by Mark Hewitt
The funeral for Cecelia Ann Shepard was held that afternoon at 2:00 p.m., at Pacific Union College’s sanctuary. It was conducted by Robert W. Olsen, chair of the College’s Department of Religion and former roommate at PUC of Shepard’s father in the 1940s, Robert H. Shepard, a professor at the Seventh Day Adventist college in Loma Linda. Morris Funeral Chapel in St. Helena was in charge of arrangements.
Not to miss an opportunity to collect suspects, Detectives Narlow and Lonergan were careful to position themselves so that they could observe everyone who attended the gathering and everyone who spoke to the victim’s family. Sometimes, a murderer will attend the funeral of their victim; more than once, a criminal has been apprehended through careful observation of a service, because either the perpetrator looked out of place or the perpetrator’s actions appeared suspicious to others. Three police officers, Detective Sergeant Harold Snook, Sergeant Thomas Butler, and Detective Ronald Montgomery, took photographs of everyone who entered and exited the church, and many group photos as well.
Narlow and Lonergan also attended the much smaller graveside ceremony at St. Helena Cemetery, which was held soon after the church service. No one stood out during the day’s memorialization, and the photographs netted no suspects.
The next day, Friday, October 3, Detective Lonergan interviewed a patient at the Napa State Hospital for possible involvement in the murder. Another odd person had been brought to his attention. At an imposing six feet two inches and 225 pounds, the 20-year-old man had received a weekend pass from his institution, providing him freedom at the time of the attack at Lake Berryessa. He had been discharged from the Air Force the previous January for psychiatric problems. His doctor thought he was capable of the attack on Hartnell and Shepard. As Lonergan interviewed him in the presence of others, however, his innocence became apparent. The patient talked in a very quick tempo, much faster than the assailant at Lake Berryessa was reported to have spoken. Also, his mother confirmed his alibi. Suspicion of him was finally eliminated when it was revealed that he had no access to a car the previous weekend when the felonious assault had occurred.
Narlow and Lonergan spent the rest of the day reviewing the ever-increasing amounts of evidence, and adding to the seemingly endless number of reports.
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Also on October 3, Captain Donald Townsend requested by phone the services of the Latent Fingerprint Section of the CII at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento. Townsend hoped that the latent prints that were collected could be matched to one of the suspects in the case. He delegated this work to a specialist who might find a match if one existed. Narlow had separately requested the services of CII to aid in the investigation. He was assigned Special Agent Mel Nicolai, who would work closely with the VPD and the Solano County Sheriff’s Office.
Three days later, Raymond Olsen, a latent fingerprint examiner, traveled to the NCSO with Supervising Photographer Vern Meusen, both of the CII. Together they met with Townsend, Narlow, and Snook to review the details of the case. CII Supervising Special Agent Kenneth Horton, CII Special Agent Nicolai, and Napa County Undersheriff Tom Johnson also attended the meeting.
Townsend requested that his guests make copies of the prints that had been collected in the case to compare them to four suspects. He also asked that they retain the copies in order to compare them to any other suspects that were generated in the future. Before leaving, the specialists received from Snook 35 cards bearing 45 latent prints, one eight by ten inch photo of a latent impression, the names and birthdates of the four suspects, a photo of the passenger door of the Karmann Ghia, five sheets of paper with writing, and one Charlie Brown greeting card that also bore some writing on it. The last three items would be also passed on to the Questioned Documents Section of the CII.
Unfortunately for the investigation, no perpetrator was found. The fingerprints of the four suspects did not match; neither did the other suspects supplied by Nicolai and the Special Services Section of the CII. Several of the latent impressions appeared to The Examiner to represent prints made from palms, which the bureau did not at that time collect or store. As requested, the copies were retained for future comparisons, with the promise that should any positive identification be made, the Sheriff’s Office would be immediately notified.
