Blind, Deaf Student Is Slain in Assault by ‘Mountain Men’

A legally blind and deaf graduate student was killed in an alleged attack by four men who apparently picked him up hitchhiking, authorities said Sunday.

Ernie King, a 38-year-old father of two, died Friday night at Santa Cruz Community Hospital after suffering multiple skull fractures. He was pushed or fell from a pickup truck, Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies said.

A teen-ager using a pay phone near the scene of the incident at Summit Road, just east of California 17, told authorities that four “mountain men types” knocked King to the ground and beat and kicked him repeatedly. Results of an autopsy Saturday were not available, the Sheriff’s Department said.

“We’re still trying to find out who is responsible,” a sheriff’s spokesman said Sunday. The department was hoping that additional witnesses would be found.

“Maybe somebody who lives up there and was going home, and saw something, will come forward and help us find these guys,” the deputy said.

A career counselor at Ft. Ord, King was returning to Santa Cruz from a day of classes at San Jose State University, where he was studying for a graduate degree in counseling.

King’s wife, Nancy, said her husband usually relied on family and friends for rides, but often hitchhiked for the chance to talk with strangers about religion. King was a member of Gideons International.

“He often would do that as a way to witness to people about how God was working in his life,” said Ken Doolittle, a close friend. “He was the most gentle, soft-spoken person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was the kind of guy that if you asked for his shirt, he’d give you his shirt and his coat, too.”

Although legally blind, King wore glasses that allowed him some sight, Doolittle said. An accomplished golfer and regular runner, he had received his undergraduate degree in physical education from San Jose State. The Soquel native also had a teaching credential and taught at a Christian school in Watsonville several years ago, Doolittle said.