AN EYEWITNESS OR A GHOST?

8/13/2024

Nancy Slover

In previous articles it has been considered that the shabbily dressed male about 40 to 45, described by the Zodiac Killer in his August 4th 1969 letter, may have been conjured out of thin air to alibi the claim that the Zodiac Killer was in his vehicle when he made the 12:40am phone call to Nancy Slover at the Vallejo Police Department on July 5th 1969. This being done to disguise the fact that he lived nearby and had walked to the payphone from his residence. The Zodiac stated "The man who told police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45 rather shabbly dressed. I was in this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cop when he was walking by. When I hung the phone up the damn X@ thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car". This statement appears to suggest that the Zodiac Killer had observed or knew that the black male had interacted with police, despite this individual not being mentioned in the police report or the newspapers prior to August 4th 1969. So if this individual was really passing the payphone on July 5th 1969, what can be extrapolated from this information?

If the black male was in the vicinity of the payphone at 12:40an, it is not inconceivable that he could have picked up the latter part of the message that the Zodiac Killer was dictating to Nancy Slover when he said "I want to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9 mm Luger. I also killed those kids last year.... Good-bye". In other words, the black male may have overheard the Zodiac say "They were shot with a 9 mm Luger", which he would later relay to police as "I shot them. I used a 9mm automatic". This version of the phone call was reported in several newspapers alongside the Nancy Slover version. When responding officers at Blue Rock Springs received the information that the payphone at Springs & Tuolumne had been identified as the location of the call, they immediately drove to the payphone to secure it for fingerprint retrieval. Had they scanned the area for potential suspects, it is not inconceivable that they located the black male, questioned him, and received some limited information about the payphone caller and the tail end of his message, which marginally differed from the recollection given by Nancy Slover. This information may have been withheld to protect the eyewitness.

The big problem is that the phone call wasn't traced until 12:47am according to police reports (after Mrs Johnson was called). So if police had responded to the location of the payphone from Blue Rock Springs (as stated in the police report), they were not going to arrive at the payphone any earlier than 12:54am, at least 13 minutes after the Zodiac call ended. If the Zodiac Killer had observed a black man talking to police somewhere in the vicinity of the payphone and assumed he had told police about his brown car, then the Zodiac Killer must have still have been in the vicinity of the payphone himself. Could he have been observing the interaction between the police and this black male from his nearby residence? It's extremely unlikely his vehicle would have been openly parked on the street if his car had been observed by this eyewitness.

It is inconceivable that the payphone would have been rang at 12:47am with the Zodiac Killer still at the payphone, because he would have been standing at, or within earshot of the payphone for a minimum of 6 minutes. However, he must have heard the payphone ring because this detail wasn't released in the newspapers (unless he knew, or surmised that "ringback" was the method of tracing the call). So if he heard the payphone ring at 12:47am and saw the black male being questioned by police beyond 12:54am, one could argue that he was either in the neighborhood on foot, viewing proceedings from a clandestine location, or he was "peeking through his curtains" from a residence or building close by. A killer making a phone call at 12:40am while still in possession of his vehicle, should have been long gone by 12:47am. At the very least, a murderer not local to the area, should have put a reasonable distance between himself, his vehicle and the payphone by the time either of the above scenarios had unfolded. If there was no black male that morning, one has to question the reasoning behind this convenient eyewitness that Zodiac detailed so well.

63 Comments

robert

8/13/2024 01:58:37 pm

I very much enjoy reading these posts, Richard. They are interesting and thought-provoking. In this case, the questions about the times and what they suggest is really worth digging into as you do.

The statement by the Zodiac regarding the black male and the police is indeed odd. If this actually happened, then the police at the scene would certainly remember it, a month later, I would think. The Zodiac is thereby verifying the veracity of the witness, who might have provided a description of him and details of his car. Pretty risky!

Why add the detail about the phone ringing, rather than just say that "the man spotted me in the phone booth," if the phone did not really ring? It seems odd to add that unless it really happened, and the witness can verify that; including it in the 8/4 letter would just - again - give the witness credibility. Risky!

Of course, maybe he is slyly saying that the police pulled a goof by not catching him observing close by, which outweighs the riskiness of the letter writer's claims.

If none of this happened, then the police at the phone booth scene would know that it was made up (unless we assume they are forgetful, which seems unlikely for this crime), so what is the point? The newspaper had already reported that Mageau would be able to identify the suspect if he saw him again, with an initial description as well. It also stated that he reported that the suspect's vehicle was light brown. This could have been a misdirect on the part of the letter writer if Mageau was actually wrong about the car color, and he wanted them to continue to focus on owners of light brown cars? Where does that put Mageau and the paper's description of the suspect?

At any rate, I hope some of this makes sense. Thanks again for the posts.

