurate than those of the two officers; however, the details he presented suggested that he was being deceptive.
On November 9, the Zodiac serial killer sent his longest hand-written communication, the 6-Page letter, which was actually seven pages in length due to the additional writing on the back of the sixth numbered page. In it, the writer claimed to have been stopped by two officers, and when asked if he saw anyone acting suspicious or strange, he directed them around a corner. Their tires “peeled rubber” as they left, he added. This small portion of writing was a significant one, specifically marked for publication by its author.
In it, the killer detailed his account of events:
“Ps. 2 cops pulled a goof abot 3
min after I left the cab. I was
walking down the hill to the
park when this cop car pulled up
& one of them called me over
& asked if I saw any one
acting supicisous or strange
in the last 5 to 10 min & I said
yes there was this man who
was running by waveing a gun
& the cops peeled rubber &
went around the corner as
I directed them & I dissap-
eared into the park a block &
a half away never to be seen
again.”
On the face of it, the killer’s claim is difficult to accept as fact. The Zodiac may have shown his hand by writing that he sent officers peeling rubber around a corner, betraying that his version of events was actually, at least in part, fictional. When Fouke and Zelms were driving west on Jackson, once they passed the cross street of Maple, there were only two corners for them to “peel” around. At Cherry Street, they could turn either left or right—and Fouke claimed that they drove left, though not with squealing tires. Left would—and did, apparently—take them to the scene of the crime, of which they would have been aware that night, having already been summoned to that exact location. For the Zodiac to send them around that corner would be absurd. There would be no reason to accept a stranger’s tip that a gun-wielding assailant was sprinting toward the scene of the crime.
But turning right was no better.
Cherry Street, like Maple St
reet that parallels it to the east, becomes a dead-end into a wall surrounding the Presidio. Peeling rubber around that corner to the right would lead the patrol car into a 50-foot cul-de-sac north of Jackson Street. Fouke would not have raced around that corner because of the words of a stranger either, well aware that it led nowhere. Apparently, the murderer was also a liar, though his falsehoods do not prove that Fouke was telling the truth or remembering events correctly.
Even if Fouke was mistaken in his later memories that he saw the assailant climb the stairs of a home on Jackson Street, the killer’s claim remains improbable, if not impossible. A month after the events, the officer wrote in his scratch that the killer had turned north on Maple Street and headed toward the Presidio, moving with a “shuffling lope.” If that is correct, Fouke must have witnessed this feat from a spot east of Maple. From this vantage point, had he encountered the killer, there were two additional corners around which he could have sped at the urging of the killer. But these, like those of Cherry Street, also make no sense. A right turn on Maple, like a right turn on Cherry, would dead end within yards. A left turn would lead Fouke and Zelms to achieve the crime scene from the east, something that contradicts the statements of both Pelissetti and Fouke, both of whom agreed that Fouke and Zelms arrived at Stine’s cab coming south on Cherry Street. Consequently, wherever the killer may have been spotted along Jackson Street, he lied about directing officers around a corner.
Marvin Lee, SFPD Chief of Inspectors also challenged the writer’s claim to having words with the officers when he was quoted by The Chronicle, “…it is preposterous that he was stopped and questioned by officers. That just didn’t happen.”
In another unusual claim, Fouke wrote in the scratch that he did not know whether Zelms had seen the man walking along Jackson Street. He maintained that upon hearing the correct race of the perpetrator, he had turned his car around and sped toward the Presidio. Had he not questioned his partner as to what he had seen, a natural discussion topic while racing after the man? Or had he by this time, a month following the attack, forgotten whether or not Zelms told him that he had seen the man?
So there remain three versions of events. Fouke claimed to have seen the killer but had not stopped nor interacted with him. Pelissetti believed that Fouke stopped—and spoke to—someone, but it was not the murderer. And the Zodiac, claiming credit for the attack in a subsequent letter, wrote that he had been stopped by, and been spoken to by, two cops, directing them on a fool’s errand around some corner. No less than two of these three tales must be inaccurate.
Conflicting narrations are commonplace, detectives know. Eyewitness accounts of events are notorious for being faulty and unreliable. People can make mistakes, deceive, and be deceived. And in this instance something more may have been at play: the killer had every reason to obfuscate. He may have believed that his liberty depended upon it, and he apparently enjoyed taunting police officers, having done so numerous times previously in letters and phone calls. The officers too may have had reasons to exaggerate or minimize their role in the aftermath of the attack—or even provide false information. One or both of the officers may have been trying to cover up a very embarrassing event.
Fouke had every reason to fabricate his account. If he had spoken to the killer, it was necessary for him to explain to the department—if not history—why he did not capture him. If he hadn’t spoken to him (or could claim that he hadn’t), he could blame dispatch and the faulty initial reports for the murderer slipping through his fingers. As a result of his failure to seize the Zodiac that night, his misrepresentations may have been deep and prolonged.
