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Richard Grinell, Coventry, England
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SIX FEET AWAY AND JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT

2/15/2018

 
Picture1965 Ford Mustang
The description of the assailant's vehicle at Blue Rock Springs Park on July 4th 1969 by Michael Mageau is probably deemed by most observers to be unreliable at best. The vehicle on page 1 of the police report lists Corvair-Mustang as an option.
In a prominent newspaper article Michael Mageau described the vehicle as a "1958 or 1959 Falcon. The color was brown or bronze".

The poliice report on page 8 describes the vehicle five minutes before the shooting: "Dea turned the lights and motor off and had the radio playing. They were there just a very short time, a few minutes, and three cars pulled into the parking lot where they were. They were apparently young kids and they heard some laughing and carrying on and a few firecrackers were set off, then the three vehicles left within a short time. This was just a short space of time, a few minutes. Shortly after this and about 5 minutes before the shooting occurred, a vehicle pulled into the lot, coming from the direction of Springs Road and Vallejo. The driver turned the lights off on the car and pulled around to the left or east side of their car, approximately 6 or 8 feet away and sat there for a minute. He asked Dea if she knew who it was and she stated 'Oh, never mind'."  He added "He could not see the car too clearly, however the shape of the car looked similar to the car that Dea owns, a Corvair. He could not see the color or anything as it was too dark out there".  

On page 9 the vehicle returns: "Five minutes later the vehicle pulled up approximately 10 feet behind and to the right side of Dea's car. The vehicle's lights were left on and the subject got out and walked toward the car. He had a large high-powered flashlight, the kind you carry with a handle. He only saw the rear portion of it (as it left the crime scene), this rear part appearing to be a vehicle similar to or the same type as Dea's car, a Corvair. Also a very similar color, possibly a little bit lighter brown". Although sketchy, he refers to the vehicle looking similar to Darlene Ferrin's Corvair on both occasions - but clearly - that doesn't mean it was.   

Picture1963 Chevrolet Corvair.
This crime has been constantly referenced as the most likely of the four Zodiac attacks to have not been chosen at random, in regards to Darlene Ferrin. The suggestion being, that the murderer of five took the time to blend some 'personal business' into his random killings. The strange phone calls on July 5th 1969 testament to this fact. However, many disagree with the notion that the murderer of Darlene Ferrin knew his victim.

One cannot deny that there are some unexplained events at Lake Herman Road prior to the murders. Some will claim an absolute conviction of exactly what transpired on December 20th 1968, above all others. This is not possible - unless you were there. There were several pertinent vehicles (at least three) in the run up to the double murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, with an unknown number of occupants who failed to come forward in the ensuing police investigation. There may or may not be an innocent explanation for their failure to do so - as could be said of Blue Rock Springs, if the second vehicle observed by Michael Mageau was independent of the first.
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​Why would a stalker of Darlene Ferrin target the passenger side of the brown Corvair where Michael Mageau was sitting, having supposedly already driven up to the driver side of the Corvair only 5 minutes earlier. Why target Mageau at all?
Darlene Ferrin was struck 5 times directly, and Michael Mageau 4 times, of whom, most people believe received the initial two shots fired that night. The killer then retreated and returned, shooting both victims twice more. Once Michael Mageau had been shot twice and had retreated to the rear of the vehicle, with Darlene Ferrin completely disabled in the driver seat, there was little further threat from the male. On the face of it, both or neither appeared to be the primary target that night.

PictureDarlene Ferrin
The first vehicle pulled up on the left side of the Corvair and apparently extinguished its headlights. The Blue Rock Springs parking lot was totally empty at this point, so this act could understandably be perceived as unnerving and suspicious. If there was any time to primarily target Darlene Ferrin - or the couple - this was it. With the passenger side window down and the suspicious vehicle parked alongside, it would have have taken literally seconds to lean out of the window, take aim at the driver side of the Corvair from distance, thereby negating any risk of blood transfer. Leaving the vehicle via the passenger side would have been a matter of seconds more.