Richard

8/13/2024 02:33:18 pm

Thanks Robert. I used to believe the eyewitness was concocted by Zodiac to sell the story he was still in his vehicle, to disguise the fact he had ditched his vehicle and walked to the payphone. So I thought I would take the opposite approach and consider the black male genuine. The fact that his car had already been described as brown by Mageau during the previous month and we had heard nothing about any description from the black male, I guess Zodiac didn't think he was risking much. The risky thing appears to be placing himself at that location at 12:47am when, according to the police report, the phone was rang. Even if we challenge the 12:47am trace and interpret this statement slightly different, was it possible to for the operator Betty Main to have traced the call and rang the phone within 30 seconds after Zodiac hung up. Had it been longer, a killer in a car would have been gone and out of earshot. I would have thought Betty Main would have had to seek authorization from her supervisor before implementing a trace and I question whether this could have been achieved in time for the caller in a vehicle to have heard it. What I've never quite wrapped my head around is a killer in a car stating "When I hung the phone up the damn X@ thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car". The Zodiac had already admitted that he was in his car earlier in the letter by invoking the eyewitness, so why not just write "When I hung the phone up the damn X@ thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me". The addition of car to this phrase seems like an oversell. Trying to convince us of this vehicle being present. It's a strange one Robert, that's for sure.

Richard

8/13/2024 02:49:10 pm

And yes, if Mageau got the vehicle colour wrong, corroborating it by using an eyewitness that may not have existed was risking absolutely nothing, only confirming a mistake given by Mageau. Corroborating this colour given by Mageau, using an eyewitness who did actually see his vehicle clearly, could suggest that no eyewitness existed, because if his vehicle was green or blue, it would be pretty pointless attributing the description of a brown vehicle to an eyewitness who saw it. On the other hand, if Mageau described it as brown and the eyewitness described it as brown, why not say it was brown. After all, Zodiac was a triple murderer and he probably knew police would be sceptical of anything he wrote.

Michael Wiewiora

8/18/2024 09:40:25 am

Richard, are you going to address the recent claims by the grandson of Dick Hoffman stating that Hoffman is the Zodiac? Check it out on UK Daily mail if you haven't seen this yet.

Richard

8/21/2024 04:30:02 pm

No I'm not Michael because it is impossible for Hoffman to be Zodiac for multiple reasons, notably he was in the hospital absent of his vehicle when the phone call from Springs & Tuolumne came in. I've heard the majority of the Hoffman claims years ago. They were groundless then, and continue to be today. If others want to believe it that is up to them, but I'm not prepared to cover pointless "suspects" such as this.

Robert

8/13/2024 04:56:29 pm

Excellent points above, Richard. I've just now come across your thoughts about this (and other details of the BRS shooting) from July 7, 2020 and see that you addressed many of these points already. My apologies for missing that. I'll look through the comments and replies on that earlier post as soon as I can.

JIbberjabber

8/13/2024 11:29:46 pm

Plus we assume he learned from this which is why he left the phone off the hook in Napa, he didnt seem bothered about the call being traced that time and was infact how they did trace the call in Napa.
Is it possible the phone rang in Vallejo immediately for some reason after he replaced the handset and it was nothing to do with the trace? The way he describes it in the letter it sounds like he is saying it rang just after he hung up. But if that was how it happened, why did he not leave the phone of the hook after it had rang back? I wonder if Z had a second conversation with someone that we do not know about, maybe the phone operator?? But if he was still at the phone when it rang, why did he not leave it off the hook like he did at Napa? or did he and those details have not come back to us. Can the phone company trace a call after the caller has hung up or does not line not need to remain open?

Jibberjabber

8/13/2024 11:31:17 pm

Could the operator have even traced the call if Zodiac had hung up?

Richard

8/14/2024 12:24:23 am

I believe he rang the operator to be patched through to the Vallejo Police Department rather than directly calling, which is how they were able to trace the call. Totally different to the scenario of the Jim Dunbar Show where they had to keep the individual on the line continuously for about 15 minutes in order to facilitate a trace. I'm not totally familiar with the workings of operators, but it's possible he gave the number of the payphone to be patched through, allowing them to ring back the payphone and thereby trace its location. The Zodiac stated in his letter that the phone "began to ring", suggesting that it continued to ring, rather than just an individual and short noise as he hung up the phone. The option of leaving the phone off the hook in Napa does seemingly indicate that he had learnt from his experience at Springs & Tuolumne. They were unable to trace the call in Napa by ringing it back, but got lucky when a news director at KVON radio by the name of Pat Stanley sprang into action after hearing about the brutal attack on his police scanner. He found the payphone and was able to converse with Dave Slaight because he kept the line open.

Richard

8/14/2024 04:53:03 am

Here's a question for Robert and Jibberjabber. Two casings were found on the rear floorboards of the Corvair, indicating that Zodiac leaned into the vehicle and onto the top of the passenger seat with his weapon, while firing at Mageau in the back seat. Darlene suffered 9 entry wounds and Mageau 2 entry wounds while in the front of the vehicle. It is extremely unlikely that a killer leaning into the vehicle could avoid blood transfer to his blue shirt (and/or arms). If the Zodiac Killer lived anywhere but around the payphone, what is the likelihood he would park up in Vallejo and just sit around in public for 40 minutes with a smoking gun and clothing that likely had blood on it? This brings up the question of how likely is blood transfer to his clothing from 11 entry wounds sustained by the victims in the front compartment delivered by a 9mm weapon? If the killer lived in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco or Napa for example, why not make the phone call on the way home? Whether our killer lived in or out of Vallejo, how does sitting around in public benefit the murderer's desire to avoid detection?

Robert

8/14/2024 08:05:26 am

I agree, Richard, It is very odd that he would just hang around Vallejo with (very likely, per your analysis) blood on him. In fact, even without the blood those 40 minutes are very odd. He would not want to hang around in the same clothes and car for any amount in time, imho, just in case he had been spotted as he left. The most likely explanation is what you provide.

