Family, Boyfriend Describe Search for Knott the Night She Disappeared

In emotional and often gripping detail, Cara Knott’s relatives and fiance testified Friday about their desperate and relentless search for the young woman the night she disappeared on her way home along Interstate 15.

Occasionally collapsing into tears, Knott’s parents told jurors in the retrial of former California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Peyer that they became concerned when their daughter failed to arrive home as scheduled on Dec. 27, 1986, and that they immediately set out to find her.

Family members and Wayne Bautista, Knott’s boyfriend, said they searched through the night, combing the freeway and each off-ramp between Escondido and the Knotts’ El Cajon home. Knott’s mother, Joyce, described her fruitless calls to hospitals and police agencies. Her father told of desperately scanning construction sites and parking lots in hopes of spotting his daughter.

‘Screamed and Yelled’

Just before dawn, Cara’s sister, Cynthia, and her husband, Bill Weick, discovered Knott’s car, parked with its keys in the ignition on an eerie cul-de-sac near the Mercy Road exit of I-15. The couple searched the area and “screamed and yelled” for Knott, Cynthia testified, but got no response.

Summoned to the scene, police later found Knott’s body at the bottom of a nearby ravine. She had been strangled.

Peyer, 38, was on duty along the I-15 corridor the night Knott, a San Diego State University student, disappeared. Two dozen women have testified that Peyer pulled them over on the darkened Mercy Road off-ramp and engaged them in lengthy conversations. Prosecutors say the 20-year-old Knott was also stopped by Peyer, and allege that he strangled her and threw her body from an abandoned, 65-foot-high bridge about a mile from the freeway exit.

In February, jurors in Peyer’s first trial deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of conviction. Peyer, who was fired by the CHP last year, has been free on bail since March, 1987.

Friday’s court session before Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman began with testimony from Bautista, who described how Knott spent the day of Dec. 27 nursing him through a bad case of the flu at his Escondido home. Shortly after 8 that night, Bautista said, he was feeling better and Knott decided to go home.

Before leaving, Knott telephoned her parents to let them know she was on her way, said Bautista, who noted that his girlfriend was diligent about keeping friends and relatives informed of her whereabouts.

Departure-Time Disparity

Knott then stopped for gasoline at the Chevron station on Via Rancho Parkway, according to Sal Marchesi, who was on duty at the station that night and remembers seeing Knott pull in.

Exactly when she left the station was the subject of some dispute Friday. In the first trial, the station’s owner said computer records indicated her transaction was concluded at 8:27; on Friday, the same witness said he erred and that the actual time was 8:32.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst downplayed the five-minute difference, but defense attorney Robert Grimes may use the disparity to attack prosecutors’ efforts to place Peyer and Knott at the Via Rancho Parkway on-ramp to I-15 at the same time.

After refueling, Knott headed toward the southbound on-ramp, Marchesi testified. Police have not found anyone who reported seeing her alive again.

Meanwhile, Knott’s relatives were gathered in El Cajon, enjoying a peaceful holiday evening. As the hour grew late, the family became concerned.

“We had watched a . . . video of ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ” Joyce Knott testified in a shaky voice, “and when that was over we had a puzzle. And we weren’t really watching the clock. And I went into the kitchen and noticed the time and said, ‘Gee, Cara’s not home.’ ”

Prowled the Freeways

When his daughter had failed to arrive by 10 p.m., Sam Knott--noting that it normally took Cara 45 minutes to make the trip home--said he suddenly “jumped up” and decided to look for her.

In the ensuing eight hours, Knott’s relatives and Bautista prowled the freeways, searching each exit in hopes that Cara had had car trouble and had pulled off to seek help. They also drove to the homes of friends and relatives in case Knott had made a stop. Spotting a CHP cruiser at one point, Knott’s parents gave two patrolmen their daughter’s license number and told them of their search.

Gradually, as he expanded his hunt to a park and building sites, Sam Knott said, a feeling of doom crept over him.

“I knew she had been kidnaped, had probably been raped,” he said, his voice cracking and his hands gripping the front of the witness stand. “I had all those horrible thoughts as a father.”

Sometime after 6 a.m., Knott said, he was passed by a speeding San Diego police car. He followed, and the chase took them down the Mercy Road off-ramp. When he arrived at the bottom, he saw his daughter Cynthia and Weick. Then he saw Cara’s Volkswagen.

“I slowed down, I stopped my car,” Knott said. “I knew. I knew.”

‘He Started Crying’

As police questioned Cynthia, Knott said he “stood and quietly watched. . . . I saw an officer open up the trunk of his car and turn his back and put on a pair of gloves. Then he very casually walked down the dirt road” toward the ravine where Knott’s body was found.

When the officer returned 20 minutes later and removed his gloves, Knott said, he approached another police official.

“I looked at him, man to man, eye to eye, and he started crying, and he told me my daughter was dead,” Knott recalled.

Two other witnesses who testified in the trial’s fourth day said they had been stopped by Peyer on I-15 the night Knott was killed. Both witnesses were used in an attempt by prosecutors to place Peyer at the Via Rancho Parkway on-ramp at the same time Knott is likely to have used it.

Denise Hegrat-Thomas said she received a speeding ticket from Peyer while traveling south near Mira Mesa Boulevard. The stop lasted five minutes and occurred shortly before 8 p.m., she said.

Dennis Leahy said he was stopped just after 8 p.m. near Poway Road. The encounter lasted 20 minutes, Leahy recalled, noting that he received a speeding ticket and that a passenger in his car was cited for having an open container of beer. Leahy said Peyer followed him on the freeway for a while before exiting.

Earlier in the trial, a police detective testified that he measured the time it takes to travel on I-15 from Poway Road to Via Rancho Parkway, driving at 60 m.p.h. Detective William Nulton said it takes 10 minutes to make the trip.

On Monday, Pfingst said, he expects to present testimony from witnesses who saw a CHP car pull over a Volkswagen at Mercy Road the night Knott was killed.