4 Women Tell of Approach by Accused CHP Officer

A day after the arrest of a California Highway Patrol officer accused of murder in the strangulation of a San Diego State University student, at least four women drivers came forward with reports that they had been stopped under similar and unusual circumstances by the same officer.

In each case, the women said they were pulled over near the same Interstate 15 offramp bridge where the killing of Cara Evelyn Knott, 20, occurred. None was harmed or threatened by the accused officer, Craig Alan Peyer, they said, but all described his behavior as unusual.

Peyer, 36, charged with murdering Knott during a traffic stop on the night of Dec. 27, appeared for arrraignment in Municipal Court on Friday but the hearing was rescheduled for Wednesday at the request of attorney John Phillips, retained by Peyer for the hearing. Phillips said the officer needed additional time to decide on a defense attorney.

Judge Herbert J. Exarhos ordered Peyer held without bail and granted a prosecution request to keep a 50-page declaration for an arrest warrant under court seal. The declaration is believed to contain details of the investigation and prosecutors said its disclosure could lead to pretrial publicity that might force a change of venue.

Few Details Released

Details of the investigation remained scant, but Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph L. Van Orshoven told reporters that prosecutors do not intend to seek the death penalty, saying the case does not meet the special circumstances specified in the state’s capital punishment law.

Van Orshoven revealed Friday that CHP officials had discovered several “irregularities” in citations that were issued to women drivers by Peyer. However, he declined to elaborate on when the citations were issued, when they were determined to be “irregular” by CHP officials, or what made the citations unusual.

Van Orshoven acknowledged that some of the irregularities came to light after the killing when authorities received several phone calls from women who discussed the citations. CHP officials determined that the irregularities were not serious enough to warrant any action against Peyer, Van Orshoven said.

Earlier, Van Orshoven had said that the irregularities were serious enough to “can him,” but this drew a sharp reply from Ben Killingsworth, chief of the CHP’s border division. Killingsworth said that, until the investigation began, Peyer had been an exemplary officer with a clean record and CHP supervisors were not reviewing his conduct.

“He was under no investigation, in no trouble,” Killingsworth said. “There was nothing going on at the time this occurred or even up to the time the Police Department expressed some interest in talking to him.”

Van Orshoven, who was assigned to the case on Wednesday, amended his initial comment and downplayed the significance of the unusual citations after talking with Killingsworth.

Knott’s slaying, Van Orshoven said, probably occurred when the accused officer pulled her car over while she was en route to her El Cajon home. The woman had been visiting her boyfriend in Escondido.

Knott was strangled and her body thrown off a bridge into a creekbed off Interstate 15 near Poway. Her car was stopped on the bridge, which is on Mercy Road just off Interstate 15. Her body was found on the morning of Dec. 28 by her brother-in-law after a nightlong search by family members who became concerned when she did not arrive home. The woman’s Volkswagen was found on Mercy Road with the keys in the ignition.

No Evidence of Assault

Her body was fully clothed and San Diego County Coroner David Stark said there was no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted.

Sam Knott, the woman’s father, said that his daughter had taken two rape defense courses at SDSU. He said his daughter was cautious and that the family became concerned when she did not arrive home after calling ahead to let them know that she was en route.

Four women have told local reporters of what they described as unusual stops allegedly made by Peyer.

All of the women are young, attractive and have long, shoulder-length hair. They said they remember thinking it was strange for an officer to tell them to drive off the freeway onto a desolate, dark road. They all said Peyer was unusually friendly.

“He had me lift up my engine lid and showed me little things I could do to my engine to safeguard against a fire,” one woman told KFMB-TV. “He was very, very friendly.”

Another woman, comparing her encounter with Peyer to Knott’s, told a television reporter: “The only difference in our two stories is that I’m alive today.”

Donna Ziegler told KCST television that Peyer stopped her on the night of Dec. 16 while she was driving her Volkswagen along Interstate 15. Her husband, Sigurd, was sleeping in the passenger seat but was slumped down, not visible from passing cars. Ziegler said Peyer forced her to drive down the Mercy Road exit and park under the same bridge over which Knott’s body was thrown. Ziegler was cited for speeding.