Jibberjabber

8/14/2024 08:14:37 am

I am wondering if the Zodiac hood at Lake Berryessa was also a practical attempt at blood transfer mitigation (as well as acting out some personal fantasy). But I have seen Tom Voigt say that Zodiac was wearing a yellow rain coat when he made the phonecall from the Napa phone booth where as at the lake an hour earlier he was wearing a navy blue shirt or jacket so when he was in his car doing his attacks maybe he had a change of clothes or something to wipe himself down. Everything does seem to point to a Vallejo killer but Zodiac never seems to do the obvious thing and It is very risky why he would admit to the police the black male had seen him if that really did occur because you have to wonder how would Zodiac not know the black male did not live within walking distance to the phone booth too and that they were "neighbors" in a sense- he is basically saying to the police that man can ID me if he ever sees me again. Strange one

I would like to know how long the 4th July celebrations were going on that night, the procession at Mare Island etc. Maybe the town was busy enough he could park up somewhere and not stick out like a sore thumb. Everything would seem to point to a Vallejo killer but at the same time I have to wonder is Zodiac that obvious?

Jibberjabber

8/14/2024 10:46:36 am

I wonder if the silent calls to Dean Ferrin later that night mean anything? Were they from Z, from Darlene's brother Leo or did they maybe never even happen at all. If they were from the killer they cant have been made from Tuolomne & Springs road so if it was Z where was he calling from. That would have been important to know. I think the silent phonecalls are discounted as having any relevance now

Richard

8/14/2024 11:44:51 am

According to Graysmith "Fifty minutes later, four phone calls were placed through the operator from a booth at Broadway and Nebraska." Leo (Darlene's brother} claimed he made the calls, but who rings two addresses and then says nothing. It could be Zodiac or it could be Leo. Broadway and Nebraska is 1.2 km northwest of the Zodiac payphone (by crow).

Jibberjabber

8/14/2024 11:59:13 pm

Good info Richard, if Z is still floating around in Vallejo that late in the night / early in the morning it is more reason to believe he lived there. I wonder how they traced those phonecalls to that booth, the significance of the calls might not have been immediately apparent and I have been reading that back then to trace calls - or at least placed caller to caller, they had to go back and look and what state all the mechanical switches were to trace the connecting circuit back. If someone else had phoned from the phone that placed the call or someone else had dialled into the Ferrin residence I would have thought it would have altered the switch positions and they would never be able to trace that particular call configuration back to its source. Unless the police knew about the call within a space of hours and requested a trace back pretty early on? Once news of the shootings was out i would think the Ferrin phone line would have been busy

Robert

8/15/2024 06:11:50 am

This is interesting - I don't know the state of phone calling in 1969, but I don't think calls had to go through an operator by then. So, if Leo was the one placing calls, I assume he would know those phone numbers and would dial directly (I remember the days when we all memorized scads of telephone numbers). If it was the killer, he would likely go through the operator since he did not know the number? I wonder if the phone operator was ever interviewed about the caller's voice and request?

Richard

8/15/2024 12:36:06 pm

Assuming Graysmith is correct, you've hit the nail on the head. Leo would have known the numbers he was ringing, so how would they have been traced?

Jibberjabber

8/15/2024 10:49:55 am

Well it could be even more interesting than that Robert, if the calls were placed by Zodiac and he placed them directly - how did he know the numbers?? I have not looked into this other than read what others have wrote about it on forums etc but I have seen it pointed out 2 sets of calls made to 2 different people (maybe Deans house and Deans parents?) and they may have been unlisted numbers and the question is how did Zodiac get those numbers. I have seen suggestions like he really did know Darlene enough to know telephone numbers or he may have somehow had access to the unlisted telephone numbers. I dont know how that would even be possible but it has been pointed out Darlene worked at the telephone company in San Francisco, it is highly unlikely but if she picked up a stalker in the city there, could a co-worker somehow have been able to get unlisted numbers? That is what I have read on the tapatalk forum, I am not saying any of that is true. There is no evidence that suggests Zodiac knew any of his victims and we do not even know if he made the calls after the murder at BRS that night.

Richard

8/15/2024 12:45:12 pm

Many have questioned whether or not Darlene Ferrin was stalked by an unwanted admirer in the run up to her murder during the late night hours of July 4th 1969 or early minutes of July 5th 1969, with little, if any verifiable evidence to support such a claim. This however, doesn't rule out the contention that she may have been murdered by somebody who knew her. Much has been discussed regarding the mysterious phone calls received at the 1300 Virginia Street residence of Darlene Ferrin, and the 930 Monterey Street residence of Mr Arthur J Ferrin and Mrs Mildred Ferrin at approximately 01:30 am on the morning of July 5th 1969, just one-and-a-half hours after the murder of Darlene Ferrin and attempted murder of Michael Mageau at Blue Rock Springs. It must be stressed that Darlene Ferrin had been alternatively listed as living at 930 Monterey, Vallejo on page 5 of the police report.

Now look at this newspaper article
https://www.flickr.com/photos/112412867@N06/12004922193/in/album-72157639880253085

Robert

8/16/2024 09:49:45 am

Nice catch, Richard, with the article. It seems at least the 930 Monterey house was listed in the directory (though the phone booth in question might not have had one at that time).

