Spurned Lover May Be Behind Acid Attack on Man

A spurned lover from the Far East may have been behind the acid attack on San Clemente businessman Helmut Biller, police said Wednesday.

The woman, whom Biller met a few years ago on a business trip to Thailand and whom he says he knows only as “Tim,” fought with Biller the night before a man threw a plastic container filled with sulfuric acid into Biller’s face, San Clemente Police Lt. Al Ehlow said. Biller told police he did not know the assailant but described him as an Asian male, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall.

Says She Followed Him

Tim has followed Biller from Thailand to Atlanta and now to California, Biller reportedly told police.

“We’re going on the angle that (the attack was) a possible revenge for the spurning of the girl,” Ehlow said. “But right now we don’t have much to go on.”

The police want to interview Tim, but Biller says he does not know her full name. “He said he might have her phone number at home, but we can’t get it with him in the hospital,” Ehlow said.

Biller was also the target of harassment while he was on a business trip about two months ago, police said. Sometime in late December or early January, vandals broke off the gas cap to his new BMW and poured maple syrup into the tank, cut the left front brake line and scratched the doors, fenders and trunk lid, Ehlow said. Police said a connection between the two crimes is “possible.”

The German-born Biller, 44, remains in fair condition at UCI Medical Center with burns on 20% of his body, mostly around his face and neck, hospital spokeswoman Barbara Firger said.

Biller moved to San Clemente from Atlanta about 18 months ago, and his business trips have taken him to South America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, a neighbor said. Neither the neighbor nor other sources would say what company Biller worked for, but his girlfriend, Cynthia Olson, said the firm is involved in exports.

Olson, a registered nurse and student at Long Beach City College, said she was with Biller when Tim appeared at his hillside home on Avenida Salvador Sunday afternoon. “The doorbell rang, he went out and came back and said ‘I may have a couple of problems,’ ” said Olson, 31. “He briefed me on her--he said he had met her in Thailand, had a couple of dates with her and saw her a couple of times when he went back on business. She invited him to dinner once, and when he got there, there were about 25 guests with her father and the whole family. He was supposed to marry her, he thinks.”

Tim came into the house to use the bathroom, Olson said, and then sat down to smoke a cigarette.

Olson said she and Biller told the Thai woman, who appeared to be in her late 20s, that they were on their way out to dinner, but Tim refused to leave.

“She asked me if I wanted to go to bed with him,” Olson said. When Biller grabbed her hand to lead her out the door, Tim began kicking and biting, Olson and police said, at which point Biller slapped her. “He didn’t slap her hard, but he did slap her,” she said.

Biller gave the same account to police.

Biller and Olson eventually left for dinner. When they returned, Tim’s car was still parked in front of Biller’s house. Tim was not in sight, Olson said, but the car, described by police as a Datsun B-210, remained there until about 5 that morning.

That night--Monday--Biller and Olson were playing Trivial Pursuit in the living room when the doorbell rang several times shortly after 10 p.m. When Biller asked who was there, a man answered “ ‘flowers’--like he was delivering flowers,” Lt. Ehlow said. When Biller opened the door, the man threw the acid in his face and fled, Ehlow said.

Biller ran back into the house “with his pants and shirt melting off,” Olson said. Biller yelled at her to call for help and described his attacker before running into the shower to rinse off the burning liquid.

“He’s a real mess right now,” Olson said. “They don’t know if he’ll be able to see out of his (right) eye again. But he doesn’t really like to complain.”

Biller declined to be interviewed from his room in the UCI burn clinic, where doctors may perform surgery on Biller today, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Biller’s wife, Traudl, who lives in Atlanta with the couple’s daughter, said that she had also met Tim “in a bar once” in Atlanta and that Tim had called her a few times looking for her husband. She and Biller came to the United States 19 years ago from Munich, she said, and have been separated “for a few years.”