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Richard Grinell, Coventry, England
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THE SIGHTINGS AT SMITTLE CREEK-SEPTEMBER 27TH 1969

3/25/2020

 
PictureCecelia Shepard
Bryan Hartnell stated in the 2007 documentary "We went down to St Helena and I think we looked in a rummage sale or something - we got distracted - when we looked at the clock we realized we weren't going to make it to the city and back (San Francisco). I had some responsibilities I had to be back for that evening, so we decided instead to take the loop up to Lake Berryessa". Below is the route they took, departing from St Helena at approximately 4:30 pm. They traveled north through Angwin and Pope Valley before heading south along the Knoxville Road to the area of the crime scene. We can calculate their direction of travel and the approximate time of their arrival based upon a couple who knew them. John (22) and Marilyn (18) were parked up just one mile south of the Lake Berryessa Marina and just north of the eventual crime scene. Marilyn stated that shortly after they parked their vehicle (5:15 pm) "they observed the victims who were known to them, driving south on Knoxville Road in Bryan's white Karmann Ghia. She stated as the Hartnell vehicle drove by, Bryan waved out of the window and said "Hi John". Marilyn stated that they did not see the Hartnell vehicle any other time that day".

The three girls from Pacific Union College "parked their vehicle at a location two miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand on Knoxville Road". The Sugar Loaf Park A & W was situated at 5100 Knoxville Road. They would have parked their vehicle somewhere in or between the region of Smittle Creek Trailhead and Smittle Creek Day Use Area. They arrived at 3:30 pm. "After approximately one-half hour had passed (4:00 pm), they observed what appeared to be the same subject standing with 40 or 50 feet of them, apparently observing them. The subject hung around the area for approximately 45 minutes (4:45 pm) and then the girls observed him walk up the hill". Allowing 10 minutes for the girls to get their belongings from their vehicle and walk to the beach, the total time passed would have the man walking up the hill at around 4:55 pm (approximately 5:00 pm). However, one page later in the police report, it stated "The three girls left the area about 4:30 pm and the subject's vehicle was gone". Therefore, we have to estimate the man left that location sometime between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm. This is the approximate area that John and Marilyn were parked up at 5:15 pm when they spotted Bryan and Cecelia heading south to the area of the crime scene. If the man spotted by the three girls was the Zodiac Killer, it is clear that Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were not trailed by their eventual attacker from St Helena.

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If Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard had arrived at the crime scene (0.8 miles south of Smittle Creek Day Use Area) at about 5:20 pm, they would have laid out their picnic blanket at approximately 5:30 pm. The Zodiac Killer's appearance from beyond the tree was about 45 minutes in the making (6:15 pm arrival to 6:30 pm attack). So if this was the same person spotted by the three girls, we could be looking at just over an hour to 1 1/2 hours from last being spotted by the three girls at Smittle Creek (4:30 pm to 5:00 pm) to his arrival by the Karmann Ghia (but not necessarily). If he had been trawling the Knoxville Road between 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm in his vehicle (or the hillside on foot) looking for potential targets, he may very well have stumbled across Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard far earlier. If he arrived at the eventual crime scene (about 5:20 pm to 5:30 pm) shortly after the couple had parked up, had he circled the area in anticipation of an attack on Bryan and Cecelia, just like man observed by the three girls from Pacific Union College? They stated "the subject hung around the area for approximately 45 minutes and then the girls observed him walk up the hill". If this man had used the same "stalking his prey" technique before eventually approaching Bryan and Cecelia, then an arrival time of about 5:30 pm at the Karmann Ghia would have him approaching the couple 45 minutes later. This would have placed him behind the tree at approximately 6:15 pm, before culminating his attack at 6:30 pm (the time scrawled on the car door of the Karmann Ghia).