The act of driving away to survey Columbus Parkway for vehicles (suggested by some) and then returning back to the parking lot, leaves you in the identical position before you left, therefore makes little sense as an explanation to why the vehicle departed and returned 5 minutes later. It has been speculated as to whether the couple were followed to the parking lot that night. Michael Mageau stated that after they parked up "Dea turned the lights and motor off and had the radio playing. They were there just a very short time, a few minutes, and three cars pulled into the parking lot where they were. They were apparently young kids and they heard some laughing and carrying on and a few firecrackers were set off, then the three vehicles left within a short time".

Where was the supposed vehicle trailing them to the parking lot? Had somebody followed them, surely they would have been present in the parking lot just after the couple parked up and before the young kids arrived, but Michael Mageau mentioned nobody else at this juncture, other than the young kids letting firecrackers off. The vehicle that pulled alongside them arrived at least five minutes after Darlene Ferrin first parked up. If this was the vehicle supposedly following them, the driver would presumably have parked alongside them, in the few minutes before the young kids arrived. Robert Graysmith stated in his book that after Darlene picked up Michael, the young man uttered the words "we're being followed." Darlene sped off towards Blue Rock Springs. The car raced behind them at full speed. Darlene kept turning to lose the stranger. When they arrived in the parking lot, they sat in the parking lot only a moment, when the other auto, similar in design to the Corvair, pulled up alongside them". This is fiction. There was no mention of them being chased in the police report, and apparently the kids letting off firecrackers had now mysteriously evaporated from the timeline.    

PictureMichael Mageau
If the two vehicles observed by Michael Mageau were one and the same, occupied by the Zodiac Killer, are we to believe he departed the parking lot to retrieve his weapon - the killing tool integral to his other three attacks - and this crime was simply spur of the moment. If this were the case, what was he doing lurking in a parking lot at midnight unprepared in the first instance, if not for pre-planned ill intent. If already armed, leaving and returning makes little sense - his time is now.

In five minutes, the vehicle parked alongside the Corvair (assuming the Zodiac Killer didn't travel home to retrieve the weapon he already should have had), apparently is leaving and returning for no purpose other than hesitation. Unless the Zodiac Killer had second thoughts  which seems unlikely - one could assert the vehicle that parked alongside the Corvair five minutes prior to the attack is incidental and irrelevant to the murder that night - only becoming a vehicle of note because of what transpired a few minutes later. Michael Mageau's recollection of the vehicle, bearing in mind what he had endured during the attack, may have become more suspicious in his mind when he recounted the night's events at Kaiser Hospital.
​
Could Michael Mageau's description of the vehicle driving away after the attack been subconsciously transferred to the first vehicle, which had now moved suspiciously within 6 or 8 feet of Darlene Ferrin's Corvair, with extinguished headlights? The 'innocent' motorist observed in the parking lot on July 4th 1969 may have suddenly become integral to the story that night, with imagination the key driver. The same could be said of James Owen at Lake Herman Road. In his first statement to police he recalled that "he saw two cars parked near the entrance to the pumping station. He stated the car parked nearest was a 1955 or 1956 station wagon, boxy type, neutral in color. The other was parked to the right and abreast of the station wagon. The cars were about ten feet apart. He stated he could not give a description of the make or color of the other car". In his second statement, the vehicles had closed up to a menacing 3-4 feet, with a shot now being heard about a quarter of a mile beyond the turnout. The story of July 4th 1969 would be far simpler without the first vehicle 'appearing suspicious' - but to move it further away from the brown Corvair, with the headlights switched on, to make it less suspicious, could also be construed as imagination on my part - which effectively leaves us back to where we started. 

Drew
2/15/2018 02:52:14 pm

Those are solid points about how the firecracker kids contradict the timeline in Mike's 'we were chased big time' story (which I guess he absorbed from Graysmith's book), and also how useless that reconnaissance mission would be (if that was Zodiac in the first car).

I heard David Fincher's Zodiac commentary for the first time the other day. Of course it deals mostly with the production of the film rather than exclusive case details. One thing of interest (though infuriatingly Fincher doesn't specify whether this was said to him personally, police, or the documentary director/interviewer David Prior or whether this was said in 69 or 07) is that Mike Mageau claimed to have told Darlene "I'm not getting shot for this". I have exhausted myself on the 'stalking Darlene' angle and speculating about what they were really doing there that night and Michael's three pairs of pants, etc, but I thought the comment was worth sharing. I suppose the poor guy was traumatized for life and that all allowances should be made for his mistaken recollections. Confused or not though I sure would love to see the raw footage of those "This is the Zodiac Speaking" interviews.

