Suspect in 2 Slayings Leaves Jail : Attorneys Say Evidence Points Toward Man Held in 3 Other Throat-Slashings

Johnny Massingale, an illiterate, penniless drifter from Kentucky, walked out of San Diego County Jail a free man Friday evening after spending 10 months behind bars, accused of two throat-slash slayings that prosecutors now say Massingale did not commit.

“I feel good,” Massingale drawled, his chin trembling with emotion, after he stepped out of the jail exit. “I just want to go home and be with my family.”

Later, he added, “I just thank God in heaven.”

Massingale, 30, was ordered released by Superior Court Judge Barbara Gamer after prosecutors said new evidence suggests that he did not slay Suzanne Camille Jacobs, 31, and her 3-year-old son, Colin, in their Normal Heights home on May 24, 1979. Massingale had said he was guilty during a police interrogation.

Investigators for the San Diego Police Department and San Diego County district attorney’s office now view David Allen Lucas, already charged with three other throat-slash slayings, as the primary suspect in the Jacobs killings.

Awaiting Trial

Lucas, a 29-year-old Spring Valley carpet cleaner, is in jail awaiting trial in the death of Anne Catherine Swanke, 22, a University of San Diego student who disappeared Nov. 20 in La Mesa, and the Oct. 23 slayings of Rhonda Cheryl Strang, 24, and 3-year-old Amber Fisher, whom Strang was baby-sitting in a Lakeside home.

Lucas, who previously spent four years in California Youth Authority for a rape conviction, is also charged in a kidnaping, rape and knife attack on a Seattle woman. Prosecutors may soon add the Jacobs slayings to charges facing Lucas, who is also being investigated as a suspect in other unsolved homicides.

The arrest of Lucas three weeks ago reversed the fate for Massingale, who had been scheduled to go to trial Jan. 14 in the Jacobs slayings. Although physical evidence found at the scene of the Jacobs slayings provided no link to Massingale, defense lawyer James W. Tetley said a jury could have easily convicted the defendant because of a virtual confession he made to police interrogators.

“It would have been touch and go,” Tetley said.

“We were really lucky,” said co-counsel Timothy Rutherford. “What if Lucas hadn’t got arrested? Massingale might get convicted and serve life without possibility of parole.”

Under Suspicion

Interviews with Tetley, co-counsel Timothy Rutherford and Deputy Dist. Atty. Bernie Revak detailed how a man now considered innocent was arrested in the first place, and how a blood-splattered note that bore the printed words “Love Insurance” and a phone number proved to be Massingale’s ticket to freedom.

Massingale first came under suspicion in the Jacobs slayings when an Alabama man told a Texas Ranger in 1981 that while hitchhiking he had met a man who claimed to, in Rutherford’s words, “cut off people’s heads” in a town east of San Diego.

The informant told authorities that he could remember that the man was named Johnny and that he said his victims were a woman named Sue Ann and her young son. The heads of Suzanne Jacobs and her son were nearly severed in the knife attack, Revak said.

The informant could not remember the last name of “Johnny,” but he recalled the name of a third man who was riding along--a John Smith. Investigators ultimately tracked down Smith, who corroborated the informant’s story and remembered the man as Johnny Massingale of Harlan County, Kentucky.

A warrant was issued for Massingale, and San Diego investigators flew to Kentucky to question him. During the interrogation, he admitted guilt.

“Let me put it this way,” Tetley said. “Johnny Massingale never got out of the sixth grade. He can’t read or write anything, except for his name, and he usually misspells that . . . His IQ . . . is not a world-beater.”

He was questioned from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tetley said. Under pressure from the “two experienced interrogators” from San Diego, plus Kentucky law enforcement officials, Massingale said he was guilty, the lawyer said. Tetley also maintained that Massingale’s requests for counsel were disregarded, and he was advised by a Kentucky state trooper “to admit guilt and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.”

