Show Spurs Arrest of Man Sought by S.D. Police

A man who was the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the 1986 disappearance of a San Diego nurse was arrested in Tucson after the airing of a network television program about unsolved mysteries.

Robert Dean Weeks, 58, was arrested by Tucson detectives Tuesday, after several viewers called police to say he was the man pictured in the program and wanted by San Diego police for questioning about the disappearance of Carol Ann Riley. Riley, 42, a nurse at Scripps Clinic, disappeared April 5, 1986.

The NBC program, which aired Monday night, was titled “Unsolved Mysteries” and detailed several crimes and mysterious disappearances where suspects, including Weeks, were being sought by police.

Sgt. Paul Hallums, a Tucson police spokesman, said that Weeks has lived in Tucson since May, 1986, and was using the name Charles F. Stolzenberg.

Held on $3 Million Bond

Las Vegas police also want to question Weeks about the disappearances, dating back to 1968, of a man and two women, one of them his wife. Tucson police arrested Weeks on a Nevada fugitive warrant charging him with embezzlement. Kathy Barber, spokeswoman for the Pima County prosecutor’s office, said Wednesday that Weeks is being held on $3 million bond on the Las Vegas warrant and still is facing an appearance in federal court on an FBI warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

The search for Weeks by San Diego police began 13 months ago, but Las Vegas police have been looking for him since 1980 to question him about the disappearances of his ex-wife, Patricia Weeks, 41, in 1968; a former girlfriend, Cynthia Jabour, 43, in 1980, and a business partner, Jim Shaw, in 1971.

Each of the women allegedly disappeared after severing her relationship with Weeks and agreeing to meet him one last time for dinner, police said. However, Weeks has not been charged in the disappearances of the two women and Shaw, Las Vegas police said. San Diego Police Homicide Lt. Phil Jarvis said Weeks has not been charged in Riley’s disappearance, but police want to question him about his relationship with her.

Riley disappeared on a day when she was supposed to have dinner with Weeks. Her car was found three days later in the parking lot of the Hanalei Hotel. Friends said Riley dated Weeks occasionally and had told him that she planned to move to Colorado before she disappeared.

‘Lot of Questions’

“We have a lot of questions about Carol’s disappearance and want to question him,” Jarvis said.

A San Diego homicide detective was sent to Tucson on Wednesday to meet with Las Vegas Police Detective Carol Grant, who has been searching for Weeks for seven years, Jarvis said. The San Diego investigator will compare notes with Grant and interview witnesses, while San Diego police prepare an affidavit in support of a search warrant for Weeks’ Tucson home, Jarvis said.

Hallums said that Weeks’ current girlfriend was among the people who called Tucson police to say that Weeks was the man wanted for questioning in Riley’s disappearance.

“We have some information that he was dating one woman for several months. Some of the woman’s friends called her Monday night and told her to look at the program, because Weeks looked a lot like her boyfriend, Stolzenberg. She did and she was one of the people who called us,” Hallums said.

Reports Studied

Hallums declined to identify the woman, but said that she is in her early 40s, about the same age as the women who disappeared after allegedly meeting with Weeks. Tucson police are studying reports of missing women to learn if any of them were tied to Weeks, Hallums said.

Tucson police said Weeks was arrested at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at a business that he co-owns. It manufactures smokeless ashtrays.

“Two detectives went to his place, walked up to him and called him by his real name. They called him Bob and he turned around and answered. Then they asked him if his name was Bob Weeks and he said yes and he was arrested,” Hallums said.

Weeks did not resist and has been “real cool, passive and calm,” Hallums said.

Police said that the NBC station in Tucson received several calls about Weeks during the program, and the station referred the callers to authorities. Before Weeks’ arrest, the station gave police a videotape of the program.

“We needed it to spot him and see what he looked like. He looks exactly as the guy on the program,” Hallums said.