by Mark Hewitt
Lovett reported that the man labored at Johns’s left rear wheel, but that description would contradict other reports, suggesting that the officer was inattentive to details, may not have been listening carefully during his interviews with Johns, or was inaccurately parroting details fed to him by McNatt. Years later, Johns admitting to thinking it was the left rear wheel that needed work, without knowing exactly why she believed that it was that wheel. Perhaps Lovett heard and recorded Johns’s words correctly, and it was the young mother who was mistaken.
Once his effort was completed, the stranger circled to the driver’s side window and assured Johns that her car was now fine and safe to drive. She thanked him as he walked away, but received no response. He climbed back into his vehicle and drove ahead on Highway 132. Johns later described his motion as “slow.” She was certain, recalling the incident decades later, that at that time the stranger had not seen Jennyfer—who had awakened at the noise of the “repair”—and was likely also unaware that she was pregnant.
When Johns attempted to reenter the highway, she did not get very far. Almost immediately after moving forward once again she heard a thump and felt her car lurch. She knew something had happened, but was unaware that her right rear wheel had separated from the axle, effectively rendering her vehicle inoperable. The station wagon was now completely immobile. Lovett reported that Johns at this time exited her vehicle to determine what had occurred, but years later Johns believed that she had stayed in the car “for the most part.”
The stranger had not gone far. Seeing her predicament—or anticipating it—he made a narrow U-turn (according to one report) and, returning to Johns’s car, offered to drive her to a service station. He may instead have backed his car up rather than performing a U-turn, Johns declaring decades later that she had seen the brake lights of the car as it backed up toward her.
The stranger now suggested that the problem was beyond his ability to fix.
It was a bald-faced lie. In truth, he had unscrewed the lug nuts, effectively sabotaging the wheel. When the station wagon was later located and examined, only two nuts remained, one of which was loose to the point of falling off. The assailant, under the guise of aiding Johns, had removed three of the nuts and loosened the remaining two. At the side of the road, Johns later recalled, he said something to her about the lug nuts being stripped. He never mentioned to her that he could have very easily fixed her car by replacing the hardware he had just taken.
Johns was now at the mercy of the stranger.
For the benefit of the police reports, Johns would describe her “repairman” as a white male, approximately 30 years of age, five feet nine inches, and 160 pounds. He had dark hair and sported black, plastic-rimmed glasses, which she later characterized as “Superman glasses.” He wore a dark ski jacket, possibly navy blue in color, and dark blue bell-bottomed pants. She added that he appeared to have some acne pitting on his face.
Over the years, however, her estimates of the stranger would grow and become more specific, and possibly more fanciful. Recalling events decades later, she described him as being, “big” not fat. She noted that she herself was five feet nine inches, and that he was bigger and taller than her. His haircut and attire spoke to her of being military. He had spit-shined shoes, navy blue pants that may have been wool, was very neat, and appeared more clean-cut than any of the people in her coterie. His voice was slow and monotone—in her opinion, cold and emotionless. She detected no drawl or accent.
The young brunette, in response to the stranger’s offer, collected a few items from her crippled car, carefully lifted Jennyfer, who in two months—on May 18—would celebrate her first birthday, and eased into the bucket seat of the stranger’s 2-door automobile. Johns later estimated that it took her about five minutes to gather some things for her daughter, including diapers, though she admitted to being a very bad judge of time. There were no other cars in the vicinity as the man maneuvered back onto Highway 132, ostensibly headed toward the gas station a mere 500 yard ahead on the right. Instead of stopping at the station, however, he drove past (or may have driven into the station and then out again).
The realization overtook Johns that something was wrong.
What occurred next—the conversation in the car between the driver and Johns—is another portion of this highly enigmatic event that comes in conflicting versions. In subsequent years, Johns would share that she felt that her life was in grave danger. She claimed her driver menaced her with such threats as “you know you’re going to die,” “I’m going to kill you,” and “throw your daughter out of the window.”
The police reports recounting Johns’s words to various law enforcement personnel that night tell a story that is completely at odds with this later description. According to Lovett’s report, Johns stated that the man was “quite friendly with her,” did not make any threats, and did not make “a pass” at her, as though her greatest fear was of a young man making a sexual advance. He also noted that she never asked the driver to stop nor asked to get out of his vehicle. Lovett concluded that there may not have been a kidnapping.
Years later, Johns guessed that her ordeal in the stranger’s vehicle took about two hours. Lovett recorded her earlier estimate of one to one-and-a-half hours. Because she was unfamiliar with the area, Johns was unaware of exactly where her chauffer had taken her, though she claimed to remember the city of Tracy because he had pointed it out to her. She believed that she had been driven around country roads with no apparent goal. The stranger appeared to know where he was going because he hadn’t hesitated, but had traveled rather slowly, suggesting to her that he may not have had a specific destination in mind.
According to one account, as the Richfield station on Chrisman Road shrank in the distance behind her, Johns wondered to herself what the man was doing. She sat in silence. At first, she suspected that he had merely missed the station. Her captor, however, passed by several additional service stations over the ensuing hour or more.
