Bloodstains Found on Peyer’s Trousers : Cleaner Says Officer Left Pants at His Shop Day After Body Was Found

The owner of a Poway dry-cleaning business testified Tuesday that a pair of bloodstained uniform trousers owned by former California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Peyer was taken to his shop one day after Cara Knott’s body was found in a ravine off Interstate 15.

Testifying in Peyer’s retrial on a charge of murdering Knott, William Coleman said his records include a receipt dated Dec. 29, 1986, for a pair of tan trousers belonging to a “C. Peyer.” He said the receipt bears instructions to “pre-spot for blood.”

Coleman, the owner of Continental Cleaners on Poway Road, is a new witness. In Peyer’s first trial, the ex-patrolman’s wife, Karen, testified that her husband showed the blood spot to her and asked whether she thought it would come out.

Also Tuesday, a series of witnesses testified about physical evidence recovered both in the dry creek bed where Knott’s body was found and on the old U.S. 395 bridge from which prosecutors say she was thrown.

Didn’t Patrol Off-Ramp

In addition, a string of San Diego police officers assigned to the area of the Mercy Road exit near where Knott was found strangled testified that they did not patrol the off-ramp the night the 20-year-old college student disappeared and had no contact with her.

Meanwhile, the secrecy that has cloaked much of the 9-day-old retrial continued as the attorneys and judge in the case conducted two hearings--lasting 90 minutes in all--out of view of the public and media.

The hearings were the latest in a series of lengthy sessions that Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman has ordered closed, despite repeated requests by newspaper attorneys that press coverage be permitted.

On Friday, efforts to shield the proceedings reached new heights when a young woman was escorted into the courthouse by way of a seldom-used maintenance entrance by county marshals and a San Diego police detective. Tape was placed over windows in the courtroom doors, preventing any view of what went on inside.

Secrecy Maintained

When the woman left an hour and 10 minutes later, four deputy marshals forced reporters waiting in the public hallway to stand in an area that made catching a glimpse of her impossible.

Neither attorney in the widely publicized case would comment on the nature of any of the closed sessions, and Huffman has sealed the transcript. Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst said only that the woman who appeared Friday “is not a witness with anything to say about Mr. Peyer himself.”

Huffman, who has chastised reporters for certain stories and repeatedly expressed his concern that publicity jeopardizes Peyer’s right to an impartial jury, addressed the issue of secrecy briefly before the jury was called in at the start of Tuesday’s session.

Speculation Called False

“One of the great disadvantages of closed sessions is it gives cause for speculation,” Huffman said. The judge added that speculation that the woman in court Friday was a “secret witness” testifying about “bad things Mr. Peyer did” is “false and has no foundation in fact.”

Peyer, 38, was on patrol along Interstate 15 the night Knott was driving home to El Cajon on Dec. 27, 1986. Prosecutors say Peyer pulled her off the freeway at Mercy Road, strangled her and threw her body from the U. S. 395 bridge nearby. Knott’s body was found beneath the bridge, and her Volkswagen Beetle was parked in the vicinity with the keys in the ignition and the driver’s window partly rolled down.

On Feb. 25, jurors in Peyer’s first trial deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of conviction. Peyer, who was fired by the Highway Patrol last year, has been free on bail since March, 1987.

Dispatched to Scene

San Diego Police Officer James Spears testified Tuesday that he was dispatched to Mercy Road early on Dec. 28 in response to a call from relatives of Knott who had found her car. Spears said a cursory search of the rugged, brushy area revealed no sign of Knott. He said he tested the car to ensure it had fuel and was operable before summoning the sergeant on duty.

Spears also testified that he saw a smudge of blood in the left door jamb on Knott’s Volkswagen.

San Diego homicide Detective Lt. Philip Jarvis testified that he recovered a strand of long blond hair from the eastern railing of the U.S. 395 bridge. Jarvis also said he directed evidence technician Barbara Beck to recover several purple fibers he had noticed on the same railing.

Under questioning by Pfingst, Beck provided a lengthy inventory of the evidence she collected to assist homicide investigators. Beck said that each of the scores of pieces of evidence--including fibers, hair samples from Peyer and Knott, blood samples from Peyer and Knott, and fingernail scrapings from the two--was carefully documented and given a number. She said it was then placed in the Police Department’s property room, where a clerk controlled access to it.

The meticulous accounting obtained from Beck was an apparent effort by Pfingst to counter criticism by Grimes that police were sloppy in their handling of evidence. In the first trial, Grimes suggested that careless procedures may have caused fibers from Knott’s clothing to fall into a sack containing Peyer’s clothing. He made no such suggestion on Tuesday.

Grimes also raised questions in the first trial about shoe prints found in a sandy area on the U.S. 395 bridge, suggesting that they belonged to Knott’s killer. Under questioning from the defense attorney, Beck acknowledged that Peyer’s boots did not match the footprints found on the bridge.

Although he raised the shoe-print issue on Tuesday, Grimes did not ask Beck whether or not the prints matched Peyer’s boots.

In another discrepancy, however, Beck testified under cross-examination by Grimes that she collected blood samples from Knott’s body on Dec. 29, which she said was before an autopsy was conducted. On Friday, however, coroner’s pathologist Lee Bockhacker testified that he performed Knott’s autopsy on Dec. 28 at 1 p.m.