LAPD Adds 2 to Stalker’s Victim List--It’s 16 Now

Two murders that occurred in Los Angeles County as early as February were linked by authorities Thursday to the Night Stalker, bringing to 16 the number of slayings that investigators have attributed to the tall, thin serial killer.

The disclosure of additional cases came in a printed bulletin issued by the Los Angeles Police Department, which is participating in a multiagency task force of more than 50 officers hunting the killer.

Police said they plan to distribute thousands of copies of the one-page bulletin to gas stations and other retail businesses throughout California to better alert the public and generate more tips on the elusive killer.

Occurred Outside Los Angeles

Authorities would provide no details on the two additional slayings, except to say that both occurred outside the Los Angeles city limit and that at least one dated back to February.

A source close to the investigation said the two murders may have occurred in Altadena and Long Beach. However, a police detective in Long Beach and a sheriff’s sergeant in Altadena said they could not immediately recall any cases in their respective jurisdictions that might be connected to the Stalker.

Los Angeles County Assistant Sheriff Robert A. Edmonds, whose department is coordinating the task force, said, “We are satisfied that the 14 are linked. LAPD has decided there are . . . additional (cases) based on their analysis. We don’t disagree. We feel they may be linked.”

It was previously thought that the Stalker killed his first victim on March 17 in Rosemead, where Dayle Okazaki, 34, was shot to death in the kitchen of her condominium.

Use of Handguns Confirmed

The Police Department’s bulletin confirmed that some who have died were shot with .22-caliber and .25-caliber handguns. Others have been fatally stabbed, slashed and bludgeoned.

Officials have also blamed the Stalker for at least 21 other assaults, rapes and kidnapings since February.

The police bulletin, without elaborating, revealed that the Stalker may have slightly different hair than that depicted on a composite drawing widely circulated throughout the state. His hair, authorities now believe, may be less curly than shown and may be parted.

In addition, authorities now believe that the Stalker has used imported, presumably stolen, station wagons “on several occasions” to drive to the homes that he enters at night through open windows and doors to attack his sleeping victims.

Meanwhile, Orange County officials confirmed Thursday that they have found fingerprints on an orange 1976 Toyota station wagon that the Stalker may have stolen and then driven Sunday to Mission Viejo in Orange County.

A witness reported seeing a Toyota wagon, similar to the one stolen, in the Mission Viejo neighborhood where 29-year-old William Carns was shot in the head and his fiancee raped early Sunday by an intruder. The car later was found abandoned in the parking lot of a health food store near 6th Street and Alexandria Avenue in the Rampart District of Los Angeles.

J. Larry Ragel, commander of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Forensic Science Services Division, said criminalists on Thursday found “good” prints on the car using a laser examining device and other state-of-the-art methods. The prints apparently do not match those of the car’s owner.

Ragel said the Orange County sheriff’s fingerprint computer, which holds fingerprint sets for 13,000 people, printed out 100 sets that bear similarities to those lifted from the car. Ragel declined to indicate whether any of the computer-filed fingerprints matched the ones discovered Thursday.

He said the lifted prints also would be sent to the state Department of Justice, which has more than 1 million sets of fingerprints on file.

Authorities late Tuesday had requested the public’s help in finding the Toyota station wagon, which had been stolen Saturday night in Chinatown. On Wednesday morning, Los Angeles police reported that the stolen car had been located at about 7 a.m. that day.

What police did not say was that they actually were notified of the car’s location Tuesday morning by a telephone tip and that detectives watched the car from hidden positions throughout the day and night without success to see if the person who stole it might return.

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth insisted Thursday that authorities were not attempting to deceive the public--even though the request for help in finding the car went out 12 hours after police found it.

“There’s no time discrepancy,” Booth insisted. “We did seize that car at about 7 a.m. We will not discuss any other activity of the seizure . . . because (it) may be suggestive of tactics we may use in the future.”

Jon Quinn Jr., who runs a health food store in Chapman Park, a small shopping center at 6th and Alexandria, where the car was found, said he first noticed it in the parking lot when he came to work Monday morning.

License Plates Noted

Quinn said he regularly takes down the license plates of all cars in the lot because of illegal parking problems and because stolen cars have been dropped off there before. On Tuesday morning, the Toyota was still parked there, he said, and a neighbor notified police. About 20 officers arrived around 11 a.m. by car and helicopter.

“They decided they didn’t want to cordon off the area and called their men off,” Quinn said. “Then they left four plainclothesmen to stake it out.”

Quinn said he went about his business as usual, selling vitamins and produce, stocking his shelves.

“Actually, I felt safer than ever, because the neighborhood had all that protection,” he said.

He said he had not seen anyone resembling the Stalker in the neighborhood.

No Link to Stalker

In another development, police said there is no evidence indicating that Thursday’s early morning slaying of an unidentified woman in the City of Orange was related to the string of Stalker assaults.

Although homicide investigators would not be specific about what evidence may rule out a connection to the serial killer, one said, “the crime scene, overall,” in Orange eliminates any connection.

Police Lt. Mike Leintz said that at about 5 a.m., a woman in the northeast area of the Orange County city called police and reported that “she heard a screaming female knocking on her door.” After telephoning police, the woman answered the door and found the woman’s nude body in a flower bed, Leintz said.

Staff Writers Mark Landsbaum and David Palermo in Orange County contributed to this article.