Sgt. Richard Radetich

[Esau Profile]

I doubt that the police released the type and caliber of weapon to the press that soon after the crime.

I doubted that too, Esau, but a June 20, 1970 SF Chronicle article about the murder the following day indicates exactly that:

"CASING
The only solid clue police could find was the casing of a .38 caliber bullet lying outside the smashed window of Radetich's car."

I have the article but I'm not sure how to post it from the format it's in. Zodiac wrote a week to the day (6/26/70) after Radetich's murder, stating "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38". We'll never know if he was implicitly referring to Sgt. Radetich but the claim matches the information provided in his favorite newspaper about Radetich and just seems too coincidental, IMHO.

Thanks Entropy, I stand corrected about the article. I do,however, think that it's still very possible that Z killed Officer Radetich. I don't think it's a very far stretch for Z to shoot a police officer, especially if the officer was preoccupied writing a ticket while sitting in a car. This would give the shooter a pretty good advantage as far as the "jump" is concerned. I also feel strongly that Z hinted that he was active not just in the bay area. That being said, there was no VICAP back then and it would have been difficult for SFPD to know whether or not Z was active in another state. Now that there is VICAP, I'm sure that the Officer Radetich information has been fed into the system. I wonder if LE is looking at any similar unsolveds. But, remember that Z changed MO's and if the Officer Radetich information was fed into VICAP, that doesn't necessarily mean that there would be a hit.

[FoolsGold Profile]

I don't believe the Zodiac shot Radetich. He never named the policeman by name, and he never claimed he shot a cop, only that she shot a man sitting in parked car.

The fact is that San Fran police had a very good suspect, a black radical with connections to the Black Liberation Army, a radical group that often advocated violence and specifically the killing of police officers.

There's simply no evidence that the Zodiac shot a cop, and even less he shot Radetich, and I seriously doubt he would take on an armed police officer. That just wasn't his style. He was a utilitarian killer with a wide yellow streak.

I believe, in the case of Radetich, the Zodiac implied he killed someone by offering to the public a victim with matching generic characteristics to a recent murder. Call it surrogate killing, or parallel murder. The Zodiac manipulated people, knowing they would do the work of connecting him to the murder without him having to either offer specific information he didn't have and without suffering a loss of face if the real killer was found.

Like I've said before, the Zodiac was a rank amateur at every endeavor, save the talent of psychological manipulation.

EDITED: I stated a connection regarding the Black Panthers when I should have stated the Black Liberation Army.

[FoolsGold Profile]

Here's some info on the officer:

http://www.odmp.org/officer/10956-offic ... d-radetich

A thread with a text-only news copy:
(I wouldn't read the comments as they quickly devolve into the typical Good Time/Gaikowski crap)

http://zodiackiller.21.forumer.com/a/po ... 9&start=90

Lengthier info here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... d=rss.news

[FoolsGold Profile]

Radetich's autopsy report:

autop_radetich_1.gif [ 219.19 KiB | Viewed 680 times ]

Get the higher resolution image here:

http://www.thezodiacmansonconnection.co ... tich_1.jpg

And the Sf Police page where you can collect one hundred grand for identifying Radetich's killer

http://sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=340

[smithy Profile]

Thanks FG, nice to get all this stuff in, and in one place, again.
FWIW I agree, I don't believe that Z shot Officer Radetich. He didn't have enough information as "proof", either facts or tangibly, which is one of the fundamentals of his other crimes, nuh? No telephone call either.
Did it perhaps influence him into later shooting "a man in a parked car" in the Presidio though? I tend to think that it might have.

[roxietoday Profile]

Thank you for posting this topic. I have also wondered why this seemed to be just another homicide in sf. rather then a fellow officer slain, and more attention and energy put into the manhunt of the killer who had shot one of their own. I happen to think z did do this and i agree with the statement that if z didnt he would have to contend with the fact that someday the real killer might be caught, and yet he had claimed it. I feel that why would they not want to blaim zodiac if he claimed it, why were they going away from this. It just seems a little strange, the whole thing seems strange. I also wonder how the killer knew where Sgt Radetich was going to be. I mean did he just happen to pull up where the killer happen to be? Or did he follow him? Or what? I feel so much for the family of Sgt. Radetich, I wish more could have been done. Thanx again.

[entropy Profile]

Thank you for posting this topic. I have also wondered why this seemed to be just another homicide in sf. rather then a fellow officer slain, and more attention and energy put into the manhunt of the killer who had shot one of their own. I happen to think z did do this and i agree with the statement that if z didnt he would have to contend with the fact that someday the real killer might be caught, and yet he had claimed it. I feel that why would they not want to blaim zodiac if he claimed it, why were they going away from this. It just seems a little strange, the whole thing seems strange. I also wonder how the killer knew where Sgt Radetich was going to be. I mean did he just happen to pull up where the killer happen to be? Or did he follow him? Or what? I feel so much for the family of Sgt. Radetich, I wish more could have been done. Thanx again.

Glad you revived this topic, roxie, because I think there are at least two very different ways of looking at Z's unsubstantiated claims. On the one hand, NONE of the crimes that Zodiac seemed to accept implicit responsibility for without offering any proof have ever been officially solved (Bates, Johns and Sgt. Radetich). I can't imagine that SFPD would have spared any expense investigating a murder of one of their own, especially when they seemed to be targets for so many radical groups in the Bay Area at the time, but nobody was ever found responsible for any crime Zodiac referred to in his letters.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... d=rss.news

On the other hand, Zodiac certainly had the opportunity to take explicit credit for this murder and never did so. He could have told us exactly where Sgt. Radetich was parked, how, when and where he was shot etc. as he described other crimes in earlier letters but never attempted to do so. Instead, he merely offered that he had "shot a man" using a .38 caliber bullet which he had never used before and this just happened to be the only forensic information offered in one of his favorite newspapers.

That to me indicates a likelihood that Zodiac didn't kill Sgt. Radetich but was likely sociopathic enough to falsely accept implicit responsibility for doing so. I honestly wish the SF Chronicle hadn't printed anything about the bullet caliber because it would have given us a bit more to go on as to whether Zodiac might have been responsible for this.

An interesting old discussion on the topic:

http://zodiackiller.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=189

[Michael Butterfield Profile]

The Zodiac never claimed that he was responsible for the murder of Radetich.

[entropy Profile]

The Zodiac never claimed that he was responsible for the murder of Radetich.

Fully agreed, Mike. The Zodiac never claimed responsibility for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates or the abduction of Kathleen Johns either.

[Wrench Profile]

Thanks entropy,

That original poster in the link you provided poses and interesting question. Why did Z include the gun caliber in his letter? If A) Z did in fact shoot someone, the type of gun yet unreported to the public, it would serve as some proof of responsibility (as he had done in the past). Did he expect this victim would be found? B) Was it just a fabrication? Leaving the caliber out would leave any unsolved, unmotivated murder of a man in a parked car up for speculation as a Z crime, regardless of gun type. If he was trying to claim a murder he didn't commit, why limit himself? Why choose a .38, a weapon he had not previously been associated with? Was he worried that someone shot with a .45 might be erroneiously linked to him?

Would you agree that Z read the SF papers, and likely knew of the Raditich story? If so, when he wrote to the paper a week later, do you suppose it crossed his mind that saying he shot a man in a parked car with a .38 would lead to speculation that in fact a cop shot one week prior, in a parked car with a .38, would be connected to him?

That thread format got a funky on me as I went down, did someone answer the question adequately?