Is it a coincidence that just a short time later, Dr. Rayfield and his son observed a "white male adult subject walking in the area of Smittle Creek, described as about 5'10", heavy build, wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt with red in it, long sleeves. Dr Rayfield and his son stated that they did not notice a vehicle in the area of their vehicle and only this subject at a distance of about 100 yards. This location was approximately 8/10ths of a mile from the scene of the victim's vehicle. There are four coves of water between the scene of the crime and the area where the doctor saw the subject". They stated that they parked their vehicle at about 6:30 pm that evening and walked down to the beach, when they noticed the man approximately 100 yards away. If this was around 6:40 pm, we have a small discrepancy of about 10 minutes for a man to walk from the crime scene to Smittle Creek. An attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard slightly earlier, or Dr. Rayfield's time estimate a few minutes off, could easily account for this.  A suspicious character noted by two sets of eyewitnesses 0.8 miles north of the crime scene, before and after the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard. Was this man the Zodiac Killer, trawling the hillsides of Lake Berryessa on foot looking for potential victims, before returning to his vehicle parked somewhere in the region of Smittle Creek?     
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Scott Noton
3/25/2020 03:58:13 pm

Richard somewhere in the police report or elsewhere I recall Hartnell originally saying he left Angwin (St. Helena) at around 2:30 pm not 4:30 pm. If that is true (and I'm not sure what he said in 2007, 38 years later) I've always what they were doing before spotted near the crime scene at 5:15 pm. I've done that exact drive it's less than an hour to Knoxville Rd. in the area you mapped. It's curious to me that no timeline of the couple's movements was constructed to answer the very kind of question you pose in this post.

Richard
3/25/2020 04:37:34 pm

Yes, the police report stated Bryan picked up Cecelia at 2:00 pm in St Helena. In the 2007 documentary he stated they left St Helena and took the loop to Berryessa. They had considered San Francisco but it was getting late. What exact time they left I don't know, but 2:00 pm doesn't sound too late really. But as you said, that journey from St Helena to the area of Smittle Creek is only about 50 minutes, so if he travelled there directly from St Helena, 5:20 pm minus 50 minutes is 4:30 pm, and tallies with Bryan rejecting San Francisco because it was getting late. The crucial time Scott, is the time he arrived at Twin Oak Ridge. Then we can slot Zodiac and the mystery man at Smittle Creek (whether different or the same) into the timeline and get a reference point.

Richard
3/25/2020 04:52:51 pm

What has always confused me Scott, is Ronald Fong. If he knew Lake Berryessa well, why did he boat it 4.5 miles to Rancho Monticello to seek help, when he could have gone to Park Headquarters less than a mile away.

Richard
3/25/2020 05:15:38 pm

Somebody here claims they arrived at Twin Oak Ridge at 4 pm. This conflicts with John and Marilyn's sighting at 5:15 pm. I'd rather believe the police report from 1969.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p2bS3thnD5YC&pg=PT20&lpg=PT20&dq=bryan+hartnell+st+helena&source=bl&ots=kQvKcs467Q&sig=ACfU3U0oyL40Q0aiNIiR2UcFqq1SQ3NKtQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7pMKN7bboAhWBlFwKHTN1ABoQ6AEwA3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=bryan%20hartnell%20st%20helena&f=false

Scott Norton
3/26/2020 04:34:42 pm

But they could have arrived at the Lake or some part of it (it's many miles long, as is Knoxville Rd.) and not been spotted by the other couple until 5:15. "Being spotted" doesn't mean "when they first arrived."

I appreciate what you are doing in trying to link their timeline up with the mystery man's timeline but I guess I'm asking a simpler question--why hasn't their exact whereabouts earlier in the day been pinned down? And if they were at Lake by 3 pm what were doing between then and 5:15 when they were first spotted?

There have been questions about why Cecelia Shepard visited Hartnell that weekend in the first place and I've heard several rumors which I'm not going to repeat here. I just think there is a gap that should be filled.

As for Fong I've always thought he (correctly or incorrectly) thought it was too late for Park HQ to be open; in addition he was on a lake may have thought it was easier to hail someone in Monticello than at the HQ. I wasn't there in 1969 but it's possible the facility didn't border right on the water.

Richard
3/27/2020 02:36:10 pm

With no blanks filled in between St Helena and 5:15 pm, the narrative sold in the police report and 2007 documentary jumps from a rummage sale in St Helena straight to parking up at twin oak ridge. Bryan Hartnell stated in the 2007 documentary "We went up there kind of on an impulse. I think there was a car at the first turnout from the south end of the lake going north, and the second or third one was open and I just turned in", They then went down to the lake. Two things jump out [1] no mention of any other activity when he first arrived on Knoxville Road. He just drove down Knoxville Road, according to him, and just pulled in. If this were the case, then they left St Helena around 4:30 pm. [2] I noticed he said "I think there was a car at the first turnout from the south end of the lake going north". This suggests Bryan Hartnell was travelling from the south of Knoxville Road to the north, but John and Marilyn stated in 1969 that "they observed the victims who were known to them, driving south on Knoxville Road in Bryan's white Karmann Ghia". So which way did Bryan enter the Knoxville Road - from the north or south?

