Suspect Held in Mutilation Slaying

Police arrested a suspect Saturday in connection with the killing of a Pacific Beach man whose skull and bones were found during the last three weeks near Mission Bay.

Kenneth Dee Stogsdill, 45, a San Diego service-station employee who used the name Kenneth Carl Dee, was taken into custody near Balboa Avenue and Mission Bay Drive, a police spokesman said. He is being held in San Diego County Jail on suspicion of murder and a 1981 warrant from Texas charging aggravated assault.

Using dental charts, the coroner’s office identified the victim as Kenneth Dean Beachell, 29, who had been living in a Garnet Avenue apartment for four weeks before his disappearance earlier this month.

Beachell had moved to San Diego from Vancouver, Wash., to seek employment and live with friends, police said. He was reported missing Sept. 10.

The next day, campers found a human head on rocks near Camp-land, a recreational vehicle park at the northeast corner of Mission Bay. Examination of the head revealed that it had been severed from the neck with a sharp tool and that flesh had apparently been cut away from the skull, police said.