Upon his return from his trip to Napa, Olsen provided the samples of handwriting and the picture of Hartnell’s car door to Questioned Documents Examiner Sherwood Morrill in person. The date was October 7. He carefully placed the photographs in the Bureau’s files for future reference, and then responded to the Sheriff’s Office with a letter in which he returned the latent impression cards. As a courtesy, he also sent copies of the latent impressions for future use.
Morrill, after carefully scrutinizing the material, was finally able to match the writing on the door of Hartnell’s car to the handwriting on the three July 31 letters that contained the cipher pieces. The person who wrote the 3-Part letters was also responsible for defacing Hartnell’s Karmann Ghia.
On October 6, the CII in Sacramento created a case summary. It expressed concern about the wide publicity the murders were receiving. It concluded that the Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Spring Park, and Lake Berryessa attacks were all perpetrated by the same person, someone who had also made the calls to the police after the July 4 attack and the September 27 knifing. Three Northern California crime scenes comprising four murdered victims were now tied to the killer known as the Zodiac. Despite the Bureau’s best efforts at accuracy, the Lake Berryessa slaying was errantly listed as occurring on the weekend of September 20 and 21.
Three days later, the Sacramento FBI Field Office requested that the FBI in Washington, D.C. check its latent fingerprint files for a particular, named suspect. The October 14 reply eliminated the suspect due to the lack of a match, but noted that the suspect had no palm prints on file.
At 2:00 p.m. on October 9, Narlow and Lonergan met with representatives of the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, the CHP, and the VPD. The accumulated list of attacks was discussed with all details: December 20 on Lake Herman Road, July 4 in Blue Rock Springs Park, and September 27 at the edge of Lake Berryessa. Now that the three incidents had been linked forensically by handwriting, by the evidence provided in the killer’s letters, and through the car door writing at Lake Berryessa, the offices were eager to share and exchange details of their work. While each of them may have been operating with a limited amount of information, together they were confident that enough clues would emerge to suggest a course of investigation, if not reveal the killer outright.
On October 23, the Sheriff’s Office received another letter from the Latent Fingerprint Section of the FBI Identification Division. The news was not encouraging. Snook was notified, in reference to his October 10 letter, that prints that he had sent to the FBI—five photos of latent impressions that evidenced “seven latent fingerprints, three latent palm prints, and one latent impression, which is either a fingerprint or a partial palm print, appear in the submitted photographs and are of value for identification purposes”—did not match three named suspects. To do a thorough analysis, the FBI required inked impressions of a suspect’s fingers that included the sides, the tips, and the lower joint areas, as well as palm prints. These were not routinely kept in the FBI files. Additionally, two of the named suspects may not have been the individuals previously indicated, some confusion existing over the names and addresses.
The FBI further found no identification records for Hartnell or Shepard. They conducted no laboratory examination on other items submitted, informing Snook that should they be required, the items would have to be resubmitted to the Laboratory. The FBI also explained to Snook that no modus operandi (MO) file was maintained in the Identification Division. Not until the 1980s would law enforcement agencies share criminal MO details with one another so that peregrinating killers could be quickly identified by the specifics of their criminal activities. The VICAP (violent criminal apprehension program) computer softwar
e would in future cases be responsible for collaring many criminals who carried out their violence across law enforcement jurisdictions.
Hartnell was released from the hospital on November 9. He returned to PUC to continue his studies. Narlow and Lonergan traveled to Anguin the next day to interview him one more time. With the details the detectives had gathered from the joint meeting, as well as their early investigative efforts, they hoped that the survivor of the Lake Berryessa attack could provide additional information. Unfortunately, no fresh insights into the assailant or the incident could be siphoned from the recuperating victim.
If on September 27 investigators were concerned that the Zodiac had moved beyond the Vallejo area and the confines of Solano County to expand his reach into Napa County, they would be startled by his next location. If they were worried that his pace was picking up—quickening from a seven-month interval to an idle period of a mere twelve weeks—they would be shocked by the length of time it took for him to reappear.