His lies may have included his participation in the creation of the pictures following the attack. The original composite picture, created from the description given by the three teenagers, was made available on October 13, a mere two days after the attack. The amended version was released five days later, based on a second interview with the teenagers (and possibly also with input from Officer Fouke and/or Officer Zelms). The new drawing depicted an older man with a heavier jaw. Its accompanying description stated that the assailant was “35-45 Years, 5’8”, Heavy Build, Short Brown Hair, possibly with Red Tint, Wears Glasses. Armed with 9mm Automatic.” The poster listed the items police held for comparison: “Slugs, Casings, Latents, Handwriting.” Fouke’s claim that his November 12 scratch was produced in response to his viewing of the composites in the Richmond District Police Office might be incorrect, and possibly disingenuous. The intra-departmental memorandum, produced nearly one month after the revised version of the composite was created, was more likely the result of the new version of events provided by the killer.
Without a doubt, the killer’s new letter with its writer’s claim of being stopped by two police officers would raise many questions for investigators. A quick survey of officers on duty that night must have led to the inevitable acknowledgment, “Yes, Officer Fouke saw someone.” If asked where such an incident appeared in a report, he would have been flummoxed. Even on the day of the event, he believed that he had seen Stine’s murderer. He spoke with Pelissetti about it, he claimed; he informed communications; he may have been responsible for the newspaper report that someone was seen running into the park, which became the impetus for the search of the Presidio grounds. Though he had told people about what he had seen, he himself had written down nothing. The scratch appeared to be a rectification of that oversight.
The second enduring mystery surrounding Stine’s murder is the question of whether Fouke and Zelms actually stopped and spoke with the killer that night. The encounter has been reported as fact by some, the source for that information being the killer’s written words. But Fouke adamantly denied it, and Zelms is no longer alive to provide his account of the story. It has been rumored that Zelm’s widow has shared that her husband when alive told her that he and his partner did, in fact, stop near, and speak with, the Zodiac.
If the two officers did interact with the assailant in the manner that the killer suggested—and maybe even if they did not—Fouke’s scratch was a document of protection, a CYA (cover your ass) made to prevent the SFPD, particularly Officers Fouke and Zelms, from looking foolish. It’s one thing to omit a written statement about seeing a killer; it is a much more egregious error to have had the opportunity to apprehend the Bay Area’s most wanted man and not do so. The SFPD, like the law enforcement departments in all of the locations that the Zodiac had already struck, was soon frustrated and embarrassed over its inability to identify and capture its quarry.
It is also possible that Fouke spoke to an inspector soon after the event. Fouke claimed that he was approached by one after he had filed his scratch. If he was mistaken in the timing, it may have been in the days following the attack that he reported that the man he saw was older and heavier than the composite picture that was being circulated. That inspector, whether or not it was Toschi, may have used the new information to amend the composite picture—create a second one—without Fouke’s knowledge. When contacted many years later, the artist who drew the original composite pictures could not specifically recall events surrounding his work on the case.
It is also possible that Pelissetti was overly influenced by the Zodiac’s written words. In reading the 6-Page letter, he may have implanted in his own mind the events as written by the perpetrator. That would explain the supplanting of a memory—if that is what happened—and Fouke’s recollection would then more accurately depict what had occurred that night.
The scratch added some additional information not available in the other written reports of October 11. In it, Fouke claimed that the suspect was seen turning north on Maple Street, a dead end road leading to the Presidio Park. This would imply that Fouke himself was the source of the information that led the police to conduct a thorough search of the Presidio grounds. If true, it casts doubt on whether he saw the killer ascend a flight of concrete steps on Jackson, as he later maintained. The scratch also contained a more detailed description
of the suspect, only slightly at odds with the visual word picture provided by Pelissetti (whose description was apparently based on information collected from the teenagers, and possibly from Fouke as well). Fouke described the footwear of the man he saw as tan engineering boots, possibly low cut (later the “possibly” was removed and the boots were described by Fouke as “low cut”). Pelissetti’s description was of dark, low cut shoes.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Sunday, October 12 description of the assailant was similar to that of Fouke. It identified a white man, about 40 years of age, 170 pounds, with a blond crewcut. The Chronicle maintained that he was wearing glasses and that he had dark shoes and dark, gray trousers and jacket.
The police reports do not contain the whole story, however. Pelissetti did not mention his trek down Cherry Street to Jackson Street and east to Maple Street. Fouke wrote no timely report, waiting a full month after the event to explain his actions. Zelms, who penned no words of his experiences, was killed on the job in the months following the attack. What exactly these officers did and saw may never be resolved.
Pelissetti later left room for his own fallibility. Years after the events, when pressed, he admitted that he may have been wrong about what Fouke had said to him. He could not categorically eliminate the possibility that the officer did not stop somebody. His doubts—suggesting that he acknowledged his memory might be faulty, he might have been wrong about what Fouke said to him, or that the other officer’s version of events might indeed have been the correct one—were evident when he admitted, “hard to say if he [stopped someone] or not, point of conjecture.”
Contributing to the officers’ contradictory stories, likely, was the apparent banality of the evening. By all appearances, it was a routine robbery, botched to be sure, but in that era cab robberies occurred weekly in San Francisco, and assaults on cab drivers were not uncommon. In fact, three months later, on January 25, 1970, San Francisco cab driver Charles B. Jarman was shot behind the right ear and died. His wallet and ID were similarly removed from his person.