Reward Offered, Help Asked in Hunt for Police Officer’s Slayer

Despite weekend roadblocks and at least 20 telephone calls offering tips, police said Monday that they had little new information to lead them to the gunman who killed an off-duty police officer in a freeway encounter.

Police Chief John Cleghorn announced a $10,000 reward on Monday as he sought information from passers-by who may have seen the shooting that left Officer Patricia Dwyer, 45, dead and another woman seriously wounded.

“We are looking for some assistance from the public in this case,” Cleghorn said. “We have had some leads from the public, but we are looking for more.”

Investigators already are planning to repeat the roadblocks they set up Saturday night at Corona freeway exits in the hope of finding someone who witnessed the shooting or can better identify the suspect or his car.

Fellow Officers Puzzled

While the flags in front of the police station hung, barely stirring, at half staff Monday, her fellow officers were still trying to figure out how an apparently minor traffic incident could have prompted a fatal shotgun blast.

Only once before--in 1913--had a Corona police officer been murdered, Cleghorn said.

Members of the police force “are understandably down; they’ve lost a friend,” said Capt. John Dalzell. “Everybody’s buckling down to do their job so we can have a better chance of finding this guy. . . .”

The Riverside Firemen’s Benefit Assn. is putting up the $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. Officer Dwyer’s husband, Mike, is a captain in the Riverside City Fire Department.

Their three children--Holly, Michelle and Mark--range in age from 18 to 24.

Mike Dwyer was driving his son, Mark, to Riverside General Hospital after he had been injured in a motorcycle race Friday night in Costa Mesa. Another driver, apparently annoyed by Dwyer’s efforts to pass him, pulled to a Riverside Freeway off-ramp and fired a single 12-gauge slug at their van.

Slug Missed Injured Son

The soft lead slug cut an inch-wide hole in the side door of the brightly painted van, ripped through Patricia Dwyer’s chest and struck a family friend, Wendy Varga, in the throat. The slug missed Mark Dwyer, who was sitting on the bench seat between the two women.

Varga, 21, a Rancho Cucamonga resident, was reported in fair condition Monday at Corona Community Hospital. Her left arm was paralyzed, and she was unable to speak, police said.

But Varga was able to provide a partial license plate number from the gunman’s car that, coupled with a description of the car and the driver, is the primary focus of the Police Department’s investigation.

The gunman was described as being about 40 years old with receding, sandy-blond hair, wire-rimmed glasses and a neatly trimmed mustache, police said. “He was a big man,” about 6 feet tall and at least 200 pounds, Corona Police Detective Dale Stewart said.

He drove a white or light-beige, late-model, full-size sedan. His white California license plate begins with an unknown number and letter, followed by the letters “BS,” the numeral “0” and two more digits, Varga told police.

DMV Records Checked

“We’re not putting all of our marbles on this possible plate,” Stewart said, but investigators were sifting through a state Department of Motor Vehicles list of 50 Buicks with that combination of letters and numbers.

Meanwhile, funeral services were being arranged for Thursday morning at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona to commemorate Officer Dwyer, whom Cleghorn called “a pioneer.”

When she joined the department 12 years ago, there wasn’t a woman on the force of sworn officers. Today, the department has nine women--including a sergeant--among its 70 officers.