The Zodiac struck next in the metropolitan city of San Francisco exactly two weeks later.
6 | PRESIDIO HEIGHTS
“I am the murderer of the taxi driver”
Paul Stine was a conscientious, hardworking student. As the days grew shorter in October of 1969, his schedule was full. Son of Milford Stine and Audra Busby—both born in Oklahoma—Paul juggled marriage, studies, cab driving, and part-time insurance sales. He was pushing his way through the Ph.D. program in English at San Francisco State College so that he could someday land a job as a professor. On the side, he drove for the Yellow Cab Company in and around San Francisco to help support the family finances, working the 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift beginning in the summer of 1969. He and his lovely wife, Claudia, resided at 1824 Fell Street in the North Panhandle district of San Francisco.
At 8:45 p.m. on the evening of Saturday, October 11, Stine set out in his cab. His first and only paid fare of the shift led him from Pier 64 to the San Francisco International Airport. Soon after, his dispatcher sent him to pick up a customer on 9th Street. While he drove in that direction, a man with a crewcut hailed him for a ride. His second passenger approached the cab somewhere near the intersection of Mason Street and Geary Street, in San Francisco’s downtown Theater District.
Stine realized that the location to which the man was headed—Washington Street near Maple Street, in the tony Presidio Heights district—could be easily reached on his way to his assigned customer, so he admitted him into his cab, marked his trip sheet, and started the meter. Collecting one fare while traveling to the location of another was a popular way to reduce vacant miles and maximize income. Additionally, driving to such an exclusive area almost guaranteed a generous tip.
Stine would not make it to the next paying customer, however, and the dispatcher had to reassign the 9th Street call at approximately 10:00 p.m. Stine’s final passenger was a killer; the destination, the scene of a grisly murder where Stine’s life would end, on the north side of Washington Street in San Francisco’s rarefied Presidio Heights district.
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So named for the Presidio, an army installation it abuts to the north, the Presidio Heights district is a small, affluent San Francisco neighborhood bounded to the south by California Street and the Laurel Heights district, to the west by Arguello Street, and to the east by Presidio Drive. In the words of San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery in 1969, it is an “area of posh homes.” Its palatial mansions—many valued today between $10 million and $20 million, with smaller ones fetching $2 million or more, even after the real estate collapse of 2008—line parallel streets that carve the neighborhood into squares. Driving at high speeds is discouraged throughout the hilly region by the many stop signs, most intersections being four-way stops. Many of the houses are so large, and the property so valuable, that very little land is reserved for front- and backyards. The topography is elevated enough that the residents can look down on surrounding communities if they have the view, and more than a few of the structures stretch for that opportunity with three or more stories and windows on every side.
The quickest route to the passenger’s destination from the corner of Mason and Geary was a westward drive on Geary Street, turning north on Highway 101, then westerly on California Street, and turning north onto Divisidero Street, before continuing west along Washington Street.
On Wednesday, October 15, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the passenger sat in the front seat of the cab, a fact reiterated in official FBI reports of the crime. The police determined from the cabby’s trip sheet that Stine’s destination was the corner of Washington Street and Maple Street. But the mention of that intersection raised questions.
One of two enduring mysteries of Paul Stine’s murder (not including the unknown identity of the perpetrator) relates to the final minutes of the victim’s life. For some reason, Stine stopped his cab at an intersection one full block west of the intended destination. The killer sent a letter—received October 13, 1969 by The San Francisco Chronicle—confessing to the crime of murder “over by Washington St. and Maple St.,” even though the murder did not occur there. Stine was found dead in his cab just feet from the corner of Washington and Cherry Streets, one city block beyond the destination listed in the driver’s way bill. The reason for the discrepancy has never been made clear, though there were several theories of why Paul Stine ended up where he did.
