Stine Related Information
 

Officer Armond Pelissetti was at the scene of the Stine Zodiac attack on 10/11/69. Here are his responses to what happened that night as well as Officer Fouke's remarks. It would seem that Fouke and Zelms did briefly speak to a WMA asking if he saw anyone that evening and received a negative reply. Good and well trained Officers, like Fouke and Zelms, always try to request assistance from people in the area of a crime to see if they saw anyone acting suspiciously, etc. It is part of their duty to do this and we expect two fine Officers like Zelms and Fouke would do the same. Even if they were seeking an NMA, the WMA, even though they did not suspect he was the Zodiac killer, could lead them to the NMA they were searching for at that moment.
 

Transcripts courtesy of Doug Oswell
 

Pelissetti

   Fouke
I was the first officer that responded to the scene. I was working with an officer who's since deceased, Frank Peda, an excellent police officer, and we responded to a radio call. Told us that a cab driver was being robbed, and/or possibly assaulted at the corner of Cherry and Washington streets, in Pacific Heights. We, fortunately, were very close and responded to that corner and we were able to do so, red light and siren, at 9:55 at night, and got there very quickly. I parked the car in the middle of the intersection, facing the yellow cab that was sitting a little back from the corner of Cherry Street, on Washington, facing west on Washington. There were three children that were heading over to that car. They weren't too far away, but I'd say a good 15 or 16 feet away. I made the assumption that they were coming from the home on the corner and I was correct, and I herded them immediately back to that alcove. I didn't know if the suspect was still there. The description that came out over the air was of an NMA, negro male adult, at the time. The only person that couldn't [sic - could've] given that information would've been the child who called it in to police dispatch. Whether somebody wrote it incorrectly and the child actually said, "White guy," I don't know.   My regular partner was off. I don't recall the reason why he was not working that night. However, Eric Zelms was assigned as my partner that night. We were patrolling the eastern side of the Richmond district, going northbound on Presidio Avenue. We had passed Washington Street when a broadcast came in of a shooting at Cherry and Washington Street.
     
Went over to the cab, I would see Mr. Paul Stein [sic], who was slumped over the front seat with his head into the well on the passenger side in the front. There was blood all over the cab, on him, and I was 99.9% certain he was dead. And it was at that point that I retook the description of the suspect. And that's when I was told it was a white male. I couldn't get to the radio fast enough at that point to let everybody else know. The kids had told me that whoever had done this crime left the cab, went out the door, seemed to be wiping the cab down, reaching into the cab and then ambling or walking down Cherry Street in a northerly direction, kind of towards the Presidio. I walked that way myself, I did not run because there are innumerable alcoves and parked cars, so I went down following every technique I knew so I didn't get my head blown off. Got down to the corner of Jackson Street, had to make a choice. I was on the east side of the street, so I turned right to the east, went up in that direction. I couldn't see anybody in either direction, nor could I see anybody scaling a wall into the Presidio. I got all the way down to the next corner which was Maple. Decision number two, which way to go? Looked to the left, toward the Presidio, saw absolutely nothing. It was much darker there. I figured the chance of finding somebody was almost nil. I turned to the right and I saw a man walking his dog. He was somewhat older than the description I had, a whole lot thinner, and he had absolutely no blood on his clothes. I asked that gentleman if he saw anybody walking in the area and he told me, "No."   We turned West on Jackson Street. As we approached Maple Street, I noticed, on the North side of the street, a white male adult, dressed in a Derby, or three-quarter, waist-length jacket with elastic at the waist and on the cuffs, and regular flap-down collars. He had a crew cut, he was wearing rust-colored, pleated trousers, which were unusual for the time. He had on engineering-type boots, low-cut shoe, three-quarters of the way in length, tan in color. The initial radio description of the suspect was that of a black male, 5'10" or something like that. Seeing that it was a white male in an affluent neighborhood, walking along the street, we didn't think it was a suspect. So we proceeded to the next block, which was Jackson and Cherry. Turned southbound on Cherry Street, saw Armond Pelissetti, one of the officers who had responded directly to the scene.
     
