Raymond Grant: "I think it's extremely unlikely that the killer was ever ushering the victims between the cars and getting them to cower down, for the simple reason that Owen saw no one in or around the cars, the doors were closed and all the lights were out. If the Zodiac had to jump out of his car and immediately fire a shot into the header above the right rear door, and then run forward and fire another shot into the right rear window to get them to stop and exit the car, wouldn't his own car door have been open? And wouldn't then the interior light of his car have come on? And wouldn't the passenger side door of the Rambler already have been open with the interior light on, as it was when Stella Medeiros came by? Or should we assume that the Zodiac stopped to shut his own door behind him, and then for some reason shut the front passenger side door after forcing the victims to exit, and then for some reason opened it again after he shot them? And let's not forget that the gun he fired at them, and with which he forced them out of his car, had a pencil flashlight at the end of it. So did all those lights magically get extinguished just prior to Owen passing them? I can't believe Owen wouldn't have noticed all those lights on a pitch dark road, in what should have been a deserted turnout."
Available on Amazon Raymond Grant makes a valid point here about the Lake Herman Road murders on December 20th 1968. James Owen passed the turnout but a few short minutes, likely 4-6 minutes prior to Stella Medeiros. She spotted the teenagers lying on the gravel turnout, with the right front passenger side door of their Rambler open. When James Owen passed, he observed two vehicles parked alongside each other and stated in the police report he saw nobody "in or around the cars." It has been suggested that as James Owen approached the turnout, Zodiac realizing he may be viewed committing his crime, forced the couple under gunpoint between the two vehicles out of sight, and once James Owen had passed the turnout and traveled a distance along the road, Zodiac resumed his attack. However this has one major flaw as Ray Grant pointed out. The interior lights of both vehicles were not observed by James Owen, so the doors of both vehicles were presumably shut, so once James Owen had passed the turnout and Zodiac resumed his attack on the couple, what reason would he have for reopening the passenger door, before exiting the scene. Also as Ray Grant alluded to, why when Zodiac pulls alongside the couple to attack them, with the gun presumably in his right hand, then take the time to shut the door of his own vehicle. These reasons alone pour huge doubt on the idea Zodiac was holding the couple under duress between the two vehicles.
Then we have Peggy Your who claims she saw the young couple in the car, even describing their movement within the Rambler. She passed the turnout before both James Owen and Stella Medeiros, which creates a further problem. From Peggy Your, to James Owen, to Stella Medeiros, the young couple have apparently vanished and then reappeared on the gravel turnout, yet James Owen saw nobody "in or around the cars." If they were not "in or around the cars," where the hell were they.
Raymond Grant went on to say "The other two witnesses, Robert Connley and James Owen, said there was no one in or around the vehicle(s). One's headlights do NOT shine into the turnout when one is coming from the east, driving west. Peggy Your could only have been right if Homer had had his high beams on, in which case they would have hit the driver door window, which was up on a night with the temperature at 22°. So the high beams hit that window for a split second and bounce off, and how does Peggy make out what the teenagers inside that closed window were doing from 350 feet away?
Peggy thought she saw the victims, just as Helen Axe thought she saw the Faraday Rambler when she went by at 10:15 pm. She didn't. But she knew she'd seen a car parked in the turnout, knew the victims were killed there, and somehow her mind just assumed she'd seen the victims moving around inside as she rode by. This phenomenon is called a false or self-generated memory, and it happens all the time to witnesses in criminal cases trying to remember what they saw.
One of the more recent examples is that people watching news coverage of the September 11th attacks believe they saw the North Tower fall in real time. They didn't, because the video feed was showing something else as Tower 1 collapsed. What people saw first was the smoke and debris of the aftermath of the tower's collapse when the cameras cut BACK to it. The networks then showed a replay of the tower falling, but the first thing people saw was the aftermath."
Then we have Peggy Your who claims she saw the young couple in the car, even describing their movement within the Rambler. She passed the turnout before both James Owen and Stella Medeiros, which creates a further problem. From Peggy Your, to James Owen, to Stella Medeiros, the young couple have apparently vanished and then reappeared on the gravel turnout, yet James Owen saw nobody "in or around the cars." If they were not "in or around the cars," where the hell were they.