Some officers believed that the cab driver simply overshot the intersection. In that case, the passenger may have said, “Just pull over here.” Because Stine did not survive the attack, no record of a conversation exists, and any words exchanged are known only to his killer. However, law enforcement had to admit that it was equally likely, had Stine driven past the intersection of Washington and Maple, a ubiquitous four-way stop, that he would have stopped his cab, backed up, and deposited his passenger at the proper location.
An alternate theory posited that Stine was shot while driving, requiring the gunman to grab the steering wheel and attempt to gain control of a wild, careening cab, with the final resting place one block farther down the road. This would have required a horrible blunder: a passenger who would shoot his victim while the vehicle was still moving or still in gear. But the distance between intersections and the ordinary stop at which the taxi finally came to rest suggested to many that the extra block was not accidental, and not accomplished by a driverless car.
The actual explanation may have been as simple as an unexpected interruption. It is entirely possible that, as Stine drove his passenger toward the corner of Washington and Maple Streets, the killer spotted something near the intended destination, and chose instead to carry out his planned violence a mere one block farther along Washington.
Washington and Maple was the perfect intersection for a killing. It may have been the planned murder scene all along. The trees standing guard at that intersection were high and thick. Potential witnesses in the surrounding homes would have had difficulty observing a killing, with branches and leaves obstructing the view of the street from many windows. The perpetrator would then have been only one block from the Julius Kahn Playground on the grounds of the Presidio itself, the destination to which the killer is suspected to have absconded. If he had killed Stine at the corner of Washington and Maple, he would have escaped his crime quickly and anonymously, and the cab with its dead driver would not have been discovered as quickly as it was. Perhaps a pedestrian or someone in a parked car had spooked the assailant, compelling him to move the death scene one block to the west. In fact, one police report stated that a man walking his dog, a potential suspect in or witness to the murder, was stopped by the police not far from that corner in the aftermath of the shooting.
Because the killing occurred where it did, one block west toward the Pacific Ocean, there were witnesses. The cab stopped in front of a residential home at 3899 Washington Street, in full view of inquisitive eyes. Just before 10:00 p.m., three teenaged children of a prominent San Francisco physician�
�aged 13, 14 and 16—looked out of the second-floor window of their spacious home at 3898 Washington Street on the southeast corner of Washington and Cherry. They had front row seats directly across the street from the crime scene, and observed the events unfolding below. Though they claimed they did not hear anything, something drew their attention, and they watched in disbelief as the man with a crewcut sat in the passenger seat with the cab driver’s body draped across his lap. They had no idea that the passenger had just placed a handgun against Stine’s head and pulled the trigger.
The evening was dark and cool. Even though it was only 18 days since the end of summer, San Francisco was gripped by unseasonably cold temperatures. That was not an uncommon situation for a city surrounded by water on three sides. By the time the teenagers observed the taxi, whatever warmth the day had seen had already given way to the brisk ocean breezes. Pedestrians needed a coat, or were forced to clutch loose-fitting clothing around their bodies.
One of the teenagers—the 16-year-old—grabbed a telephone and contacted the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
The passenger appeared to rifle through Stine’s pockets and wipe down the inside of the vehicle with some kind of cloth, even reaching toward the driver’s side of the front seat. The youths watched his movements as he emerged out of the passenger side and began wiping the outside of the cab, probably with the same cloth. As he circled the cab, he stopped at the driver’s door and appeared to reach back into the vehicle. Almost casually, he left, making his way north on Cherry Street.
The Chronicle, partly dramatizing the event and partly guessing, recorded that the gunman “dashed” down Cherry Street. A California Department of Justice report stated that he “walked nonchalantly.” SFPD Officer Armond Pelissetti, apparently gaining his information from the youths, described him as “ambling or walking down Cherry Street in a northerly direction.” His report recorded that the man “fled (walking) north on Cherry St.” The killer himself wrote about events that had occurred when he was “walking down the hill.” A simple matter of ambulation became a point of contention when different sources began to characterize its manner in wildly divergent terms.