At that point, Officer Donald Fouke, who was accompanied by what I believe was a rookie officer, Eric Zelms, at the time, pulled up very quickly in their police car, called out to me, did I see anybody? Did I know anything about where the suspect could be? I told him, "No."   He stopped us and said that he was looking for the white male that had just gone down the street. There was a little conversation about what the initial description was, and he said, "No, he was a white male." I then used a slang term and said, "Oh! That was the suspect."
     
He did not mention to me that he had seen anybody at that point, or had stopped anybody.   We turned around to get to the Presidio. And our reasoning, my reasoning, on that, was because turning down Maple would lead through the Presidio wall, directly into Julius Kahn playground, which had a lot of foliage. So we turned and went down looking for the alleged suspect, in the area of Julius Kahn playground. Nothing was observed.
     
I got back to the scene, and it was some time shortly thereafter, that the ambulance crew, the coroner, a fire truck, Inspector Walt Kracke of the homicide detail, and then about three or four minutes, five minutes thereafter, Inspector Dave Toschi and Bill Armstrong, two of the best, arrived at the scene. I briefed Inspector Toschi, who seemed to be taking the lead on the investigation, as we walked over to the car. I assured him nobody had contaminated the scene, and then I went about uniform business and let him take care of his detective work.   Well, until I saw him, probably about 35 or 40 miles an hour on a 25-mile-an-hour street. Slowed down as we passed him. I don't know, still rolling. Saw that it's a white male, step on the gas. Five, ten, fifteen seconds tops from first spotting him till passing him.
     
I spoke to Officer Fouke later that evening and I was unaware that he had stopped anybody. Black, white or any other color. However, in subsequent conversations with him, he told me that he did stop somebody.   We never stopped the man. We never talked to him. That is an emphatic statement by me. I wouldn't make the denial.
     
He told me he saw a man walking by and that he asked him, "Did you see anybody go by?" The person said, "No."   One month later, when the composite drawing came out at Richmond station, and was posted on the wall, he looked similar to the man that I had seen on October 11th. I then wrote a scratch, in a departmental memorandum, to my lieutenant to forward to homicide division, so that they would have the additional information, about the appearance of the suspect.
     
I believe that Fouke would have been honest, but that scratch and what he told me do not coincide. It seemed Officer Fouke, in that amount of time, felt that he had stopped the Zodiac.   We did not stop the Zodiac. We didn't stop anyone. I wish Eric Zelms were alive today to tell you so.
     
Well, it's very hard to say whether he did or not. It would be a point of conjecture at this point, and he seemed quite upset.   It is purported in the work of Zodiac Unmasked, that I tearfully told Inspector Toschi, "You know, Dave, we could have been killed that night." I never spoke to Toschi, that I personally know of or remember. He may have been the inspector who came out and asked me about the composite drawing, and I told him the suspect was older and heavier. Beyond that, I had no further contact with the investigation.
     
Well, it just so happens that area is extremely well-lit, and I cannot imagine his not seeing the shine of blood on the clothing if it had been Zodiac. I feel bad for him, if he believes that was the Zodiac. I don't think it was.   I would like to say he made, the Zodiac made eye contact with us, but I can't picture it. I remember seeing his eyes. I couldn't tell you what color they were. It was dark enough that his eyes were concealed. But you could say he sort of looked down. Perhaps this lumbering gait, sort of stumbling along, like a semi-limp, might have come up in my mind, because he was putting his head down when he spotted the police car, and turned into the entranceway of a house. By entranceway I mean stairs leading up that are concrete to a path that leads to a front door. Never saw him get to the top of the stairs. You want the address of that residence? . . . Jackson Street. I never put it in the report and I don't think that I have told anyone. I didn't think about it in the report, because I assumed that he didn't live in the neighborhood, an upper middle-class neighborhood. I don't know if he lived there or he didn't live there. Let the inspectors follow through. I thought that's what I wrote in the scratch all these years.
     

When recounting the WMA "stop" to Pelissetti, did Fouke modify his remarks, leaving out the part about being fooled by his calm demeanor and instead of saying "No," when asked about seeing anyone suspicious, the WMA actually misdirected them? Either way, this person that Fouke eventually told Pelissetti that he stopped and questioned had to have been Zodiac.

 

 

Back         Top of page