Zodiac, Allen, SFPD, and everything in between
ZpoliceZ
I just got off the phone with Mel Nicolai, who was a Special Agent with the
California Department Of Justice Investigations Division during the 1960s and
1970s. Nicolai worked on all Zodiac crimes but the Herman Road murders.
(Although he was knowledgeable on those, too.)
According to Nicolai, after realizing they had just seconds earlier possibly
encountered the killer of the cabbie in Presidio Heights, SFPD patrolmen Foukes
and Zelms got on the radio and announced a description of the man they saw
seconds earlier. 6'-6'2", 200+ LBS, etc. Nicolai acknowledged that the entire
composite situation got "screwed up," but he wasn't sure how. But he was
positive that the officers' first description over the radio was of a guy
6'-6'2". (Possibly Foukes was nervous on TV and lost his train of thought,
accounting for his altered story. It happens.) No conversation between the
suspect nd the officers took place.
Nicolai also told me that they were able to place Arthur Leigh Allen in
Riverside the weekend Bates was murdered. Allen was teaching at a grade school
in nearby Calaveras County, and on weekends he used to travel to Riverside for
some kind of auto races or something...something involving automobiles. This
info came directly from Allen's co-workers at the grade school, and it led to
investigators placing Allen in Riverside at the right time to be the Bates
killer.
Also today, I received some great info from Bill Baker, formerly of the Santa
Barbara County Sheriff's Department. He was in charge of the double murder of
two Lompoq High School seniors on the beach in 1963. He wrote that the ammo
used in the murders was Winchester Western Super X .22! I think it was long
rifle ammo or something, I'll have to look again. But I believe this was the
same kind of ammo used at Lake Herman. At least, it's damned close. He also
pointed out that the murder contained elements of gun, fire, knife and
rope...just as Zodiac wrote about in his Halloween card to Paul Avery. I will
be posting the entire text of Baker's letters soon. (With his permision.) The
similarities to Berryessa are amazing.
Finally, today I also talked with Jim Silver, who (like Nicolai) also worked as
a California Department Of Justice Special Agent in the 1970s. Silver worked on
the Santa Rosa coed killings, and to this day says he thinks Allen was the
killer. Allen used to trap animals in the same area where the bodies were
found. Plus, Allen's trailer was in the center of the pickup points/dump sites.
Silver was responsible for Allen being polygraphed for two days while at
Atascadero State Prison, tests that Allen passed with flying colors. (Although
with what is now known about serial offenders, as well as polygraphs, these
results aren't surprising...IMHO.)
Silver told me he took Bryan Hartnell to visit Allen at a hardware store where
Allen worked, and after looking Allen over and speaking with him, Hartnell said
"I can't say that that isn't him."
Kevin Burnett
>>Subject: Re: Zodiac, Allen, SFPD, and everything in between
>>From: rred...@mindspring.com (Roger Redding)
>>Date: Tue, 10 August 1999 08:54 PM EDT
>>Message-id: <37b0c92...@news.mindspring.com>
>>
>
>>This is a completely different story than what we've been hearing
>> (and is one part of the
>>Allen saga that has never really been challenged, as far as I know):
>>That he was a student
>>at Riverside and could be placed in the library the VERY SAME DAY (cue
>>ominous music) as
>>Bates' murder. Also, Calaveras county isn't anywhere close to
>>Riverside. It is, however,
>>not too far from the place of the Kathleen Johns incident.
>>
>> Roger
>>
>>
>Graysmith is the one who told me a few years ago how he placed Allen in the
>library on the night Bates was murdered. He has never offered proof, though.
>Regardless, Allen was a grade school teacher at the time (5th or 6th grade),
>not a student.
>Wherever Calaveras County is, it's within driving range of Riverside. This is a
>very important development in the Zodiac case, IMHO, because the source of the
>info is not a writer, director, publicity-seeking cop or even an Internet geek
>like me...it's Mel Nicolai.
If you consider Modesto or Stockton to be within "driving range" of Riverside,
I suppose so.
Calaveras County is in the Central Valley & Sierra foothills; Modesto is the
primary city. These days, it would be probably about 5-6 hours from the LA
area, but back in the 1960s, before the major freeways were built through
the Valley, it would have taken considerably longer.
--
Kevin Burnett k...@catnip.org
http://www.catnip.org/ http://www.catnip.org/bathroom/
"I see you have made yourself a brand new life
Such a cool blue star with a bright new shine
I see you wearing your checkered past just like a shining suit of gold
I know you think you look so special"
nip...@my-deja.com
up! The Truth is Out There.