Nearly three decades after the incident, Johns recalled passing a couple of exits on a highway before he took one, suggesting that they may have entered Interstate Highway 5 at some point. But she was certain that they drove on two-lane roads for the most part. When she finally mustered the strength to question him about his actions, which she eventually did on more than one occasion, he simply changed the subject and continued driving, according to Lovett’s report. In the words of another officer, Johns had the stranger saying that a station was closed, or that it was not the right station. In the report filed by McNatt, the man was mostly silent during the ride, but when Johns asked what he did for a living, he claimed that he usually worked for a few months at a job, and then when he was between jobs he drove around, mostly at night. Johns, also according to McNatt’s report, asked the driver whether he helped others. The man was said to have replied, “When I am through with them, they don’t need my help.” Lovett wrote that the driver had made some weird statements, including, “when I get through with them, they won’t need any help.” Years later, Johns recalled glibly stating something like “Hell of a way to help others” to elicit his unusual response. She also remembered that the stranger had asked where she was headed, and claimed to know the area when told.
In a 1998 interview, Johns shared that when the man first spoke, after approximately 10 minutes of driving in silence, he calmly and coolly said, “You know you are going to die.” She recalled that he looked like he wasn’t “there,” not even making eye contact with her.
She took no action for more than an hour. She thought about punching her driver or scratching him; however, she opted to do nothing, believing that he might just be spouting empty threats. She committed herself to reacting if he tried to lay a finger on her or her daughter.
As she sat, Johns noted that the car was very messy. She remembered observing clothing—men’s and children’s—gum wrappers, children’s toys, miscellaneous papers, and a scrub pad for dishes, all strewn about haphazardly.
He may have been living in the vehicle, she realized. He never smoked during the drive. She observed no drug paraphernalia; she didn’t recall seeing any butts or marijuana joints. She saw no weapons. Though Jennyfer was awake for the drive, it amazed her mother that she did not make any noise, an unusual practice for the normally vocal and lively infant.
Then the ordeal ended abruptly.
Johns escaped her captor when he slowed his vehicle somewhere near Interstate 5, though the exact location was never recorded. They were on a rural road paralleling the highway to her right. As he made a “Hollywood stop,” that is, slowly rolling through a stop sign—one account has the driver attempting to wrongly enter the highway through an exit ramp before stopping and backing up the car—Johns suddenly opened the car door and, clutching Jennyfer, dove to freedom. She picked herself up off the ground and hustled over to a drainage ditch, as many as 100 yards away according to one version of events, and lay down to hide. She concealed her daughter underneath her belly. In another account, this one by the SJCSO, Johns ran across a field and up an embankment.
Lovett attributed the risky escape to Johns’s feelings of “becoming quite frightened,” noting that she feared that the driver might do some physical harm to her.
There are more than a few versions of the driver’s response to Johns’s flight. In one account provided by Johns, as reported by Lovett, the stranger simply closed the passenger door and drove away. McNatt, sharing what Johns told him immediately after the event, wrote that the man waited for the woman for about five minutes before pulling the door shut and driving off. According to the SJCSO report, after Johns jumped to freedom, the suspect turned the car’s lights off, moved a few feet forward, stopped, and waited five minutes before he turned his lights back on again and left.
By the late 1990s, the story had apparently grown and become more dramatic like the fisherman’s tale that improves with the telling. Johns now claimed that the stranger exited his car and searched for her with a flashlight. She did not look back, but was aware that she was not gaining any distance from him as she ran. She saw evidence of a flashlight the man was using to track her, and heard him yell, “Get back here,” using profanity. She believed he was as close as 30 to 40 feet behind her. In contrast, McNatt was adamant in his report that the stranger had not exited his vehicle.
Following the man’s departure, a semi-truck driver on Interstate 5 responded to the commotion at the side of the road. She may have flagged him down, Johns confessed. He jammed on his brakes. Still reeling from her apparent abduction, the young mother refused help from this male. She stood at the bottom of the hill, below the highway, telling him not to come any closer. She was unwilling to trust another man after her upsetting ordeal in the stranger’s vehicle, so she waited until a woman could assist her. One soon stopped—Lovett reported that Johns hailed the female driver—and offered to take her to the local police station.
The name and identity of this Good Samaritan have been lost to history, though it was recorded that she was from Missouri. She did not stay long at the side of Interstate 5, and she did not linger after dropping off Johns. The woman first drove the victim to Westley, a small community to the northwest of Patterson and west of Modesto. Years later, Johns could not recall this diversion—or any conversation with the woman. When no police station was found in tiny Westley, they proceeded to Patterson.
At some date in its history, the small town of Patterson, California, which claims the title of “Apricot Capitol of the World,” became host to a police substation. Founded in 1909, the town now boasts 20,000 residents, but is not large enough to support a full police force, and does not have the staff to man an office around the clock. Its location—situated back from a lonely stretch of Interstate 5 and surrounded by miles of farmland—is too distant for quick aid from the nearest police departments. An outpost was organized and staffed to deal with any local problem that could not accept a delay. Today, the substation is open only during normal business hours, an arrangement that suits the present needs of the community.