Raymond Grant went on to say "The other two witnesses, Robert Connley and James Owen, said there was no one in or around the vehicle(s). One's headlights do NOT shine into the turnout when one is coming from the east, driving west. Peggy Your could only have been right if Homer had had his high beams on, in which case they would have hit the driver door window, which was up on a night with the temperature at 22°. So the high beams hit that window for a split second and bounce off, and how does Peggy make out what the teenagers inside that closed window were doing from 350 feet away?
Peggy thought she saw the victims, just as Helen Axe thought she saw the Faraday Rambler when she went by at 10:15 pm. She didn't. But she knew she'd seen a car parked in the turnout, knew the victims were killed there, and somehow her mind just assumed she'd seen the victims moving around inside as she rode by. This phenomenon is called a false or self-generated memory, and it happens all the time to witnesses in criminal cases trying to remember what they saw.
One of the more recent examples is that people watching news coverage of the September 11th attacks believe they saw the North Tower fall in real time. They didn't, because the video feed was showing something else as Tower 1 collapsed. What people saw first was the smoke and debris of the aftermath of the tower's collapse when the cameras cut BACK to it. The networks then showed a replay of the tower falling, but the first thing people saw was the aftermath."
Available on Amazon These are valid arguments, but if this is the case, then nobody actually saw the couple for the entirety of this part of the night until Stella Medeiros viewed the couple lying on the ground of the turnout. Raymond Grant makes his case on http://zodiackillertalk.com/ forum and further reading material on the Zodiac case can be discussed here. His views offer a different explanation to the crime from the one you may read on other platforms and you can purchase his books by clicking on either or both of the images contained within this article.
From the perspective of a single shooter theory, we are left with the Zodiac Killer drawing up alongside the couple at some point during the late hours of December 20th 1968, exiting his vehicle and forcing the couple from their Rambler, before shooting them in cold blood.
Yet if neither Robert Connelly or James Owen spotted anybody "in or around the cars," just minutes before the murders and they were not being held under duress out of sight or between the vehicles, it opens up a whole new can of worms.
James Owen claimed he heard a shot about a quarter of a mile past the turnout, at 30 mph, that amounts to about 30 seconds. If this were true it puts the killer or killers and the victims at the scene. This however would pour doubt on the couple being held under gunpoint, out of sight, in their own vehicle by Zodiac in the rear of the Rambler. For this to be the case, not only would Zodiac have closed his own driver side door, as stated earlier, but once James Owen had passed by, he would had to have forced the couple to exit the Rambler from within, closed the rear door and started shooting. This would then negate the idea of warning shots being fired into the headliner and rear window of the Rambler to initially drive the couple from the vehicle. Totally unnecessary if you are already in the Rambler. The pattern of events is debatable, but my guess is at least one or more of the eyewitness statements are factually incorrect to make sense of Lake Herman Road in the December of 1968.
From the perspective of a single shooter theory, we are left with the Zodiac Killer drawing up alongside the couple at some point during the late hours of December 20th 1968, exiting his vehicle and forcing the couple from their Rambler, before shooting them in cold blood.
Yet if neither Robert Connelly or James Owen spotted anybody "in or around the cars," just minutes before the murders and they were not being held under duress out of sight or between the vehicles, it opens up a whole new can of worms.
James Owen claimed he heard a shot about a quarter of a mile past the turnout, at 30 mph, that amounts to about 30 seconds. If this were true it puts the killer or killers and the victims at the scene. This however would pour doubt on the couple being held under gunpoint, out of sight, in their own vehicle by Zodiac in the rear of the Rambler. For this to be the case, not only would Zodiac have closed his own driver side door, as stated earlier, but once James Owen had passed by, he would had to have forced the couple to exit the Rambler from within, closed the rear door and started shooting. This would then negate the idea of warning shots being fired into the headliner and rear window of the Rambler to initially drive the couple from the vehicle. Totally unnecessary if you are already in the Rambler. The pattern of events is debatable, but my guess is at least one or more of the eyewitness statements are factually incorrect to make sense of Lake Herman Road in the December of 1968.