- Kevin
In article <19990809212649...@ng-fv1.aol.com>,
zpol...@aol.com (ZpoliceZ) wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> I just got off the phone with Mel Nicolai, who was a Special Agent
with the
<snip...>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Roger Redding
>Nicolai also told me that they were able to place Arthur Leigh Allen in
>Riverside the weekend Bates was murdered. Allen was teaching at a grade school
>in nearby Calaveras County, and on weekends he used to travel to Riverside for
>some kind of auto races or something...something involving automobiles. This
>info came directly from Allen's co-workers at the grade school, and it led to
>investigators placing Allen in Riverside at the right time to be the Bates
>killer.
ZpoliceZ
>From: rred...@mindspring.com (Roger Redding)
>Date: Tue, 10 August 1999 08:54 PM EDT
>Message-id: <37b0c92...@news.mindspring.com>
>
>This is a completely different story than what we've been hearing
> (and is one part of the
>Allen saga that has never really been challenged, as far as I know):
>That he was a student
>at Riverside and could be placed in the library the VERY SAME DAY (cue
>ominous music) as
>Bates' murder. Also, Calaveras county isn't anywhere close to
>Riverside. It is, however,
>not too far from the place of the Kathleen Johns incident.
>
> Roger
>
>
Graysmith is the one who told me a few years ago how he placed Allen in the
library on the night Bates was murdered. He has never offered proof, though.
Regardless, Allen was a grade school teacher at the time (5th or 6th grade),
not a student.
Wherever Calaveras County is, it's within driving range of Riverside. This is a
very important development in the Zodiac case, IMHO, because the source of the
info is not a writer, director, publicity-seeking cop or even an Internet geek
like me...it's Mel Nicolai.
ZpoliceZ
>Date: Tue, 10 August 1999 08:39 PM EDT
>Message-id: <7oqgoh$832$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
>
>Good post, Tom. All you Zodiac hunters are doing amazing work. Keep it
>up! The Truth is Out There.
>
>- Kevin
>
Seriously, all I do is contact everybody I can think of who was involved in the
case. Mel Nicolai has an awesome rep and worked on all of the cases. He didn't
stand to gain any notoriety, as he was brought in to help with local agencies
who already had hot suspects. I believe what he tells me, and I believe Allen
was in Riverside on October 30th, 1966. Am I convinced Allen was Zodiac? No,
because August 22nd I'm going to be running all over San Francisco's Castro
District looking for Rick Marshall.
http://www.zodiackiller.com
erix...@my-deja.com
ban...@lart.com (Kevin Burnett) wrote:
> On 11 Aug 1999 01:34:26 GMT, ZpoliceZ <zpol...@aol.com> blathered:
Riverside,
> I suppose so.
>
> Calaveras County is in the Central Valley & Sierra foothills; Modesto
is the
> primary city. These days, it would be probably about 5-6 hours from
the LA
> area, but back in the 1960s, before the major freeways were built
through
> the Valley, it would have taken considerably longer.
>
> --
believed Bates died around 10:30 PM. This was a Sunday night. The
next day would definitly have been a school day in Calaveras county,
which was 350 miles of surface roads that became the main drag of every
town they passed. This would have taken 7 hours plus. Did Allen show
up for work Monday morning? Did anyone check this out? Are these
records still available?
I lived in the Bay area during the Z era and remenber it well. My
image was always of a pudgy guy of average height with as full head of
hair in a crew cut. The crew cut/glasses composite was always the one
that was used. I don't think any of the eye witnesses described Z as
being either bald or "really Big"; two of Allen's characteristics that
would have been hard to hide. Z's hiatus while Allen was locked up is a
very tantalizing coincidence but the inability of Hartwell to id him
(he "could not exclude Allen"-- but that still means he didn't
recognize him), along with the failure of the handwritting and
fingerprint to match, pretty much led LE to drop him as a A-list
suspect.
At this point, Allen is the only real suspect. Short of a real bomb
shell turning up, it is unlikely that anyone will ever prove his guilt
of inocence, with the very admirable research of Zpolicez, and all of
the others, we may be able to come to some closure of this very
fastinating mystery.
erix
> Kevin Burnett
k...@catnip.org
> http://www.catnip.org/ http://www.catnip.org/bathroom/
> "I see you have made yourself a brand new life
> Such a cool blue star with a bright new shine
> I see you wearing your checkered past just like a shining suit of gold
> I know you think you look so special"
>
>
Mignarda
erix...@my-deja.com wrote
>Did Allen show
>up for work Monday morning? Did anyone check this out? Are these
>records still available?
>
cuts, especially around the area of the forearms/wrists. Or whether his
7-inch diameter wristwatch was missing!
__
"Where be the true men?"
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~mignarda
Unabomber/Zodiac--Now on CD-Rom!