A little more than three hours after first being accosted by the stranger in the 2-door vehicle, Johns was seated inside the Patterson Police Substation, located in Patterson’s downtown square, sharing her story with Officer McNatt. The tale she related was quite incredible, and may have raised the officer’s doubts.
Once McNatt calmed her down (his claim), she told him how she had been kidnapped and how she had arrived in Patterson, 87 miles to the east of San Francisco and 18 miles outside of Modesto.
Johns explained that she had departed San Bernardino in Southern California on Sunday. She was headed for Petaluma, her Northern California hometown situated along Highway 101. She planned to visit her mother, who she believed was dying. Recalling events many years later, Johns explained that her mother regularly manipulated her with the news that the woman who gave her life was approaching the end of hers, an effective strategy to entice her daughter—and on this occasion also her granddaughter—up for a visit. This was her third or fourth such visit to see her mother “one last time.”
The trip would take at least seven hours even if the highways were clear. When Johns drove through Modesto, along Highway 99, she was only a couple hours from her destination. She opted for an evening drive, she explained years later, as the roads were mostly empty, and the darkness and the sound of the engine’s purr enticed her daughter to sleep quietly.
McNatt listened to Johns as she described to him the events that had transpired: how she was urged to pull over, how the assailant had disabled her car, and how she had been transported for one to two hours, finally ending up in front of him in Patterson.
While still talking, Johns noticed a wanted poster on the wall of the substation office. She pointed at it, and notified the officer that the person pictured was the one who had just kidnapped her. She may have become agitated at the recognition of the sketches. McNatt reported that she “started to scream and became hysterical again.” Johns later denied any hysterics.
McNatt asked Johns if she knew the man on the poster. She replied that she did not. She had never seen the poster prior to that night. Relating the experience years later, Johns claimed that the officer suggested that she should have known, and the implication angered her.
The poster contained the black and white composite drawings of the Zodiac serial killer that were created following the murder of Paul Stine. It comprised two separate sketches, the first made with the help of the three teenaged witnesses who observed Stine’s killer from across the street; the other, a modified version of the first drawing, was produced a few days later. Johns related that the amended version looked more like the person who had given her the ride. When told who was pictured in the poster, Johns again became hysterical, according to McNatt.
Though Johns did not know the significance of the poster or the background of the suspect, McNatt certainly did. The Zodiac had become the talk of the area. To the officer, the Zodiac case was big news, a story with a recent tie to nearby Modesto.
Robert Stine, the 34-year-old brother of Presidio Heights murder victim Paul Stine, was a mechanic in Modesto. In response to the slaying of his cab-driving brother, he penned an open letter to the Zodiac, details of which were published in several area newspapers, including The San Francisco Examiner and The San Francisco Chronicle. The surviving Stine, concluding that the Zodiac was a coward who had no reason to kill his brother, challenged the murderer to show himself in Modesto. He proclaimed that he was not afraid of his brother’s slayer, boldly listing the address of his place of employment—the Richfield Service Station at 706 Sutter Street—the precise time he started work (7:00 a.m.), and even the route he took for his daily lunch. The bachelor who lived with his mother was a mere five feet seven inches and 165 pounds, and carried no weapons. He maintained that he had no need of a gun because he was in great physical shape.
Many residents in the valley thought the surviving Stine was more than a little crazy to t
aunt a killer and place himself at such great personal risk. The people held their collective breath, waiting to see whether the Zodiac would strike in Modesto in answer to the challenge.
McNatt wondered whether the stranger’s appearance in Johns’s rear view mirror was the killer’s response to Robert Stine. A cowardly Zodiac may have traded the opportunity to attack a well-prepared and courageously willing male for an easier target. He may have only been able to muster the courage to threaten a vulnerable woman traveling far from home late at night.
After calming Johns down for a third time, McNatt broke off the interview and called for backup. He may have been frightened himself. Perhaps he, and not Johns, had become hysterical at the prospect of a Zodiac attack. He immediately reached out to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office in Modesto to summon another officer for assistance, and promptly whisked Johns out of the building.
McNatt must have felt susceptible to attack in the tiny police substation of a small town. If the Zodiac were to follow Johns there, perhaps neither of them was safe.
Deputy Lovett responded to McNatt’s call. In his report (file #062677), he noted that he received the call at 2:30 a.m., requesting that he rush to Patterson. He recorded his arrival in Patterson at 2:50 a.m.
Contradicting these details, McNatt wrote in his report that it was at 2:30 a.m. that the hysterical Johns had been brought to his office, and that it was not until sometime later that he had contacted Lovett. According to McNatt, Lovett was not summoned until Johns calmed down, shared some of her story, saw the poster, became hysterical, and calmed down once more. McNatt’s interactions with Johns prior to the call to Lovett would have taken at least a few minutes, possibly 10 or 15. (At a future date, Johns estimated that she was in the substation for 20 minutes before spotting the poster.) A reconciliation of the timelines represented in the two police reports is therefore impossible. For Lovett’s record to be correct Johns had to have been brought to Patterson before 2:30 a.m., or McNatt had telephoned Lovett immediately upon Johns’s arrival at 2:30 a.m.