Robert

8/16/2024 09:52:07 am

All good points, Jibberjabber. I would think the police would have checked out these anonymous calls if they were reported at the time (this might be addressed elsewhere?) Without access to the all files we can only speculate.

Jibberjabber

8/15/2024 10:56:22 am

I think the Berryessa car door does have the date of the lake attack, I have not seen it for a while but I seem to think there is a "27" squeezed in next to the word Sept. I am sure I have seen it on some photos unless I am imagining it. I have always felt there is something up about the writing on the car door, like he may have wrote on it then came back later and added something but if there was only 1 set of prints found he must have dont it all in one go. It is weird though

Richard

8/15/2024 12:47:38 pm

Sorry, I made an error Jibberjabber. You are obviously correct.

Johnny

8/15/2024 10:44:07 pm

Maybe we shall focus pretty much on the brown car, because he was afraid that the police would be heavily invested towards his light coloured Impala?
He choosed the colour brown because of Mageau's description of it?
If this is the case he was really afraid of the Impala descriptions in the news.

.."I was "in this" ( or "at this" ) phone booth"

..."fun with the "Vallejo" cop"

Ofcourse this type of writings tells that he might be from Vallejo or close by, if he didn't do a double cross.

Richard link

8/16/2024 01:26:00 pm

The model of Impala observed in the Lake Herman Road turnout Johnny was made in Ermine White colour Johnny. This is important because in low level light such as in the Blue Rock Springs parking lot (not caught in headlights like at LHR), Ermine White appears brown. I took the vehicle spotted at LHR and lowered the light levels. If you click my name you can see the result. It means there is a possibility the vehicle seen by Mageau was white in colour.

The 'Ermine White' vehicle takes on a distinctly more medium brown or bronze color, similar to the Corvair driven by Darlene Ferrin. This could easily account for the discrepancies in identification between Robert Connelly, Bingo Wesner and Michael Mageau. particularly considering the circumstances Michael Mageau faced that night.

https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/a-white-chevrolet-impala-at-blue-rock-springs

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 01:35:10 pm

Superb observation

Johnny

8/15/2024 10:53:49 pm

But i also mean that the brown car statement doesn't necessarily mean that he walked from the phone booth and therefore lived in Vallejo. It could be, but it also could be that he wanted to reflect interest away from his car that was an Impala.

But why wasn't the impala then seen in Vallejo? So, the brown car statement could both mean that he hadn't a car with him at all, but it could also be that he wanted the police to think that his car wasn't the Impala seen at Lake herman road, or both.

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 09:33:13 am

Here is an interesting little video from youtube which i think shows the process of tracing analogue phone calls. Gets complicated very quickly but I think we can get an appreciation of the process.

The phone number dictates the various switching route, and I suppose the further distance between source & termination of the call (ie more numbers) the circuit pathway would be longer and take more time to trace and may include having to telephone between different call centres to get the full trail

Some thoughts off the top of my head - if Zodiac ever placed a call in the same vicinity he was calling, the circuit path may have been shorter than if he was calling eg out of town, out of state, out of country

possibly if he called the operator, it just truncates the switching path? although I am not sure about that, unless the operator was literally sitting in the closest switching centre there could have still been multiple switches to go through, in any case I think the operator would have still had to do something like this to trace his call - ie find out which switches were activated at each bank this may have been easier at 12:40 AM because the lines were less busy and the operator may have had all the telephone numbers to other operators at other call centres that had routed the call - but I think it would have taken some minutes to trace the call. If the phone only ever rung back AFTER the operator had traced the call and maybe dialled the number, unless Zodiac was within ear distance to the phonebooth I dont see how we could ever have heard it. Even if he was on foot he would still have to be there to hear it ring, I doubt you could hear a phone ringing from too far away even at night (I could be wrong there). I think he hung around for a few minutes for some reason, either with his car or on foot if he lived local.

Watching this video now, I do think they would have been trying to trace the caller to the Jim Dunbar show - which was why maybe they specifically asked to keep the lines clear so it would help in tracing back the call.

I now have doubts that Zodiac made the calls to the Ferrin residences, or to be more specific how did they trace the calls. The person on this video says the switches are reset when the caller hangs up, so unless Leo / Zodiac left the phone off the hook when the later calls came in, how could they have ever been traced?

quite interesting I think there are a couple of things to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qG5-NntLwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qG5-NntLwA

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 10:17:35 am

I would still like to know was it possible to trace a call if the caller had hung up. We know Zodiac hung up the phone at Vallejo but if this is true then according to what was on the youtube video it should have reset all the connections. Did the operator have another way to trace an electro-mechanical call, or is that person on the video wrong and the switches stay in there last state even if the person puts the phone down (and until someone else makes a call using the same circuits) or did Zodiac not really hang up and he left the phone off the hook at Vallejo? We assume he left the phone off the hook at Napa because he learned from his "mistake" in Vallejo, but do we know for sure he did not leave the phone off the hook in Vallejo and the whole thing about the phone ringing back and being observed was a lie? Maybe Zodiac knew more about how phone calls are traced than we think he did. I am wondering other than Zodiac said in his letter have we ever been told the Vallejo phone was left off the hook or do we know for sure he put the phone down. Something is not ringing true here (pun intended!) the phone just happens to ring when ZOdiac put it down, but why would it? We can get an idea now that tracing a phone call would take a number of minutes at least.

Richard

8/16/2024 01:29:55 pm

Great work Jibberjabber.

