Car Recovered, Scoured for Stalker Clues

A stolen station wagon spotted near the scene of the most recent Night Stalker attack was found abandoned Wednesday morning on a Los Angeles street. Investigators using state-of-the-art techniques searched the car for fingerprints and other clues.

Los Angeles County Undersheriff Theodore H. Von Minden called the recovery of the orange 1976 Toyota a “significant break” in the hunt for the curly-haired killer believed responsible for 14 slayings and 21 assaults since February.

But Von Minden and other authorities would not say whether any evidence was initially recovered from the car, which was spotted at 7 a.m. by an unidentified person who called police. Authorities also would not reveal where the car was recovered, except to say that it was found in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division, which includes Silver Lake, about half of Koreatown, the Wilshire business district and the Pico-Union area.

The car was later taken on a flatbed truck to an Orange County Sheriff’s Department garage in Santa Ana, where investigators began their painstaking probe for clues.

“We will be looking for hairs, fibers and anything of microscopic nature. . . ,” said Frank Fitzpatrick, the sheriff’s chief criminalist. “We’ll try to identify everybody who’s been in the car.”

In other developments in the case Wednesday:

- The Los Angeles City Council and Gov. George Deukmejian each authorized rewards for tips leading to the arrest and conviction of the Stalker, bringing to $70,000 the amount of money being offered in the case.

Saying the killer presents “a serious danger to the community,” the City Council unanimously authorized a $25,000 reward for information leading to his apprehension.

“In the long run it saves the public an enormous amount of money,” said Councilman Howard Finn, who suggested the reward. He characterized the sum as a “drop in the bucket” contrasted with the costs of an extended investigation.

Deukmejian offered a $10,000 reward from the state’s general fund, saying he hopes that it “will help bring an end to the trail of violence, misery and heartbreak that the Night Stalker has left in California.”

Earlier, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors authorized a $10,000 reward that was later supplemented by two anonymous citizen donations, one for $10,000 and another for $10. The city of San Francisco, where a man was killed and his wife wounded, offered a $10,000 reward. And Arcadia, scene of two murders linked to the Stalker, offered its own $5,000 reward.

- Officials in some suburban communities, including Temple City and South Pasadena, reported recent reductions in residential burglaries partly due, they believe, to heightened citizen awareness because of the Stalker.

In Arcadia, where the Stalker has struck at least twice, burglaries have dropped from 70 in July to 23 so far this month.

“It’s possibly due to the Night Stalker,” said Arcadia Police Detective Ed Winter. “Residents are securing their homes better and buying guns, and maybe a few of the burglars are afraid of getting into a home and being shot.”

However, Sheriff’s Sgt. John Samuel said no particular drop in crime had been noticed by the substation in nearby Altadena.

“I suppose with all the police on the street, the average burglar would be pretty dumb to do anything,” he said. On the other hand, he estimated that 70% to 80% of residential burglaries are performed during the day, and most of the special deployment of officers looking for the Stalker has been at night.

- Authorities encouraged citizens to continue calling police and Sheriff’s Department hot lines to report possible Stalker sightings and related information, even though callers are often met by seemingly endless busy signals.

Detectives have reported receiving more than 2,000 tips from citizens on the Sheriff’s Department telephone line (213-974-4341) and the Police Department’s line (213-485-7024).

“It’s been a voluminous number of calls,” said Officer Sergio Diaz, a police spokesman. “No matter how many lines we’ve got, I think you’d have the same problem. All we can ask is that people keep trying to help.”

Mission Viejo Shooting

Authorities believe that the Stalker last struck early Sunday in the Orange County community of Mission Viejo, where 29-year-old William Carns was shot three times in the head by an intruder in his home. Carns’ girlfriend, also 29, was raped.

A witness in the neighborhood where that attack took place reported seeing an orange Toyota station wagon, but was able to remember only a partial license plate number of 482 T. The orange Toyota recovered Wednesday bears the license plate 482 RTS. It had been stolen Saturday night in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

The car’s owner, Bill Gregory, 56, said he was eating dinner in Chinatown when the car was taken. Gregory, a carpenter who lives in West Hollywood, said the back of the wagon contained several pieces of literature from his church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, including the name and telephone number of his minister, Jonathan Smith.