Here are a few links regarding the Fincher commentary:

BRS scene with commentary: (at 2:58 he makes the comment about "the reality of what really took place" at Blue Rock Springs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vtrVfhG6us

Entire Commentary without visuals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hn5y9s6te8

Article highlighting things learned from the commentary:
https://filmschoolrejects.com/commentary-zodiac-david-fincher-ccc50bab021d/

Richard
2/15/2018 03:35:09 pm

"I'm not getting shot for this." Never heard of this before Drew. Likely one of his 2007 memories. Certainly cannot complain of or demean his recollections- he underwent unimaginable horror that night and understandably would have been less than reliable about the accuracy of events that occurred to him and Darlene. The same probably goes for his vehicle descriptions down the years.

Drew
2/15/2018 04:42:18 pm

"Likely one of his 2007 memories." This is my assumption as well Richard. If he said this to police in 1969 I think it would be in the report. Unlike the possible recovery of Paul Stine's glasses I don't think they would view it as beneficial to hold back on victim testimony.

I read today that David Toschi personally told Sandy Betts that Paul Stine's glasses were recovered under his body. As far as I know Sandy is the only researcher to obtain this information. I don't doubt the intentions of Sandy or Toschi but it is hard to move forward on the issue without actually seeing the glasses... I feel the same way about the researcher who was told by a detective that a shell was taken as a souvenir at Lake Herman Road but then failed to recover it... Or Kathleen Johns receiving a 1970 Zodiac Halloween card and sending it not to police but to Paul Avery and it got lost in the mail... Unofficial reports of Zodiac calling victim family members are widespread, and these testimonial tidbits are tantalizing, but very frustrating to work with.

Richard
2/16/2018 12:33:32 am

I always considered these were a possible image of the glasses
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/uploads/4/9/7/1/4971630/2023665.jpg?403
Then we had the Deborah Perez story. Why didn't the police immediately dismiss her claim when she presented the glasses of Paul Stine, if they already had them, quoting ""San Francisco police said Thursday that they were still waiting for Perez to produce a pair of glasses that she said her father took as a souvenir from a cab driver he killed. Police believe the Zodiac shot a San Francisco taxi driver named Paul Stine on Oct. 11, 1969. Reports of the crime say that Stine's glasses were missing. Once you make complaints to a police department, you are required by law to provide the evidence to a police agency, and there is no reason to believe she is not going to do that." Why were they waiting for her to produce the glasses, when they already had them in evidence. It tends to suggest they didn't.
Yes, Mike Rodelli told me that Russell Butterbach may have taken the casing as a souvenir- crazy really, if in fact the case. This casing could have unlocked the mystery of LHR, if connected to the bullet retrieved from David Faraday, and had distinct and separate markings from the other nine. It's all very frustrating Drew, when you add them all up.

Drew
2/16/2018 08:34:06 am

Hi Richard, I remember that intriguing pic of the shiny item on the passenger side floorboards and of course the curious case of how they handled Deborah Perez. I actually relayed that concept to Sandy about Perez but understandably she favours the version David Toschi relayed to her personally. I ran the idea passed Voigt yesterday as well, but he had no certainty to offer. Another one for the curiosity pile!

Judith N Chapman
2/15/2018 08:15:19 pm

My guess is he knew her.

Richard
2/16/2018 12:48:15 am

Other than claims by family members in the years after the crime, which could be classed as less than reliable and suspicion, why do you believe he knew her, in respect of how the crime unfolded that night.

Rubislaw 32 link
2/16/2018 03:18:51 am

Anything that Ms.Betts has claimed over the years,leads one down a blind alley.

The police are all too aware of her behaviour,and have realised that it would be merely self defeating,to arrest her.

When Ms.Perez had her 15 minutes of fame,she was publicly barracked,by Ms.Betts.Whatever nonsense Ms.Perez had to say,that day,it was nevertheless,her right to say it.

That Ms.Betts wasn't arrested for incitement to cause an affray,was a minor miracle.