Richard

8/16/2024 01:33:30 pm

I find it extremely unlikely that the payphone was traced in literally a few seconds after he hung up the phone. Several minutes seems plausible. Why place the trace information under 12:47am if this wasn't the case.

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 09:41:22 am

I am wondering though, why did Zodiac place his call to Vallejo PD via the operators, is it because he did not know the direct number to dial?

Which if so it seems all the stranger if he placed a direct call to Napa PD without having to go via the operator. Did he know the direct number to phone Napa PD but not the direct number to phone Vallejo PD? or is it possible he had no money on him in Vallejo and had to use the operator to place the call for free?

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 10:27:14 am

lets give Zodiac the benefit of the doubt, the phone did ring back and he was still at the phonebooth. Did he take the phone off the hook to stop it ringing or did he just let it ring? and if he did take the phone off the hook to stop the ringing what did he do, just put it back down again, how would he know it would not ring again??

I am wondering if the whole phone ringing and black male seeing him was an invention, or maybe the phone did ring back (if so why?) and then he picked it up and left it off the hook and this was how the operator traced the call.

I am going to email that telephone museum and ask in their opinion in 1969, if a caller had asked to be placed through to a 3rd number and they then went and hung up, would the operator be able to trace that initiating call back to source. The youtube video I posted makes me think No as the switching network should have reset when he hung up

Richard

8/16/2024 01:39:41 pm

That's probably the best option - asking somebody who knows the workings of the system in 1969 Vallejo.

IthinkIknow

8/16/2024 01:30:37 pm

As this case gets older, this kind of information will become increasingly inaccessible, but here goes. My mother was a telephone operator in 1969. I also have a work colleague who was a telephone operator supervisor in 1969. They lead me to believe that it was possible for them instantaneously to call the payphone that just made a call. It was possible for them to trace the number of that payphone, but it took several minutes (not always the 15 minutes that you see in old movies, but a substantial amount of time).

I think an interesting point was raised in an earlier comment. Either Zodiac knew how payphones work, or he didn't. If he knew, then he would've known how to keep the phone from ringing back immediately--don't hang up the receiver. He obviously learned this lesson and applied it in Napa. The fact that we're having the conversation leads me to believe that the phone rang back, and he wasn't expecting it at all.

Imagine his surprise when this cool, calm serial killer is confidently reporting on the collecting of his slaves hangs up, turns to walk away, and hears the ^#&$^* phone ring! It had to be shocking to him. Everything else had gone his way from the moment he first pulled his gun on David and Betty Lou. I think he responded to this affront to his planning prowess by exaggerating in his letter--just like he did in the letter about the search after Stine. His game plan is to distract with a shiny bauble when there is a threat. So, look for a black man to talk about the ringing phone and the brown car. I think it was the first time Zodiac shit his pants in fear, but not the last.

Richard link

8/16/2024 01:57:09 pm

That makes a lot of sense. They can ring back immediately but can't trace immediately - hence the 12:47 attribution. If this is the case, we are left with an eyewitness to corroborate. I explained to Johnny above that the model of Impala seen at LHR was made in Ermine White (off white), which appears brownish or bronze in low level light. If Zodiac's vehicle was white at LHR and BRS, it would be understandable why Zodiac on August 4th invented a male negro eyewitness to sell us the idea of a brown car, that corroborated the recollections of Michael Mageau as reported in the newspapers So he tied up the ringing phone with a negro eyewitness to sell us the story in one neat bundle. In other words, he used the ringing phone as a problem that alerted an eyewitness, but in reality it was beneficial to him to sell the brown car story. Click my name to see how Ermine White appears in low level lighting at BRS. The vehicle isn't the correct one, but I chose one in Ermine White to demonstrate .

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 02:45:06 pm

Great info IthinkIknow, the switches must not have reset when Zodiac hung up otherwise how would the operator be able to call back to the phonebooth? It can not be because the operator knew the number otherwise there would have been no need for a trace. I am thinking the person in the youtube video is maybe mistaken and the telephone switches do not reset when the caller hangs up, otherwise as I am understanding it once Zodiac hung up the phone the first time - the connection between him and the operator would have been lost forever as all the switching relays reset and it would never be possible to go back and note the position of the switches. Either he never hung up at all and the line somehow stayed open ,or the person on the video was wrong and the circuit is not reset when the caller hangs up, or the operator is able to trace a call in a way that was not covered on the phone museum video - but as i understand it at this moment in time, the caller hangs up the chance to trace the call is gone?. I have emailed the telephone museum to see what they say and to ask if an operator would have been able to ring back to a caller placing a call from a phonebooth that had hung up the phone without ever stating what number he called from. I would still like to know if the phone was on the hook or off when the police arrived this would at least tell us if he answered it when it rang back and if that was how the trace was made or as I say there was some other way to do it. there used to be a weird thing that happened sometimes when you put the phone down it would ring back maybe - i dont know if that was a glitch of some sort but maybe a glitch caused the phone to ring back on Zodiac and the operator had not actually tried to intentionally call him back? although personally I think the operator did try to call him I just dont understand how that was done if the caller hanging up resets all the switched-connections.

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 02:52:49 pm

Couple of responses to the same question as asked on Quora. They seem to be also saying the switches reset when the caller hangs up, if this is true I dont see how the operator could have called Zodiac back instantly or traced the call. the technology has to work so if this is literally true then he can not have hung up the phone??

