Opening Arguments Made in Peyer Retrial

Launching the retrial of Craig Peyer, prosecutors said Tuesday that an array of physical evidence plus testimony from eyewitnesses add up to irrefutable proof that the former California Highway Patrol officer strangled a university student on a winter night 17 months ago.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst, in a 40-minute statement previewing the trial, predicted that blood and fiber evidence analyzed through sophisticated forensic techniques, along with testimony from a long lineup of witnesses, will leave jurors “with no reasonable doubt” that Peyer killed Cara Knott.

Defense attorney Robert Grimes painted a different picture, telling jurors that the prosecution’s evidence falls “far short” and fails to prove that Peyer ever had contact with Knott on Dec. 27, 1986.

Fast-Paced Presentation

In a fast-paced presentation lasting nearly an hour, Grimes took swipes at prosecution witnesses and raised questions about nearly every piece of evidence in the district attorney’s arsenal.

He made no mention of a specific, alternative suspect in the slaying, but Grimes noted that fingerprints lifted from Knott’s Volkswagen have yet to be identified and said a young couple near the scene the night of the slaying will testify that they heard a suspicious bang after Peyer was back at CHP headquarters.

Knott’s body was found by San Diego police Dec. 28, 1986, in a dry creek bed near the Mercy Road exit of Interstate 15 in North County. She had been strangled, and prosecutors say her body was thrown from an abandoned, 65-foot-high bridge of U.S. 395.

Peyer’s first trial ended Feb. 25 when jurors, after seven days of deliberations, deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of convicting him of murder.

Peyer, 38, was a 13-year veteran of the CHP until he was fired last year by the agency, which concluded bluntly in a report that he killed Knott. Peyer, who lives in Poway, has been free on bail since March, 1987.

Although Pfingst’s opening statement did not reveal any evidence not introduced during the first trial, the prosecutor, who was brought from North County for the retrial, appeared to be taking a different approach to the widely publicized case.

The choice of his first witness--CHP Capt. Lee Denno, commander of the San Diego office--demonstrated an effort to immediately focus the jury’s attention on Peyer. By contrast, the initial witnesses in the first trial were Knott’s family members, who provided emotional accounts of the night the 20-year-old San Diego State University student was killed.

Denno, who will resume his testimony today, testified that Peyer’s habit of stopping motorists at the bottom of the dark Mercy Road off-ramp and allegedly out of view of passing cars violated CHP regulations. He said the dirt shoulder of I-15 near Mercy Road is 10 feet wide and affords plenty of room for traffic stops, and he added that officers are required to remain in sight of passing traffic while issuing citations.

“An officer does not want to place himself out of view of the public in case he is placed in a compromising position and faces allegations of misconduct,” Denno said.

Pfingst also queried Denno about the CHP’s policy on the proper length of traffic stops. Women called by the prosecution in the first trial testified that the stops Peyer made on the off-ramp were unusually long, some lasting more than 90 minutes.

“Officers are told to keep their contact with the public, the time, to a minimum,” Denno said.

Pfingst, exhibiting a controlled, no-nonsense style, used his opening statement to outline the prosecution’s theory of why Knott failed to reach her El Cajon home that December night--and who is to blame for it.

He said Knott left the Escondido house of her boyfriend, who was ill, and paused at a gas station on her way home. After fueling up at the station on Via Rancho Parkway at 8:27 p.m., Knott continued south on I-15, Pfingst said, noting that her credit card slip lists the time of her gasoline purchase.

“That was the last time Cara Knott was seen alive,” he said.

Peyer was in the vicinity at the time, Pfingst said, noting that the officer had issued a ticket 20 minutes earlier to a motorist just down the highway.

“Cara Knott was going southbound, but she never made it past Mercy Road,” Pfingst said, his voice so soft that some jurors leaned forward to hear. “Some people on the highway that night saw a CHP car pull over a Volkswagen. Cara Knott disappeared after that time. (Peyer) disappeared for a period of time . . . as well. He also fell off the face of that earth.”

Grimes delivered a considerably longer opening statement than in the first trial, and spent much of it attacking the prosecution’s physical evidence. For starters, he tried to erode the prosecution’s blood evidence, which showed that blood spots on Knott’s clothing matched Peyer’s Type A blood.

“If you feel that every test they did was accurate, then Craig Peyer was in a group of thousands of people--thousands--who could have been donors of that blood,” Grimes said.

He also challenged the strength of the prosecution’s fiber evidence, a key ingredient used to link Peyer with Knott in the first trial. Grimes said the evidence is inconclusive. And he pointed out that, although Peyer stopped many women on the Mercy Road off-ramp, none testified that he made any advances or otherwise acted inappropriately.

The start of Tuesday’s session was delayed two hours for reasons that neither the judge nor attorneys would disclose. Finally, at 11 a.m., Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman called jurors into the packed courtroom and told them to return for opening arguments at 1:30. He then heard arguments on two defense motions.

The first motion concerned testimony from women stopped by Peyer at the off-ramp. Diane Campbell, co-counsel with Grimes, argued that the women should not be allowed to share with the jurors their personal feelings about the propriety of the stops. Some women testified in the first trial that the stops, some of which involved personal questions from Peyer, made them uncomfortable and frightened.

Campbell also sought to bar prosecutors from introducing new testimony from men who were stopped near the Mercy Road exit but not ordered to drive down the off-ramp, which leads to a cul-de-sac.

Pfingst said he wants to present that testimony to show Peyer had a “pattern” of directing women down the off-ramp and that “men need not apply” for such treatment. But Campbell argued that such testimony is irrelevant and inflammatory and constitutes character evidence that jurors should not be allowed to consider in their deliberations.

Huffman rejected both defense motions, as well as a third motion--also made and rejected in the first trial--to the prosecution’s use of certain genetic marker tests on blood samples.

Today, the prosecution’s list of witnesses will include women pulled over by Peyer at the off-ramp.