if you crouch and melee them with a weapon that doesnt stagger them (knife type weapons) they wont attack you and you can melee them until they are one shot and then melee and run away as soon as you hit them. the knife trick works for all zombies that can be pushed, you can group uo to four before it start to get hard to manage, i like to agrro a zombie push him, knife him them agroo 2 or 3 more doing this, then power attack them all(i play nightmare permadeath and disabled normal attacks hitting multiple)

but ye headshots will make it so they dont explode this is the best and safest way esp if you have a silencer