Convicted in Orange County Case : Sex Offender Named Suspect in Girl’s Death

A 33-year-old man convicted in an Orange County child molestation case and in custody on an alleged parole violation was identified by authorities Tuesday as a suspect in the kidnaping and murder of 8-year-old Sylvia Elaine Mangos of Twentynine Palms.

Clifton Eugene Mitchell, a truck driver from the desert community of Pioneertown, was linked to the murder by physical evidence found in a car he was driving on the day the girl was abducted from a Yucca Valley swap meet, San Bernardino County Sheriff Floyd Tidwell said at a press conference. Pioneertown is about five miles northwest of Yucca Valley.

Tidwell said no charges have been filed against Mitchell in the murder, but added: “He is our only suspect at this point. . . . We believe that he acted alone.”

“It appears that the motive for this tragic case was sexual. . . . Sylvia was apparently a random victim of opportunity,” the sheriff said.

Tidwell said Sylvia, a third-grade student at Twentynine Palms Elementary School, was apparently killed “several days” before her fully clothed body was discovered April 5 beside a dirt road in the desert, about 23 miles northwest of the swap meet site. She had vanished March 27.

It is believed that she had been sexually molested and died from “several blows to the head,” Tidwell said. A murder weapon has not been found, he said.

Mitchell was taken into custody Thursday at the request of his parole officer for alleged “narcotics usage.” Mitchell’s statements to sheriff’s investigators contained inconsistencies about his activities during the time frame in which the girl disappeared, Tidwell said. Mitchell was paroled 18 months ago after serving 1 1/2 years of a three-year sentence for one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14.

State Department of Corrections officials said Mitchell was one of several registered sex offenders living in the high-desert area of San Bernardino County who have been interviewed by sheriff’s investigators in recent days.

Sex Crimes Conviction

Mitchell’s 1985 conviction in Orange County Superior Court came after he was charged with four counts resulting from a series of sexual incidents over a three-year period with a girl who was 13 when the incidents began, state regional parole office spokesman Harold White said.

White said Mitchell, who was living in the city of Orange at the time, “did not use force in any of this activity.”

Mitchell was paroled Sept. 9, 1986, after he reduced his sentence under a work-credit program, state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Christine May said.

Mitchell then moved to Placentia, where he lived in an apartment in the 1000 block of East Imperial Highway, according to state Department of Motor Vehicles records.

The Placentia address was Mitchell’s only recent address until he notified the DMV on Jan. 6 of his Yucca Valley area address, a DMV spokeswoman said.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies also are handling the kidnaping and murder of 14-year-old Wendy Rachelle Osborn, whose body was found in the county’s Chino Hills area 12 days after she was reported missing while walking to her Placentia school Jan. 20, 1987. They said it is “too early” in the Sylvia Mangos investigation to consider Mitchell as a possible suspect in the case of Wendy Osborn.

“No, that hasn’t even been looked at or even been considered (because) it’s entirely too early in this investigation,” San Bernardino Sheriff’s Investigator Jerry Tesselaar said.

On Tuesday, Placentia police were referring media inquiries in the Osborn case to San Bernardino authorities, Placentia Police Sgt. Steven Toth said.

An autopsy showed that Wendy had been strangled and sexually molested.

Law enforcement officials at one time thought they had a prime suspect in her death in Warren James Bland, a 51-year-old convicted sex offender who was arrested in February, 1987, on suspicion of killing 7-year-old Phoebe Ho of South Pasadena.

But officials have said that Bland, who is in Riverside County Jail awaiting trial in the Ho slaying, is no longer considered a suspect in the Wendy Osborn case.

Mitchell was considered for discharge from parole in September, 1987, but “because of the seriousness of the offense and because of marital problems he was having at the time, we recommended that he be retained on parole,” White said. “We weren’t sure what effect the marital problems would have on him.”

White said Mitchell had previous convictions, in 1974, for second-degree burglary, grand theft and auto theft. White also said Mitchell served in the Marine Corps from 1972 to 1974, when he was released from military service on an undesirable discharge.

Automobile Seized

Sheriff’s investigators have seized the 1983 blue Honda Prelude that Mitchell, who worked as a truck driver in the Los Angeles area, was seen driving in the vicinity of the swap meet when Sylvia disappeared, Tidwell said. That car, which was registered to Mitchell’s mother, was one of three vehicles belonging to the Mitchell family seized by investigators, he said.

“Preliminary examination of the vehicle has revealed physical evidence that we believe will prove that the victim was abducted in that car,” Tidwell said. He added that it was highly possible that Sylvia died in the car.

Tidwell said that in addition to physical evidence, “we’ve got some folks who think they saw him in certain places at critical times.”

Tidwell said that the investigation will continue and that he expects to turn the case over to the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office for prosecution within a week.

A task force of 50 investigators has worked “day and night for 15 days, expending thousands of man-hours, conducting over 1,000 interviews and serving several warrants, eventually narrowing the case,” Tidwell said.