Scott Noton
3/27/2020 04:01:16 pm

Richard good catch. I hadn't seen that statement about his direction. Bryan almost had to have originally come from the North as it is many miles from St. Helena--at the top of Napa Valle--to the bottom of the Valley where the northbound access road to Berryessa begins. The only way his story makes sense is if he left around 2-2:30 and first was going south, got to the bottom part of the Lake then turned around and headed north-- but if so, why? I don't think he left the rummage sale at 4:30 pm and even if he did he would have been traveling south as I said. It's all kind of strange. Since 2003, when I was first there and retraced the couple's steps very carefully I've been asking this question and no one has yielded what I thought was a credible answer. Is LE holding something back? It's possible--the NSO police report contains two interviews with Hartnell, one a day or so after the attack and then several days later when he was starting to recover. There are no detailed questions about this issue and their absence is conspicuous to me. When you look at the Blue Rock and Lake Herman attacks the movements of the couples in the hours prior are carefully detailed.

Scott Noton
3/27/2020 04:08:50 pm

To clarify--they didn't leave from St. Helena (where's it possible you could have taken the Northbound route to the Lake) but from Angwin where there is no way one would do so. St. Helena is commonly referred to as the north part of Napa Valley but in fact there is a significant stretch of the Valley above it. All that said it's important to remember Bryan (and previously Cecelia) were students at Pacific Union College which IS at the top of the Valley in Angwin and that the rummage sale was near there.

Richard
3/27/2020 04:25:21 pm

I will have another delve tomorrow and see if there are other little snippets I've missed. But you're correct, the timeline prior to reaching the Knoxville Road is sketchy at best. No actual departure time is stated with any confidence.

Richard
3/27/2020 04:48:16 pm

The police report states they left Pacific Union College together at 1:00 pm and went to a rummage sale in the city of St Helena. Bryan bought a TV and transported it back to Pacific Union College. Bryan returned to St Helena at 2:00 pm and picked up Cecelia.

That is when Bryan picks up the story in 2007: "We went down to St Helena and I think we looked in a rummage sale or something - we got distracted - when we looked at the clock we realized we weren't going to make it to the city and back (San Francisco). I had some responsibilities I had to be back for that evening, so we decided instead to take the loop up to Lake Berryessa".

I see no mention of Angwin. But I do understand your point about Pacific Union College and Angwin. Bryan's journey time was about 30 minutes from St Helena to PUC and back, so his turnaround to drop off the TV was approximately 30 minutes (he must have done something else in this time). His journey from St Helena to the crime scene is about 7 miles longer entering from the north end, rather than the south (if my calculations are correct).

Richard
3/27/2020 05:02:52 pm

I know newspapers aren't the most reliable sources, but the Sunday Times-Herald stated on September 28th 1969 "Friends of Hartnell & Shepard said the pair drove around Napa in the morning and early afternoon, then went to St Helena. The friends said they last saw the couple about 3:30 pm.

Richard
3/27/2020 05:21:06 pm

It is clear that the decision was made to go to Berryessa after Bryan returned to St Helena after dropping of the TV at Pacific Union College. Otherwise Cecelia could have travelled with Bryan and the TV to Pacific Union College in the Angwin area, and then they could have continued onward from there to the northern side of Knoxville Road. Travelling back to St Helena to pick up Cecelia and doubling back to Angwin makes no sense if you had already decided to go to Berryessa by 1:00 pm. This decision obviously came subsequent to his return to pick up Cecelia at 2:00 pm, when he had determined it was too late to go to San Francisco. What time this was, and what time they headed off to the lake is the big question.

Richard
3/28/2020 04:20:08 am

In his interview with Sgt John Robertson, Bryan stated "We had to stop in St Helena for a couple of items and then we had to cart a couple kids home and stuff, and by the time we finally got around to it, it was getting late". If these kids were the friends at 3:30 pm, we are looking at one hour of "stuff".