Smith said Tuesday that since the car was stolen, he has received a series of at least four mysterious calls from someone “who just stops and listens and doesn’t hang up.”

“I get a lot of weird calls. . . ,” Smith said. “I’m not saying it’s him (the Stalker), but it could be.”

‘High Hopes of Evidence’

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide detectives, who are coordinating a multi-agency task force searching for the Stalker, discounted the significance of the calls Smith has received. However, Sheriff’s Lt. Gary Vance said investigators are “interested in whether the (church) literature is missing from the car.”

“We have high hopes of finding good evidence in the car,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Olson.

Orange County authorities Wednesday night began using two of the latest scientific methods to retrieve evidence from the car. Those procedures were expected to conclude this morning.

The first involves the use of Superglue fumes, which react to moisture in fingerprints, turning the prints white.

A laser is used in the second method, which has been employed with some success in enhancing latent fingerprints that may have been partially wiped clean by criminals. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is said to be the only law enforcement agency on the West Coast to have such a laser.

Wore Mask at Least Once

Detectives have declined to say whether the Stalker uses gloves in his attacks, in which he enters darkened homes through open windows or doors to shoot, stab or bludgeon his sleeping victims. However, it is known that in at least one recent assault, he masked the lower part of his face with a piece of clothing apparently to hide his most distinguishable feature: his gapped, badly stained teeth.

He may also have worn a cap in some attacks. The Police Department this week issued a new composite drawing showing the man believed to be the Stalker wearing a black baseball cap.

The killer may have left a similar cap behind in the Rosemead condominium where he is believed to have killed his first victim, Dayle Okazaki, 34, on March 17. The cap left behind bore the logo of the heavy metal rock group AC/DC.

Meanwhile, The Times has learned that authorities have been questioning laborers at construction sites near three of the Stalker-linked murder scenes in Arcadia, Whittier and Glendale.

Construction workers said detectives apparently are interviewing employees on lists provided by contractors and subcontractors to see whether any of them resemble the Stalker or whether workers might have seen anyone lurking in the area who might resemble the killer.

One construction site is located a block from the Whittier home of Vincent and Maxine Zazzara, who were shot to death in March.

Drawings, Photograph

Workers at that site said they were shown two composite drawings and a photograph. The first drawing was a composite showing a man with curly hair and bad teeth--the same sketch obtained from police and widely publicized. The second drawing showed a man with blond or brown hair, and the third, a photograph of a man with long hair parted in the middle. The photograph, the workers said, looked like a police mug shot with the booking number covered. All three bore a resemblance to one another, the workers said.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Deputy John Broussard, said he knew of no other composites or police booking photos being circulated. He also added that detectives “may be exploring construction sites” but that if they are, it is an “investigation tool” on which he could not comment.

Glendale police, who workers said also visited the three sites, would not comment. The Arcadia home of Patty Elaine Higgins, who was killed June 27, sits between two large construction sites. Developers at those sites said they had been questioned and their employee files examined. Supervisors at the two work sites both said they have not seen anyone suspicious among the many workers who have worked there in recent months.

“If that’s the tie, then it’s going to be a heck of a job,” one supervisor said. “You know how many different subcontractors and workers one of these jobs goes through--from preparing the site to building the apartments to putting on the roofing?”

In Glendale, workers at the construction site next door to where Max and Lela Kneiding were murdered July 20, also are being questioned by detectives. “We had one guy who faintly resembled (the Stalker),” a site superintendent said. “But he checked out OK with the police.”

He added: “ I hope they catch that guy. Some people are really scared. I won’t sleep with my windows closed, so my wife sleeps in a different bedroom with the door locked and a gun at her side. One morning, when I went in to shave, I found a gun in my face. Hers.”

Times staff writers Cathleen Decker, Carol McGraw, Michael Seiler and Nancy Wride contributed to this story.