Benjamin Black Perley
Lives in New Orleans (2003–present)Author has 19.2K answers and 12.7M answer views3y
It was true many decades ago when telephone central office equipment was analog and electromechanical. Somebody would walk back into the (giant) electromechanical analog switch and literally look and see who you were calling by tracing the wires and observing the position of the relays/switches. If it was long distance, they’d have to call all the intermediate exchanges and get them to do the same. Imagine a giant room filled with wires amd relays, but no computers as we know them. Once the caller hung up, there was no longer any physical call path to trace or observe, as the equipment would revert back to its default state to serve the next customer.

Once the switches were computerized in the 70s, the tracing became instant. It’s a useful movie plot line though, so it’s still a thing, even though it’s not true. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story :)

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Kurt Behnke
Former Telecom R&D and Manager Operations at Ericsson (company) (1997–2017)Author has 7.1K answers and 12.2M answer views3y
This plot is based on ancient analog technology. Where phone connections were established by a sequence of “rotary dial” style dialers which worked on a single dialed digit each. A digit was translated into electric pulses (think rotary dial!) each of which moved the position of the dialer one step ahead, to connect the the right line for the next stage. That process was extremely slow.

When the call was established you had a visible representation of the connection in the switch by going through the positions of the connected dials. So someone needed to run through the switch room (which was of considerable size, with 10,000 or more connections) and note down the dial positions. When the call ended all the dials were released and fell back in their default positions. All information was lost. So it needed enough time for the person in charge to actually follow the connection through the switch.

Robert

8/16/2024 02:53:45 pm

Nice work jibberjabber and Richard - the image of the ermine whit car in low light is remarkable.

Jibberjabber - i only watched part of the videos you linked to but the portion I did see had the museum person explaining that when there were a lot of calls it would be nearly impossible to know which circuits, etc. were engaged so it is not really possible to trace that way. But, I imagine that if they had this type of system in Vallejo in 1969, there would not have been a lot of calls at that time of night (though it was the 4th of July/very early 5th). It sounds like the operator might have stayed on the line and perhaps could see which lines were activated and could trace that way.

At any rate, I hope the museum gets back to you with some insights.

Richard

8/16/2024 03:13:34 pm

Assuming the BRS eyewitness was made up, another important question is why did the Zodiac Killer choose a minority eyewitness. The age of the eyewitness was an unnecessary detail by Zodiac, as was his attire and race. But the three together gives the impression Zodiac is describing a real person. There was only 11,101 "negro" residents in Vallejo in 1970, which would be about 16% in 1969. By choosing a minority race, is Zodiac attempting to add credibility to his observations. He didn't even describe the man as "about 40", he gives us an age range of "about 40-45" to try and give the impression he is attempting to pinpoint an age range. There is also over emphasis on the man's description, stating "rather shabbily dressed" as opposed to "shabbily dressed". But why does what he's wearing matter, if not for a selling job. A descriptive recollection of an eyewitness used to convince the reader this man was real. The same was done with the phone call, overreacting and writing "the damn X@ thing began to ring". Why not just write "the phone rang". This annoyance appears contrived and unnecessary from a normally unflustered Zodiac Killer.

Robert

8/16/2024 03:30:10 pm

Yes, the details seem a bit much, as if he is trying to establish credibility as you note, Richard. I keep bumping up against the idea, however, that the police would remember if they had a witness or not and would have notes if they did. It seems that they would then know that the letter writer was making that up if no officer recalled it. Then, they would ask why the writer was making this up, and use that to update their priors.

Jibberjabber

8/16/2024 03:33:50 pm

Great analysis Richard. The funny thing is I always did believe him that the phone did ring back, but it just doesn't seem like the technology worked that way now we can read a bit more and watch a video. I hope someone can get back to us and add some clarity - if the Zodiac did hang up on the operator/Vallejo PD does that mean the operator could never call back the booth or trace the call? He tended to keep his calls very short so I think it likely he appreciated calls could be traced but might not have known how it all worked.

Richard

8/16/2024 03:54:44 pm

You mentioned earlier that he didn't seem to know the phone number of the Vallejo Police Department. If he knew he was going to kill in Vallejo that night/morning, then you could expect him to source the number before he murdered. However, if he was trawling areas beyond Vallejo on July 4th, it may suggest he hadn't preselected an area he planned to murder, so wasn't prepared. But if he went home before the call did he have a phone book or not, or was he just content to call the operator?

Richard

8/16/2024 04:04:42 pm

"In answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have had in Vallejo".

Also check out the difference between the above statement and "In answer to your asking for more details about the good times I had in Vallejo".

"I have had" is the present perfect tense, which indicates an action that was completed in the past but has relevance or implications in the present. It suggests the action is still relevant or connected to the current situation. "I had" is the simple past tense, which indicates an action that was completed in the past, without any explicit connection to the present.

Jibberjabber

8/17/2024 01:18:00 am

Maybe Z did not know the number to either Vallejo PD or Napa PD and the difference was as simple as there was a phone directory in the Napa booth he could consult but no directory in the Vallejo booth. Another one of those aspects of the case that could indicate massive pre-planning and something very significant....or not!

Here is the response from the telephone museuem, they do not think the phone should have rung back unless the operator had the number to ring it back - which we do not think they did otherwise there would be no need for the trace.

