Most of the following has been covered before, but I felt it was important to take a deeper look at the Blue Rock Springs attack.
Page 7 of the police report read "On initial arrival, RO requested by radio an ambulance and an investigator at the scene & upon returning to Off. Hoffmann RO went to assistance of subject on ground, as Off. Hoffman was with a subject that was sitting on left front seat behind wheel that was also injured. This subject later identified as Darlene E. Ferrin, WF, 19, of 864 Beechwood. On preliminary examination of Mageau, it was apparent that he had been shot a number of times, he had blood all over his face & blood coming from his mouth as well as his left leg with blood. RO said it was necessary to question subject inspite of the fact the subject was in great pain. Subject was coherent & RO asked him, "do you know who shot you?" & he replied "no". RO then asked Mageau to give some type of description & he replied that he can't. RO then asked a series of questions & was told by Mageau that the responsible was a white male, young, heavy set by himself & that he was in a brown vehicle".
Shortly after responding officers arrived at the Blue Rock Springs parking lot they had a description of the perpetrator and the vehicle he was driving, given to them by a badly injured but "coherent" Michael Mageau. The Zodiac Killer must have known that there was a significant probability these details would be broadcast to all units in the immediacy after the crime was discovered. Despite his braggadocious nature claiming a "double murder" over the phone to Nancy Slover at 12:40am, he must have known that Michael Mageau was very much alive when he left the parking lot 38 minutes earlier. He even admitted as much in his August 4th 1969 letter, stating "The window was rolled down all ready. The boy was origionaly sitting in the front seat when I began fireing. When I fired the first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the same time, thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on the back seat then the floor in back thashing out very violently with his legs; that's how I shot him in the knee".
Shortly after responding officers arrived at the Blue Rock Springs parking lot they had a description of the perpetrator and the vehicle he was driving, given to them by a badly injured but "coherent" Michael Mageau. The Zodiac Killer must have known that there was a significant probability these details would be broadcast to all units in the immediacy after the crime was discovered. Despite his braggadocious nature claiming a "double murder" over the phone to Nancy Slover at 12:40am, he must have known that Michael Mageau was very much alive when he left the parking lot 38 minutes earlier. He even admitted as much in his August 4th 1969 letter, stating "The window was rolled down all ready. The boy was origionaly sitting in the front seat when I began fireing. When I fired the first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the same time, thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on the back seat then the floor in back thashing out very violently with his legs; that's how I shot him in the knee".
The Zodiac Killer knew that Michael Mageau was thrashing about very violently before he shot him in the knee - and he knew that a shot to the knee was not (in isolation) a terminal injury. So, it's with little doubt the Zodiac Killer left the parking lot that morning (12:02am) with the acute awareness that one of his victims was probably still alive and had the capability of giving details about him to police. The killer had spent upwards of two minutes in close proximity to Darlene Ferrin's Corvair and had fired off nine shots, therefore it's highly unlikely, knowing a victim may have survived, that he would casually drive around Vallejo (or park somewhere on the street) for approximately 40 minutes, before making a phone call at the Springs & Tuoloumne intersection in close proximity to the police station. Michael Mageau also reported to police that the assailant's vehicle had a California license plate. Is the Zodiac Killer really going to park himself and his vehicle only 833 feet from the police station, 40 minutes after a double shooting, with Michael Mageau likely still alive, who could have given police his license plate number? The Zodiac Killer was many things, but believe me, I sincerely doubt he was this stupid.
The August 4th 1969 letter was carefully crafted to give police the impression he was still driving his vehicle. The Zodiac Killer stated "When I hung the phone up the damn X@ thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car". The addition of "my car" appears completely superfluous to this section of text, so was probably placed there to drive home the notion of him still being in his vehicle at the payphone, when in fact "drive home" is exactly what he did after leaving Blue Rock Springs.
The August 4th 1969 letter was carefully crafted to give police the impression he was still driving his vehicle. The Zodiac Killer stated "When I hung the phone up the damn X@ thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car". The addition of "my car" appears completely superfluous to this section of text, so was probably placed there to drive home the notion of him still being in his vehicle at the payphone, when in fact "drive home" is exactly what he did after leaving Blue Rock Springs.
The Zodiac Killer was all about "proof" up to November 9th 1969. He gave us extensive details about his first two crimes on July 31st 1969, wrote on the car door of Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, mailed in a piece of a taxicab driver's shirt on October 13th 1969, and made two phone calls within an hour of the second and third attack. His words were testament to this, because when Vallejo Police Chief Jack Stiltz "urged the writer to send more letters, with more facts to prove his connections to the crimes", the Zodiac Killer immediately responded by giving more details about the Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs attacks. His October 13th 1969 letter stated "I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington St + Maple St last night, to prove this here is a blood stained piece of his shirt", and his "Bus Bomb" letter on November 9th 1969 stated "To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves." He was fully cognisant of the fact that "proof" was required by the police for his claims to be taken seriously.
This was fully evident in the first part of his August 4th 1969 letter, when he was in the infancy of trying to prove he wasn't a liar. The letter described the car door closed and the window of the Corvair down at Blue Rock Springs when he first approached the vehicle, described the area his first shot was delivered to the body of Michael Mageau, and described (albeit slightly wrong) where he shot Mageau in the back seat. It would have made little sense to provide all these details on July 31st 1969 and August 4tth 1969, attempting to prove to police he was the responsible, to then blatantly lie about seeing a black man talking to police on July 5th 1969.
