Zodiackiller.com Message Board: Other Suspects: Suspect stopped by police after Stine's murder

I don't know if this has been brought up before but I was reading about the Zodiac case on the CrimeLibrary site and was puzzled about something.

When the police were responding to Stine's murder they apparently believed their suspect was a black man for a time. They stopped a man on the street to ask him if he had heard anything and then left (they had no reason at the time to suspect a caucasian male). They later believed the man was indeed Z himself. Part of the policeman's description said: "The subject's general appearance to classify him as a group would be that he might be of Welsh ancestry."

Huh? What does someone of "Welsh ancestry" look like? This seems to be a pretty SPECIFIC description if you ask me (kind of like saying the suspect looked to be of Basque ancestry...). Can anyone tell me what they think the policeman meant by this? And if so do any of the Z suspects match this desciption?

I have thoroughly investigated the entire area around the Stine incident and I believe for whatever reason the police thought the white male that they stopped was of european descent because of his size/physical appearance and location. The Presidio Heights area especially during the late '60's had a lot of european residents and I think the cops gave this guy a quick "once over" and then headed in the opposite direction looking for a black man. My belief is that since the desription was sent out for a black dude why not head in the direction of town where more black people lived. Let me make it CLEAR I am not racist but I do believe especially in the late 60's that racial profiling was rampant in the bay area. On one of my more recent daytime trips to the area I was able to spend at least a few hours going around the neighborhood checking out a lot of possible hiding spots that "Z" could have used to avoid the police totally but I believe he kinda wanted to challenge them. For instance the exact spot where Stine was shot is only a few feet away from at least two small walled in patios and alcoves that he could have hidden in before he took off. Also as you walk directly to the right of the crime scene toward Presidio Terrace there is a footpath that leads right into the Presidio and is only a few feet away from the Julius Kahn Playground that he was hiding in according to his letter. I still think he wanted to see how close he came to actually being captured otherwise why would he allow himself to get so close to the police. The fog factor probably helped a little especially if he was really hiding in the playground since there is a row of houses that have a lot of windows facing the park and he could have been seen if the night was clearer. The "Welsh" desription I still think was attribted to location of the crime and the "portly" look of the person questioned. All of the crime scenes are kinda weird especially at night but the Washington and Cherry one is very interesting since it's right in the middle of a prominent San Francisco residential area. metalex

here's another good question. when the witnesses of the stine murder called the police, they gave a discription of a white male. yet the dispatcher gave the responding officers the discription of a black male. HOW COME?

Joe P--

I don't think anyone to this day knows the answer to that question.

Metalex--

The "Welsh" desription I still think was
attribted to location of the crime and the
"portly" look of the person questioned

I don't get you. Welsh = "portly"?? And when you say it can be attributed to the location of the crime are you saying that in the late 60's this neighborhood was made up of a large number of Welsh immigrants? Also, the policeman didn't say the man looked "European", he said "Welsh". There is a HUGE difference between the two. "European" could mean simply caucasian.

Not to throw out any stereoptypes or anything but could he mean the sort of British stereotype of having a long nose, or large ears? If so this would rule out Allen who has a pretty small snouze. If however by "Welsh" he meant "thick eyebrows" then this could theoretically resemble someone like Kane.

Has anyone (recently) ever really interviewed the teenagers that saw the suspect? Maybe Tom? Did they tell the police that it was a black man due to the poor lighting/foggy conditions at the time? Since the teenagers called the police maybe they had the wrong desription and not the cops or could "Z" have been wearing a disguise? metalex

That family doesn't like me too much. Every time I'm in SF, I stop by their place and hurl my Zodiackiller.com business cards through their front gate.

Look guys, the kids that witnessed the aftermath of the cabbie murder described a white man. The dispatcher simply made a mistake. End of story.

We went over the "Welsh" thing before in the thread Other Suspects: Did any of the suspects..., but didn't really reach any conclusions...

Alex: they apparently haven't been interviewed in something like two decades, and have no interest in doing so. I once ran into a friend of theirs (I know he wasn't pulling my leg, because he actually knew their names), and he lost interest as soon as I mentioned I was investigating the case. That's the general feeling among the rich and famous in that area: they couldn't really care less.

Jake: Good luck (I mean about retaining Penn as your lawyer...).