I can not shake the feeling now that Zodiac never actually hung up the phone at 12:40AM. It either did ring like he said - for an unknown reason, or he never hung it up. Either way I just dont think that operator could have traced that call if Zodiac hung up, and the same for the calls to the Ferrin residences.

If the phone was left off the hook in Vallejo at 12:40 AM, and then was left off the hook from the later calls made from Nebraska & Broadway St, and the phone was again left off the hook at Napa - is it possible all of these calls were Zodiac, he left the phone off the hook intentionally in each case because he wanted the calls to be traced and he knew they would be and possibly even how the process of call tracing worked?

There is no need to leave a phone off the hook after making a taunting call it seems to me unless the caller is worried it would ring back and draw attention after he hung up, but at the same time the museum is saying there would be no reason for the phone to ring back when the caller hung up, but at the same time again it seems like there is no way for a call to be traced through an analogue electro-mechanical switching network if the caller did infact hang up. We know they didn't need to do a switch position check trace at Napa to identify the caller because the reporter found the phone off the hook and confirmed the booth number with Dave Slaight who was still on the other end, but how were traces on the calls made in Vallejo on 5th July unless the caller left the line open?? If the phone at Tuolomene & springs was off the hook when police arrived, and the phone at Nebrasksa & Broadway was also off the hook 50 minutes later, I would now change my opinion and think it more likely Zodiac made both sets of calls. Is Graysmith accurate about those later calls that night being traced back to Nebrasksa & Broadway?

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Good questions. For the first one the answer is it depends. With some types of systems, the operator would know what number the call was coming from and with others not.

We can't think of any reason why the phone would ring after the caller hung up.

Jibberjabber

8/17/2024 01:35:26 am

Another practicallity I am thinking about here is - did Zodiac put money in the phonebooth to call the operator or was calling the operator and asking them to connect a call free? if so then what was to stop the caller getting a free phonecall to a 3rd party via the operator only then to hang up in the phonebooth without ever paying for the call, how did the phone company get paid for the call?

is it possible that for an operator to place a call on behalf of a customer phoning from a booth, the operator would ask them to put money in the phone before the operator patched them through, but they might skip this if the call was an emergency call which we could assume this one would have been treated as (calling Vallejo PD at 12:40 AM?)

if a caller from a phone booth could call the operator for free, and have the operator connect them to a final destination and NOT have to pay for the call up front by dropping money in the pay phone then there would be nothing to stop these callers hanging up and getting free calls by going via the operator and doing the phone company out of revenue. This is making me think that the operator would at least want (if they could) to call a phonebooth back from a caller who had made a call via the operator but never paid any money, but at the same time from the info we have it seems the operator could not call the phone booth back to ask for payment after the fact if the operator did not know the number of the booth at the time of the call or had not had time to affect a trace.

The only thing I can think is in cases where a customer was phoning from a booth and asking an operator to place a call on their behalf, the operator would have to confirm payment at the booth BEFORE they patched the call through, otherwise everyone would do what Zodiac did and hang up the phone without ever paying. Maybe the only time they would patch a call without payment is in an emergency. We do not know if Zodiac did put money in the booth but I am just exploring why in theory an operator might want to call a phonebooth back immediately after the caller hung up - because they never paid for the call. But technologically it does not seem like this was possible in the 1960s
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The operator had to manually listen to see if the parties were still speaking. There was a routine for doing this and it was done without letting the parties know that the operator was listening. A card was prepared for each call and the operator will make a note of the exact time of each listen. The last listen when no one was speaking was used as the time that the call ended. The cards were then sent to the billing clerk who calculated the number of minutes spent on the call and billed the customer for those minutes.

Richard

8/17/2024 02:47:46 am

Good information Jibberjabber. "Before 911 was introduced, there was no centralized number that people could call in times of an emergency. Anyone who wanted to contact the police or the fire department had to dial "0" to reach a telephone operator or dial a 10-digit number. In 1967, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) met with AT&T to establish such an emergency number. They wanted a number that was short and easy to remember. More importantly, they needed a unique number, and since 911 had never been designated for an office code, area code or service code, that was the number they chose. After its initial acceptance in the late 1960s, 911 systems quickly spread across the country. By 1979, about 26 percent of the United States population had 911 service, and nine states had passed legislation for a statewide 911 system".

It seems 911 wasn't in operation in Vallejo so Zodiac took the operator route. The UK's emergency telephone number, 999, was first introduced in London on June 30, 1937. I would have thought any emergency call in the USA, such as to police would be free. Imagine you've just witnessed a shooting in 1969 with severely injured people or with murder victims, are the operators really going to ask you to find payment from coins in your pocket, otherwise they would refuse to take the call. I doubt it. I would have thought emergency service calls to police departments or ambulance services would be free. The 01:30am calls are either a real case of bad timing from Leo, or extremely suspicious in nature. I'm not sure.

Richard

8/17/2024 02:53:53 am

Former Tech at The Future (1974–1978)4y
Back in those olden days we used actual relay switches to connect a phone call. Phones were the dial type. When a person dialed a number, each number closed a relay switch at the phone company’s main office. The relay switches were in large cabinets in a huge room full of cabinets. To trace a call a technician had to run from cabinet to cabinet and see which relay switch, if any, were closed. He would write down the location of each switch. the location would be cabinet, row, then the individual relay in that row in that cabinet. When he got all ten numbers he reported that to the police. The police would then cross reference the number with a phone book to find the address.