Richard
3/28/2020 04:42:47 am

Bryan's statement in the 2007 documentary of "I think there was a car at the first turnout from the south end of the lake going north" doesn't appear to be correct, if we consider the statement of John and Marilyn: "they observed the victims who were known to them, driving south on Knoxville Road in Bryan's white Karmann Ghia. She stated as the Hartnell vehicle drove by, Bryan waved out of the window and said "Hi John". Marilyn stated that they did not see the Hartnell vehicle any other time that day".

John and Marilyn in the police report clearly stated an interaction with Bryan "one mile south of the Lake Berryessa Marina". This is about 1 mile north of the crime scene and where Bryan parked up. So if Bryan Hartnell had entered Knoxville Road from the south, he would never have passed John and Marilyn.

The only way Bryan Hartnell could have passed John and Marilyn from the south side, is if John and Marilyn were mistaken about where they were parked up - and were parked south of the crime scene. But they would had to have been mistaken about Hartnell's direction of travel as well, because this scenario has Bryan travelling north, not south as John and Marilyn claimed. It is clear Hartnell entered Lake Berryessa on the north side. Maybe that "stuff" entailed Angwin or PUC for one hour.

BB
3/27/2020 01:05:27 pm

On big number 9
September =9th month
27th day = 2+7=9
1969 = two 9's
Berryessa = 9
reservoir =9
6:30 = 6+3+0=9
Chevrolet=9
by gun (he used the gun as a tool to get the victims to obey)=5
by rope (he used the rope to restrain the victims)=by rope=6
by knife(he used the knife to stab the victims)=by knife=7
5+6+7=18 =9+9
Darlene Ferrin's autopsy report says she had nine entry wounds
Lake Herman Road only nine casings
Paul Stine=9
Pistol=9mm
April 11, 1962 to October 11, 1969 = 90 months
Both Cabbies were 29
Oceanside=9
Riverside=9
Eric Zelms=9
Vern Smith=9
Donna Lass=9
Lake Tahoe=9
27x37=999

Chaucer
3/29/2020 12:22:59 pm

Based on this timeline, are we to conclude that Zodiac are key Bryan and Cecelia, walked back up to the VW and wrote on the door, then left and went back to Smittle Creek to be observed by the doctor, the drove to Napa and made the phone call?

My understanding has always been that Zodiac would have had to depart the crime scene immediately to make it to the pay phone at the time he called.

Richard
3/29/2020 02:37:59 pm

If he took the 70 minutes available to him (6:30 to 7:40 pm) his speed would be a sluggish 23.1 mph. If he walked the 20 minute journey just past Rayfield & Son, then travelled to the payphone, it's a more realistic journey speed of 33.6 mph. Assuming he went directly to the payphone.

Scott Norton
3/29/2020 08:03:04 pm

It's all pretty confusing Richard and maybe I stand corrected but I can say with certainty say that many researchers I've met through years believed Hartnell went through Pope Valley (the Angwin route) to get to the Lake. After reading your research notes, I do wonder whether the garage sale was really all the way down St. Helena and, even if it was, I'm not sure why he would leave Cecelia there for at least a half hour while he drove what was obviously a portable TV back to the college then returned. You also mention the kids he "carted home." I've always understood that as indicating he was near the college when he did so. If not--if he was all the way down in St. Helena where was it the kids were "carted home" to--back to Angwin a second time then back down to St. Helena for a northbound ride to the Lake?

Bottom line, I would love if Hartnell could clearly state were he was that afternoon and at what time as well as how he got to Berryessa--via a north or south route. That will probably never happen.

One note about John and Marilyn which is that it helps to differentiate "from the south side" and "southbound." Since the other couple were north of the attack site they could have observed Hartnell driving southbound past them. But if Bryan and Cecelia were coming past them 'from' the south they couldn't. The Report's language seems to indicate clearly that Hartnell was driving southward when he past them--a fact I've always thought supported him arriving from Angwin.

This is all material--at least to me--not because I think something bad about Hartnell but because I think it's important when they got to the Lake and where they were before they were attacked.

Scott Norton
3/29/2020 08:16:29 pm

It's a small point but my Google maps show the journey to Lake Berryessa Marina from St. Helena as being a minute shorter through Angwin than through the northbound route (State Highway 128). Of course, the Marina is fairly far north on the lake and if one's destination were different (like Spanish Flats which is at its south end) then that calculation would change. However, if Hartnell wanted to be alone with Cecelia the north section of the lake would be a better choice as it is less crowded.


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