Being Welsh myself (Oscar is my pen name), I can assure you that there is no definitive Welsh "look". Certain Welsh families were-ahem!- Romanized as those pesky Italians moved Westward into Briton (ancient spelling, guys). This would account for the Mediterranean look that some Welshmen enjoy. There is a rather fair-skinned group of Welshmen that inhabit the Northern region of our great country- freckles, red-haired et. In fact,they may be mistaken for Irishmen, albeit with intelligence.
I find this episode to be rather peculiar as well, because I have heard people tag others as looking "British" or "Italian" etc., but I have never heard anyone say, "Yeah, he looked Welsh".
Now, if he was walking down the street singing a Tom Jones tune (sans panties, of course)while salivating over a plate of rarebit, then I could see this happening. It leads me to believe that Foukes and co. did indeed get much closer to Z than many would believe. Perhaps if they did exchange words- and I would bet my griffin that they did- the "Welsh" tag may have come from the traces of an accent. Then again, most Yanks can't tell the difference between a Scottish, Irish, and Cockney accent, so who knows? If the man spoke Welsh, he would be mistaken as a drunk due to the lack of vowels (Just imagine Richard Burton on a meth binge).
By the way, there is no stereotype that I know of that says Welshman have thick eyebrows...maybe thick heads, but not thick eyebrows.
Oscar ("Cymru Am Byth, Baby!")
p.s. If anyone speaks Welsh and would like to talk about the case, you can always email me. Hey! That's it! I'll start my own Welsh Zodiac site...ha ha...look out, Tom!)

Oscar, you're finally onto it! It all ties together! Z was the ghost of Dylan Thomas! Occam's Razor! It explains everything: the progressive detrioration of penmanship and logic in the writings (Irish whiskey); the British connection, especially the Gilbert and Sullivan literacy, and most important of all, the preoccupation with death that finds its ultimate voice in (drumroll please) THE DESKTOP POEM!

Congratulations! Case closed, that's a wrap, break it down and last one to leave, please crash the server.

PeterH

Ed N--

Whoops, I should have used the search function to search through old messages (didn't know there was one at the time).

Oscar--

Wow, I didn't think an actual Welshman would reply to this post! ;) Anyway, so perhaps the policeman meant a "swarthy" and "heavyset" person?

I'm just a bit surprised that this policeman hasn't been talked about as much as other witnesses of the whole Z case. An actual POLICEMAN who might have saw Zodiac in the flesh... Granted it was at night, and according to police accounts it made it sound like the policeman only glanced at the guy for a few seconds as he was walking down the street. However policeman ARE trained to pay attention to such things.

I wonder what made this suspect stand out since I thought that area was pretty busy anyway? I would expect at least a FEW people to be in that area at any given time.

Tom--

Since you apparently have tried to talk to the witnesses who called the police, have you also tried contacting this Officer Foukes? Just curious (I'm sure at SOME point quite a few people grilled this guy...). Of course my first question to the guy would be "What in God's name did you mean by saying the supect looked like he was of Welsh ancestry??".

J: No one seems to know where Foukes is at the moment, or even if he's still alive. Jake mentioned that one investigator found that Foukes had moved to Florida and recently died, but, a lot of people have the same name, so it's hard to say for sure. I have a hunch that, like many of the players in this story, he's still in the Bay Area keeping a low profile.

Hi-

Just to show you that Oscar knows of which he speaks, I saw a layout last December in a New York Times color magazine of people from Wales. It was basically a parade of people with reddish-brown hair. Since the cops apparently described Z as having same (see verbal decription from 1969 SFPD Wanted Poster), this was undoubtedly one of the keys to their statement about Welsh ancestry.

I recently interviewed one of the detectives from the Zodiac era (who was very pleasant, helpful and cooperative, BTW). He had some contact with the "kids" who saw Z in PH. He described them collectively as being very intelligent and expressed the opinion that the sketch that came out of their interviews with the sketch artist was, in his mind, a good representation of what Z would have looked like that night.

Mike

Hello all,
There is some question as to whether or not Foukes and Zelms spoke to z. I by the way think they did. Foukes makes the welsh ancestry comment and it generates some confusion as to what he meant. If he spoke to z and z had or used an accent would that not help understand Foukes welsh comment. If you met Richard Burton and had to describe him his voice would definetly be mentioned, correct?

I've never seen confirmation of the "Welsh" comments attributed to Foukes.

We did of posts on the Welsh reference.Click/click.