Apparently,Ms.Betts and Darlene Ferrin were both going out with a policeman,called Buzz Gordon.

Mr.Gordon's son recently posted to criticise Ms.Betts for making false claims about his father.

Ms.Betts is forever getting herself into trouble.

No doubt she has been been earmarked by a few weirdos,in the past.This is not to be dismissed out of hand.

But her claims that one...or some of these weirdos is Zodiac,is something the police dismissed,a long time ago.

Drew
2/16/2018 08:21:46 am

Sandy Betts is an honest person. She is quite nice and helpful and has been on the case longer than anyone. She's the only one of us in the police reports! When that angry comment was made the relative of Buzz had no idea how respectfully Sandy had discussed and in fact defended Buzz. I believe an apology from the relative shortly followed. She may remember a few things wrong but I really think you should have faith in her intentions. Just my opinion! Cheers

Judith N Chapman
2/16/2018 07:29:26 am

Just a hunch I have Richard. my suspect lived in El Sobrante right over the carquinez bridge from Vallejo he frequented Vallejo. I also actually believe, in fact, know, that he frequented the bars that Sandy Betts worked at.I personally feel that she did meet zodiac and he did stalk her. the photo that Sandy posted of her suspect sitting on a bar bench is an exact match to Peter Plante. Pete had a saying. "f*** around, lay around" he also owned a bronze corvair during that time. I'm sure Pete met both Dee and Sandy live and in-person.

Rubislaw 32 link
2/16/2018 08:55:50 am

It may be the case that,in person,Ms.Betts comes across well.She certainly appears to be friendly.And,the altercation between Ms.Perez and Ms.Betts may have been more a case of the pot calling the kettle ''black'' [?].

But,as Ms.Betts will be only too aware,there is a litany,of problems arising,between her ''good self'',and law enforcement.

More recently a problem over a newspaper article,which inferred that a certain police force had been consulted,and asked for an opinion.Which it had not done so.

After all the controversy over the recent History Channel series,Ms.Betts becomes a focus,in a dispute between two major newspapers over ''Fake News''.

Perhaps she should be aware that,unlike the police,newspapers may not be so forgiving...and tend to carry much financial clout.

But,if I were to offer her some advice,as I have done in the past,I will only be accused of threatening behaviour.

So,perhaps someone that actually knows her,might suggest that she consider keeping a low profile,for a while [?].

Or,not [?].

John
2/16/2018 09:51:59 am

If the car that parked next the Michael and Darlene and left only to return later was that of the Zodiac, the only reason I can think of him leaving in the first place was to make sure that the coast was clear. Maybe he wanted to make sure the other cars and its occupants that were there before the murder were not lingering around. I don't think he got cold feet and left only to return later when he was ready. The Zodiac was a cold blooded killer who was hellbent on executing his plan. My gut feeling has always been that the Zodiac committed his crimes when he was high on drugs, most likely on "uppers(likely amphetamines)."-- that is why I believe he never got "cold feet" when he committed his murders.

Judith wrote that the Zodiac knew Darlene. If he did know her, and the Zodiac felt that she had somehow insulted him in previous encounters, he would have unloaded more bullets in her once Mageau was out of the picture. I believe the couple was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Anyhow, sorry for the rambling.

Rubislaw 32 link
2/16/2018 04:45:04 pm

Not a ''ramble'' at all,John....and ''good on you'' for your honesty and transparency.

Of course,no one knows for sure,apart from Zodiac,himself,but I suspect that Zodiac went back,to collect a firearm,or firearms [?].

Zodiac may have even left,and returned in another car [?].

Hence,as been proffered before,that he really did live quite close [?].

I suspect,also,that Zodiac wasn't high on drugs...but ''high'' on anger [?].

Like Judith,I believe that Zodiac did know Darlene.But unlike Judith,this ''knowledge'' went back to 1965,as opposed to regular local knowledge.

Judith's incites,are fascinating though,and it ''adds'' that we can all offer something to a ''proposed'' scenario.

Perhaps to state the ''near obvious'',Zodiac did actually put enough bullets into Darlene,to end her life.

It was ''technically'' Mike,where Zodiac failed.

Keep up the good ''inputs'' [!].

The more,the merrier.


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