Officers Probe Similarities in Slayings : 1981 Throat-Slashing Resembles Cases in Which Lucas Charged

Sheriff’s homicide investigators are probing the similarities of the 1981 slaying of a Point Loma real estate agent and three throat-slashing deaths in which Spring Valley carpet cleaner David Allen Lucas is charged.

Sgt. Dennis Hartman said Monday that he is “interested in the similarities” between the three killings charged to Lucas and the slaying of Gayle Roberta Garcia, whose throat was cut. Garcia’s body was discovered Dec. 8, 1981, in a vacant Spring Valley house that she had shown to prospective renters.

Hartman stressed that the 29-year-old Lucas is not now a suspect in Garcia’s death. Hartman also emphasized that he “has no great desire to sit down and interrogate” Lucas at this time.

But Hartman said that Garcia’s death has “all of the earmarks of the modus operandi “ attributed to Lucas, who was recently charged in the 1984 deaths of Anne Catherine Swanke, 22; Rhonda Strang, 24; and Amber Fisher, a 3-year-old girl Strang was baby-sitting. The 1984 victims’ throats were slashed with such force that they were nearly decapitated.

Hartman said he is pursuing leads on Garcia’s murder. But Hartman said he “would be remiss” if he did not look into the possibility that Garcia’s death may be linked to the three slayings charged to Lucas.

According to investigators, Garcia had driven to the vacant house to meet with three clients who were interested in renting it. It is not known if she met with each person, but one of the people Garcia was scheduled to meet at the house was a man who was never identified by police.

Questioned in Other Killings

San Diego police have also questioned but not charged Lucas in the 1979 killings of Suzanne Camille Jacobs, 31, and her son Colin, 3, at their Normal Heights home. Their bodies were found with their throats cut on May 24, 1979. Johnny Massingale, a Kentucky drifter, had been charged with the 1979 killings, but after Lucas’ arrest on Dec. 16, prosecutors re-evaluated the case and last week dropped all charges against Massingale.

In addition to the three murder charges involving the 1984 throat-slash killings, Lucas has also been charged with the kidnap, rape and attempted murder of Jody Santiago, a Seattle woman who was visiting friends in El Cajon when she was attacked last summer. Santiago was assaulted on June 9, 1984, and survived a slashed throat. She reportedly picked Lucas out of a photo lineup last month and identified him as her assailant.

Meanwhile, Lucas has been sued by his partner in a Normal Heights carpet cleaning firm in an attempt to dissolve the partnership. Frank William Clark charged in a suit filed in Superior Court this week, that the jailed Lucas is incapable of helping to run the company.