“I feel now that he (was) very familiar with this area and location and attempted to do this many times before,” Donna Ziegler said. “I was afraid that, had I not traveled with my husband . . . it could have happened to me.”

Calling the traffic stop “spooky,” Sigurd Ziegler said he called the CHP and a San Diego police homicide detective. Neither, he said, was responsive to his concerns.

Ramonita Sanchez told reporters that, in July, Peyer pulled her over near the Mercy Road exit. She said Peyer made her back up on Mercy Road, where he gave her a written warning for a faulty headlight after engaging her in a long conversation.

Sanchez told The Times that when she pulled onto the shoulder of the freeway, Peyer told her over the loudspeaker, “No, not there,” and directed her to the Mercy Road exit.

‘Pitch Black’ Location

“It was pitch black,” Sanchez said of the location. “Anything could have happened to me. I could have screamed out and nobody would have heard me.”

Once Peyer took her license, Sanchez said, it took a long time for him to return to the car. Later, she got out of the car so Peyer could show her what was wrong with the headlight.

Sanchez said that Peyer was pleasant, that he remarked that they lived on the same street in Poway, then let her go with a warning.

Sanchez, who described the traffic stop as “strange,” said she was trembling when she got home. “It was frightening for me,” she said.

One unidentified woman told KFMB television that Peyer stopped her Volkswagen Beetle--the same type of car Knott and Ziegler were driving--late at night on Nov. 23 at the same location on Interstate 15. She said Peyer stated on his loudspeaker: “Volkswagen, take the offramp,” and later said, “Keep going! Keep going!” until she stopped on the frontage road.

“He was talk, talk, talk and really friendly,” the woman said. “The whole thing unnerved me--the fact he was so friendly. I was expecting him to ask me out on a date or something.”

The woman said Peyer let her go without issuing a traffic citation.

CHP Chief Killingsworth said that Peyer did not do anything wrong in telling the women to drive off the freeway.

“We encourage officers to take people off the freeway where there is a particular need, such as super heavy traffic, no shoulder, that kind of thing,” Killingsworth said.

After Friday’s court hearing, Van Orshoven told reporters that investigators had received several calls from citizens who told of “unusual contacts they had with a CHP officer.” Van Orshoven said they all involved women but added, “We can’t tell you that all of these calls specifically applied to this officer,” referring to Peyer.

Peyer was put on administrative leave Jan. 8, when homicide investigators told CHP officials that he was their prime suspect in the slaying.

A CHP official said the agency acted as soon as homicide investigators began linking the officer to the killing. He said that, on Jan. 5, a sergeant was assigned to watch Peyer, who was taken off the streets on Jan. 7 and put on administrative leave the following day.

“When things first developed, we didn’t want him to know he was a suspect,” said the CHP official, who asked not to be identified. “He was never working alone. Then we took him off the road. At one point, he was given a desk job. This thing just didn’t develop in an instant. It developed over a period of a couple of days. At the moment that we knew he was a real suspect, he was taken off the road and the moment that it went even beyond that, he was placed on administrative leave.”

Killingsworth said, “Everything that we did with Peyer was done with the concurrence and participation usually of the San Diego Police Department. We did nothing that they didn’t want us to do. We did not inform him that he was a suspect before San Diego police did.”

Shaken CHP officials on Friday appealed to the public to have faith in the department and not to respond with fear to requests or commands from the agency’s officers.

“Our whole system will not work unless people cooperate with the police and trust us. They don’t really have any choice but to trust us,” Killingsworth said.

As Peyer was arrested at 6:45 p.m. Thursday and led by police out of his Poway residence, the officer reportedly said, “And I didn’t even do it,” according to a KFMB television reporter who was at the scene.

Times staff writers Daniel M. Weintraub and Marcos Breton contributed to this story.