Ex-Patrolman Convicted of Killing Student

Former California Highway Patrol officer Craig Peyer was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday in the strangling of a San Diego State University student he stopped while on duty.

Peyer tightened his jaw and glanced downward briefly as the clerk read the jury’s verdict aloud in a packed San Diego County Superior Court chamber. Judge Richard Huffman ordered Peyer held without bail until his sentencing on July 20, when he could be sent to state prison for a term of 25 years to life.

As his wife, Karen, stared blankly and his parents hung their heads, Peyer was whisked from the courtroom by two marshals.

Peyer, 38, was accused of stopping Cara Knott, 20, of El Cajon, at the isolated Mercy Road exit on Interstate 15, strangling her with a rope and throwing her body from an abandoned highway bridge nearby. Knott’s body was found Dec. 28, 1986. Her Volkswagen--in running condition--was parked nearby on a deserted frontage road with the keys in the ignition and the driver’s window partly rolled down.

The former patrolman, a 13-year veteran until he was fired by the CHP on May 28, 1987, had been free on bail for more than a year.

Peyer is the second CHP officer convicted in connection with a murder committed while on duty. In 1984, former Patrolman George Michael Gwaltney was convicted in federal court on civil rights violations stemming from the slaying of an actress near Barstow. That conviction followed two Superior Court murder trials that ended with hung juries.

An Appeal Is Planned

Defense attorney Robert Grimes said his client will appeal the verdict, which jurors reached after four days of deliberations.

Almost four months ago, Peyer’s first trial ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked 7 to 5 for conviction on the murder charge.

In both trials, the prosecution lacked eyewitnesses placing Peyer in contact with Knott, and instead built its case on a wide array of physical evidence and on testimony from two dozen women stopped at night by the patrolman in 1986.

Sophisticated tests found that a spot of blood on Knott’s boot matched Peyer’s in type and numerous genetic markings--and could have come from only 0.6% of the San Diego County population, or about 12,800 people. Six tiny fabric fibers also were said to link Peyer and Knott. One unusually dyed gold fiber found on Knott’s bloodstained sweat shirt matched gold threads from the CHP patch on Peyer’s jacket, experts testified.

A 4-foot-long rope found in the trunk of Peyer’s patrol car was consistent with ligature marks on Knott’s neck and was the murder weapon, prosecutors argued, pointing out that the rope was not standard CHP equipment.

Women Testify

More than 20 women, many of them young and attractive Volkswagen owners, testified that Peyer forced them to the bottom of the unlighted Mercy Road off-ramp and engaged them in lengthy conversations about their personal lives. Many were never given citations; none said Peyer made sexual advances.

Prosecutors said that pattern of unorthodox stops demonstrated that Peyer had a “predatory nature.” They theorized that Peyer killed Knott after she threatened to complain about the encounter to his superiors.

Although the evidence was largely the same in both trials, in the second trial Judge Huffman granted a number of prosecution motions that seemed to damage the defense case. Chief among these was a ruling barring witnesses from testifying about Peyer’s explanation for scratches seen on his face the night Knott died--scratches that prosecutors argued were inflicted by Knott.

In the first trial, these witnesses said the patrolman told them his face was injured when he fell against a chain-link fence. But Huffman later ruled that that evidence was hearsay, and said Peyer would have to take the stand if he wished to offer the explanation to jurors.

Peyer did not testify in either of his trials.

Attack Evidence

The defense maintained that the prosecution had failed to prove that Peyer ever had contact with Knott. Grimes attacked the blood and fiber evidence as inconclusive and suggested that two prosecution witnesses--a couple who said they saw a CHP car stop a Volkswagen at Mercy Road the night Knott died--had made up their story.

Grimes also argued that coroners botched Knott’s autopsy by failing to take the temperature of her liver at the crime scene. Conducting that procedure and others could have established an approximate time of death and would have exonerated Peyer, Grimes argued.

Members of the Knott family, who sat in the courtroom throughout the monthlong trial, collapsed into quiet sobs when the verdict was announced and embraced and clutched hands after Peyer was taken into custody. Knott’s father, Samuel, shook hands with the prosecutors before reading a statement thanking the public and those who showed “outstanding diligence” in working to solve his daughter’s murder.

“We put our trust in the criminal justice system and feel justice has finally been served,” Knott said. “This has been a long and painful process. No verdict does true justice or eases the loss of our precious Cara.”

’ A Great Relief’

Cara Knott’s mother, Joyce Knott, said the conviction was “a great relief” but does not make the loss of her daughter any easier to bear.

Karen Peyer, in an interview with reporters outside her Poway home, reiterated her belief in her husband’s innocence.

“This is a real hard time for us, but we’ll all take it one step at a time,” she said. “We are united as a family. We trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith is in him. I love my husband. I stand by him and will always be married to him.”

Jurors in the case left the courthouse through a rear exit and declined to talk with reporters. One juror reached later by telephone, retired marine biologist Edda D. Bradstreet, 58, said only, “I think murder one says it all.”

Reaction From CHP

Cmdr. Kent Milton, chief spokesman for the Highway Patrol in Sacramento, said he does not believe that the guilty verdict has adversely affected the agency’s image.

“We never thought of it in those terms,” he said. “Craig Peyer was terminated long ago. The murder was the problem and we dealt with that. So whatever the verdict was didn’t really seem to impinge on the organization any longer.”

The Knotts have a civil lawsuit pending against the state of California, the CHP and Peyer. The complaint seeks unspecified damages for emotional loss, funeral expenses and the deprivation of Knott’s earning potential.

Times staff writers Jane Fritsch, Tom Gorman, H. G. Reza and Richard A. Serrano contributed to this report.