Arrested in March

Revak asserted that Massingale’s rights were not violated during the interrogation. But the prosecutor acknowledged he had long had “certain reservations” about the case because evidence found at the scene--the “Love Insurance” note, some strands of blond hair found in Suzanne Jacobs’ hand--did not match with Massingale. His hair is brown; Lucas’s is blond.

Massingale was arrested on March 14, 1984, and has been jailed ever since. He had been scheduled for trial in September and October, but continuances were granted both times. “If we had gone to trial then,” Rutherford said, “he (Massingale) could be in San Quentin right now.”

When the bodies of Rhonda Strang and Amber Fisher were found with their throats slashed on Oct. 23, Tetley recognized the similarity to the Jacobs killings. He contacted sheriff’s homicide investigators, who agreed to compare the evidence of the Lakeside slayings with the Jacobs attack.

When Lucas was arrested, defense lawyers put a private investigator and a handwriting analyst to work. The investigator produced samples of Lucas’ printing from business records and other sources. Those were found to match the printing on the “Love Insurance” note that detectives had long believed had been accidentally left at the murder scene by the killer, Tetley said.

Tetley said the private investigator also learned that Lucas had bought car insurance from Love Insurance--and had made his first payment only two months after the Jacobs slaying.

If they had gone to trial, Tetley said he would have, in effect, sought to prosecute Lucas for the Jacobs killings.

Prosecutors say they still aren’t convinced that Lucas committed the Jacobs slayings. The evidence is still being “carefully, carefully reviewed” by investigators, Revak said. “Matching hair isn’t like matching fingerprints.”

Difficult Decision

Even though the evidence was clearly pointing away from Massingale and toward someone else, it was a difficult decision to seek the dismissal of charges, the prosecutor said.

Revak said he is still puzzled about the fact that two witnesses said Massingale told them he murdered a woman named “Sue Ann” and her son “in a town east of San Diego.” “How could it be so close to the woman’s name? . . . It’s bizarre.”

Other statements reportedly made by Massingale matched closely with the facts of the Jacobs slayings, he said. And then there were the self-incriminating statements during the investigation.

“He said, ‘I’m guilty. I did it.’ . . . Or words to that effect,” said Revak. “It causes you to cringe before you decide to drop charges.”

Revak said there is no indication that Massingale may know Lucas, or that Massingale may be looked upon again as a suspect in the Jacobs killings.

Charges against Massingale were dismissed about 3:30 p.m., but he later appeared under subpoena in a pretrial hearing for the Lucas case. That proceeding was ordered closed to the public and press by Superior Court Judge Wayne L. Peterson after G. Anthony Gilham, Lucas’s attorney, argued that pretrial publicity might jeopardize a fair trial for Lucas.

Massingale was still wearing blue jail garb and handcuffs as a marshal led him from Peterson’s courtroom. He was processed out of jail about 5:45 p.m., emerging from the back door to find a crowd of newspaper, television and radio reporters.

He wore a wrinkled gray polyester print shirt, blue jeans and black leather shoes. When the crowd pressed forward, he seemed nervous and a little embarrassed, addressing his questioners as “sir” or “ma’am.” If he was angry, it never showed in his soft-spoken tones.

‘They Owe Me’

He said he had contracted food poisoning in jail and received shoddy medical treatment. He said he would remain in San Diego for some time because he is still under subpoena in the Lucas case. Tetley and Rutherford had arranged food and lodging for him.

A reporter asked him if he planned to sue the County of San Diego. “Ma’am, I don’t have a dime to sue them with,” he drawled.

But if he had money? “I feel like they owe me.”

He explained that he didn’t have an attorney when police questioned him, and he told reporters, “I wish I had one with me now.”

At that moment, a man later identified as the private investigator who helped Tetley and Rutherford tapped Massingale on the arm. As they walked to his car, a voice could be heard shouting from inside the jail--”All right!”--followed by one man’s hands clapping.

Massingale got inside the car and rolled down the window to allow the press conference to continue.

Had he talked to his family?

“My mother. All she does is pray.”

What’s the first thing you’re going to eat?

Massingale offered a rare smile. “A bowl of beans and some cornbread.”