Newspaper Articles

Taken from the San Francisco Examiner of Sept. 11, 1968. Courtesy of zodiackiller.com:

San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 24, 1968:

Thanks for posting those I have never seen either of them before. In fact, I had seen very little in regards to Marshall but always thought he made a good suspect. I know he was ruled out on non-matching DNA but like many others have stated, the DNA might not be from Zodiac himself. I think Marshall ran with a crowd of rascals so you never know they could have been a few guys who planned and carried out this whole plot.



Matthew

(The Daily Independent Journal. Aug. 26, 1972.)




(". Feb. 14, 1976.)







(". Oct. 06, 1973.)

(". April 21, 1973.)

(The Hamlin Herald. July 3, 1975.)



(The Abilene Reporter-News. July 21, 1950.)



(The Hamlin Herald. October 18, 1940.)

Wow Galaxie, you even found articles under his REAL name!! Good work. It's cool to read stuff about him before he moved to the bay area. I still think there's a small chance he was Zodiac, maybe like a 10% chance. I'd say there's a slightly higher chance of him being involved but not being the actual killer. If it was a group effort, leave it to a bunch of film and music nerds to put the whole thing together. Marshall sure was a creepy sumbitch that's for sure. Also interesting that Marshall mentioned Anton LaVey in that first article.

(The Hamlin Herald. Jan. 24, 1941.)



(". Feb. 21, 1941.)



(The Big Springs Daily Herald. June 15, 1942.)



(The Post (TX) Dispatch. Feb. 04, 1943.)



(Radio Amateur Call Book Magazine. 1947.)



(Radio Amateur Call Book Magazine. 1948.)



(The San Rafael Daily Independent. Oct. 12, 1973.)



(The Abilene Reporter-News. July 06, 1975.)

So Marshall may have had a brother, Dale, who was living in California as well? Might have to dig into him as well. Do you know if any of the other sites had found Marshall as an amateur radio operator? If not, that is a really big find there.

ophion1031 wrote:So Marshall may have had a brother, Dale, who was living in California as well? Might have to dig into him as well. Do you know if any of the other sites had found Marshall as an amateur radio operator? If not, that is a really big find there.

If I'm not mistaken, it was one of Marshall's ham radio correspondents who originally pointed the police in his direction. He was also the chief engineer at KTIM in San Rafael and even had his own show ('Omnibus') for a brief period:

I wonder what his show was all about.

Reference to Marshall in Photography Magazine, Vol. 34:

https://books.google.com/books?id=M3EqAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22richard+reed+marshall%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22richard+reed+marshall%22

Galaxie500 wrote:Reference to Marshall in Photography Magazine, Vol. 34:

https://books.google.com/books?id=M3EqAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22richard+reed+marshall%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22richard+reed+marshall%22

so he was born as Richard Reed Marshall and not Joe Don Dickey then. I didn't know he dabbled in photography. perhaps he knew that Eric Weil character.

Ok, this is weird. This says Dickey was a High School Senior in Feb. 1941. He would have only been 14 years old.




EDIT: Sorry, Galaxie had already posted this article.

Found a 2nd "Pipers go Snooping" article. This one is from April 25, 1941.

I found Dickey in 1 1946 article from Phoenix, AZ (the Arizona Republic), but I can't access it. I had seen that he once lived in Phoenix, but wasn't sure of when. I wonder if he lived there in 1946 before signing up for the navy. Did he have family in Phoenix or what was he doing there? Can anyone find any 1946 articles on Dickey in Phoenix? One article I seen looks like it may have had something to do with a play, but like I said earlier, I can't access it.

The Radio Amateur call books that Galaxie posted... the one in 1947 lists him at 1111 S. 19th in Phoenix, AZ, and the 1948 one lists him in Texas at Marfa Army Airfield in Marfa, TX., south of El Paso. Was he in the Army before the Navy??

ophion1031 wrote:I found Dickey in 1 1946 article from Phoenix, AZ (the Arizona Republic), but I can't access it. I had seen that he once lived in Phoenix, but wasn't sure of when. I wonder if he lived there in 1946 before signing up for the navy. Did he have family in Phoenix or what was he doing there? Can anyone find any 1946 articles on Dickey in Phoenix? One article I seen looks like it may have had something to do with a play, but like I said earlier, I can't access it.

The Radio Amateur call books that Galaxie posted... the one in 1947 lists him at 1111 S. 19th in Phoenix, AZ, and the 1948 one lists him in Texas at Marfa Army Airfield in Marfa, TX., south of El Paso. Was he in the Army before the Navy??

(Nov. 10, 1946.)



(Nov. 15, 1946.)

In retrospect, there's a pretty good chance that the call-sign listings refer to a different Joe Dickey.

Thanks, Galaxie. I kinda get the feeling this was our guy, though. I couldn't find anything on him being in Texas in the mid 40's, so perhaps he was in Phoenix to go to college for a couple of years and then went into the Army. The only thing not adding up to me is how he was a Senior in HS when he was only 14 years old, assuming he actually was born in 1926. 1928 according to the Richard Reed Marshall SSN spp.

I always found Marshall to be mysterious but there wasn't very much info on him posted anywhere. Now that people are looking into him more I just find him even more mysterious. He seems like a guy who was hiding something.

Marfa Army Air Field is now abandoned but it was used during World War II, an installation of the Army Air Force Training Command West Coast Training Center.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_Army_Air_Field

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Airfields_TX_BigBend.htm

Marfa Army Airfield / Presidio County Airport, Marfa, TX

30.26 North / 103.89 West (Southeast of El Paso, TX)

There was even a theater on this base. I think the base was pretty much stopped being used around 1946 so I don't know what Dickey could have been doing there in 1948 although he was there.



All operations at Marfa AAF were suspended by February 1946.

The base was retained by the 818th AAF BU and later the 344th AAF BU.

On 1/31/47, the base was transferred by the 9th Air Force

to the Army District Engineering Corps at Albuquerque, NM for disposition.

Thus closed the history of MAAF as a military establishment.


Yet there were still people using the base in 1948?
David Brooks recalled, "My family comes from those parts of Texas. I have always been interested in the old air base at Marfa. My father told me he flew in to the old Marfa AAF several times, once in 1947 & two times in 1948. On two occasions, he flew on Trans Texas Airlines & once on a charter flight. So there was some commercial traffic there for a while short time after the war."


Ok so it became an airport.
The airfield was listed as "Presidio County Airport" in the 1963 TX Airport Directory (courtesy of Steve Cruse). Only 3 runways were still maintained (21R/3L, 12L/30R & 17/35, all 7,500'). The 1963 diagram shows that only 3 hangars remained standing, all other hangars & buildings having been removed. The operator was listed as KAHL Charter & Air Ambulance Service.

And this is pretty close to the Mexico border.

Phantom Productions has some cool pics from Marfa on their site.

http://phantomprod.com/MarfaTexas.html

And apparently there were some movies shot in that area, mostly more recently I think. There is even a pic of James Dean in Marfa.

Good stuff, John.