If the caller hung up all of the relays opened up and the call couldn’t be traced. Which happened a lot. Getting nine numbers or less didn’t help. We had to have all ten.

Richard

8/17/2024 03:09:07 am

But he rang "0".

Jibberjabber

8/17/2024 04:06:39 am

Here is perhaps the first mention of the calls to Dean Ferrin's parents - police report of 7th July 1969 (but calls recieved at 01:30 AM 5th July 1969) from Tom V's site

https://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR23.html

additional page

https://www.zodiackiller.com/DFR19.html

I think I will have a look at my Graysmith books and see what he says about the calls ever being traced

Richard link

8/17/2024 04:53:19 am

Vallejo High School is 282 metres from the intersection of Nebraska & Broadway.

Robert

8/17/2024 07:42:34 am

Richard points out that the 8/4 letter included the phrase "the good times I have had in Vallejo." This seems very formal, though perhaps in 1969 that was common usage, regardless of educational attainment? When I studied Spanish way back we used Castilian Spanish, and learned all tenses in that version. When I went abroad to a Spanish speaking country the first time and used the present perfect tense - some native speakers laughed and told me that was a very stuffy, formal way to speak. Again, maybe it was different in 1969 English in Northern CA.

Jibberjabber

8/18/2024 05:22:12 am

OK this is interesting, still trying to find out more about how the various calls were traced on July 5th 1969. This article is about the phonecall to Napa PD but it says specifically the operator said she would hold the line open until its origin can be traced.

We know Zodiac never infact did hang up the phone at Napa, but regardless did an operator have the ability to keep the connection open as it seems to sound here - so that even if the caller hung up the electro-mechnical switches did not reset??

https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/attachments/wpforo/default_attachments/1633492596-BDB7EECB-962C-44DD-AD57-4E8E2867810B.jpeg

from this discussion thread here on Dave O's site

https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/darlene-ferrin-mike-mageau-7-4-69/ring-ring-how-long/paged/6/

I found another article saying the calls to the Ferrin residences were placed via an operator, but I cannot find the damn thing now

If an operator can hold a line open regardless of what the caller does, this does sound like all these calls made that night could have been traced had they been placed via the operator.

Richard

8/18/2024 09:15:03 am

Then I assume tracing would therefore take longer than 30 seconds to one minute.

HMD

8/19/2024 01:19:52 am

I believe Z did hear the phone call back at Springs and Tuolumne. He left the phone hanging off the receiver at the Napa phone booth - shows he learned from his previous experience?

JIbberjabber

8/19/2024 11:41:44 am

I believe so too HMD. The interesting thing and is what I am trying to confirm is, unless the operator could intentionally hold the line open, then it looks like the ability to trace a call is lost when the caller hangs up.

If this is true, ie the operator has no ability to maintain an open line to the caller if they hangup, then I think Zodiac may have left the phone off the hook at Springs & Tuolomne street too.

but why? because it rang back and he was still close enough to get to it before it rang too long? would he have ran back if he was walking home on foot and he was a few minutes walking distance away? I would think that would be very suspicious to run back to the phone he had left minutes ago. If a phone started ringing that I had just made a taunting phonecall too, I think I would run away from it not back towards it.

BUt I dont know, we need to know if the operator could affect a trace if the caller had hung up, otherwise how did they trace the call?

I am waiting for some feedback from the people at the Seattle telephone museum on whether the operator had the ability to maintain an open line to a caller who had hung up from a phone booth in 1969 (and so be able to trace the line).

Jibberjabber

8/20/2024 09:26:22 am

When telephones switched to free calls to the operator:

----------------------

Again, it depends. Some places still had "coin first" phones, but in the 1960s they began installing "dial tone first" phones where you could make operator or emergency calls without a coin.

If you asked the operator to make non-free call for you they would generally ask you to put the money in before they connected you, but then they could hit a button to return it to you if the call was not answered.

Jibberjabber

9/8/2024 02:57:51 am

I know you are having a well earned break Richard,

I have just started reading Robert Graysmith's first book again. He does say the phone was left off the hook in Vallejo 5th July 1969. If this is true then it seems Zodiac was telling the truth when he said the phone rang. The trace was not made until 12:47 which seems to be say 6 - 7 minutes after he left the phone dangling. This seems to tie in with discussions we had recently where a telephone line needs to be open (phone not put down) for a trace to be made, and the manual processing of tracing the call switches can take a number of minutes maybe 6 or 7 minutes is reasonable?

I dont think it helps us to know 100% whether Zodiac was in a car or on foot, but either way I think the phone did ring after he hung up. Which means that part of his letter was true, but then did he lie about the black male seeing him at the booth when the phone rang or was he telling the truth there too??

If he was telling the truth about being observed and was in a car, how did he know the witness did not see his licence plates? Or was he just assuming the man would not notice. Seems incredibly risky to put the police onto a potential witness who could maybe later identify him and or his car.

Graysmith also says there was 3 anonymous calls made to the various Ferrin residences - Dean & Darlene's house, Dean Ferrin's parents and Dean Ferrin's brother.

If true, I wonder if that additional call to the Brother (Darlene's brother in law) makes it any more or less likely the caller was the killer or was Leo Suennen? If it is a taunting killer then seems to be taunting people with Ferrin as the surname

Great video with Jerome on youtube

AN EYEWITNESS OR A GHOST?

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