He 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". If the police had not spoken to a "negro male" on July 5th 1969, then this would have been fairly obvious to them, and would have hurt Zodiac's previous claims. It is now clear that this "negro male" was not an invention by the Zodiac Killer to alibi his car being present at the payphone, it was a detailed description of a "negro male" offered by the writer of the letter, so that when police cross-checked with the officer who responded to the payphone that morning, the description given by the Zodiac Killer matched with that of the officer. He gave a detailed description of the black man's age and clothing to "prove" he was near the payphone when the officer responded from Blue Rock Springs.
The section of police report below describes a responding officer (RO) traveling from the crime scene to the payphone after being informed that the perpetrator had called police (12:40am). If the responding officer took 9 minutes to arrive at the payphone, a traced call at approximately 12:41am, would mean that the Zodiac Killer observed the interaction between the "negro male" and officer at about 12:50am. Long after he had finished talking to police dispatcher, Nancy Slover. The location of the payphone was the only logical place the Zodiac Killer could have seen police talking to anyone. Had the responding officer's superiors confirmed his interaction with "a negro about 40-45, rather shabbly dressed" at the payphone, it would have added credence to Zosiac's claims that the black man also saw his "brown car". A vehicle that was likely never at the payphone, because the Zodiac Killer had gone home after the attack, separated himself from his vehicle, changed his clothes, ditched his weapon, and walked back to the payphone to deliver his sinister message to Nancy Slover. If he was unlikely to be at the payphone at 12:40am with his vehicle, then he most certainly wouldn't have been at the payphone in his vehicle at 12:50am or beyond. Fifty minutes after a shooting that he couldn't have been certain both victims were dead.
He 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". If the police had not spoken to a "negro male" on July 5th 1969, then this would have been fairly obvious to them, and would have hurt Zodiac's previous claims. It is now clear that this "negro male" was not an invention by the Zodiac Killer to alibi his car being present at the payphone, it was a detailed description of a "negro male" offered by the writer of the letter, so that when police cross-checked with the officer who responded to the payphone that morning, the description given by the Zodiac Killer matched with that of the officer. He gave a detailed description of the black man's age and clothing to "prove" he was near the payphone when the officer responded from Blue Rock Springs.
The section of police report below describes a responding officer (RO) traveling from the crime scene to the payphone after being informed that the perpetrator had called police (12:40am). If the responding officer took 9 minutes to arrive at the payphone, a traced call at approximately 12:41am, would mean that the Zodiac Killer observed the interaction between the "negro male" and officer at about 12:50am. Long after he had finished talking to police dispatcher, Nancy Slover. The location of the payphone was the only logical place the Zodiac Killer could have seen police talking to anyone. Had the responding officer's superiors confirmed his interaction with "a negro about 40-45, rather shabbly dressed" at the payphone, it would have added credence to Zosiac's claims that the black man also saw his "brown car". A vehicle that was likely never at the payphone, because the Zodiac Killer had gone home after the attack, separated himself from his vehicle, changed his clothes, ditched his weapon, and walked back to the payphone to deliver his sinister message to Nancy Slover. If he was unlikely to be at the payphone at 12:40am with his vehicle, then he most certainly wouldn't have been at the payphone in his vehicle at 12:50am or beyond. Fifty minutes after a shooting that he couldn't have been certain both victims were dead.
Nancy Slover It appears that when the Zodiac Killer left the payphone at around 12:41am, he became aware that its location was going to be traced (how much the black man played in this is unknown), so he could easily have remained close by in the shadows (or viewed proceedings from a residence) to later recount in his letter the policeman by the payphone. This is probably the meaning behind his August 4th 1969 letter when he wrote "The man who told police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45 rather shabbly dressed".
If the "negro male" had passed him by at approximately 12:40am when he made the phone call to Nancy Slover, then it makes sense that this was the same man who spoke with police a short time later. Had police verified this by talking to the responding officer who arrived at the payphone, it would explain why the Zodiac Killer added his car into the equation. Because without a car - calling police from a payphone 38 minutes after the double shooting, from a location only 9 minutes from the crime scene, would have focused investigators attention to residences in close proximity to that payphone. Watching the police at the payphone at least 9 minutes after he finished the call with Nancy Slover, would have raised even more eyebrows. That is why the Zodiac Killer may have made special emphasis of his car and its color on August 4th 1969.
If the "negro male" had passed him by at approximately 12:40am when he made the phone call to Nancy Slover, then it makes sense that this was the same man who spoke with police a short time later. Had police verified this by talking to the responding officer who arrived at the payphone, it would explain why the Zodiac Killer added his car into the equation. Because without a car - calling police from a payphone 38 minutes after the double shooting, from a location only 9 minutes from the crime scene, would have focused investigators attention to residences in close proximity to that payphone. Watching the police at the payphone at least 9 minutes after he finished the call with Nancy Slover, would have raised even more eyebrows. That is why the Zodiac Killer may have made special emphasis of his car and its color on August 4th 1969.
If you are one of the people who doesn't believe the Zodiac Killer lived by the payphone (or in Vallejo), then you have to accept that the Zodiac Killer, who last described Michael Mageau thrashing around on the back seat and clearly not dead, just decided to hover around Vallejo for 38 minutes at the grave risk of capture. The police report on page 7 stated that police got the description of the shooter and his vehicle from Mageau just after they arrived (circa 12:20am) and broadcasted these details to all units. A Zodiac Killer driving around aimlessly in Vallejo (or parked up) was obviously never detected by police between 12:20am and 12:40am.. So had he concealed his vehicle at his residence to mitigate this risk? The idea that he drove out of Vallejo, only to return to the danger zone to make the phone call, also makes little sense. We have to accept, that in Zodiac's own words, Michael Mageau was last described as thrashing about on the back seat of the Corvair, just before he drove away from the crime scene. Knowing this was the case, why on earth would he choose to remain in his vehicle for the next 38 minutes and travel such a limited distance?