San Diego Police Warn Park’s Transients After 3 Are Slain

Detectives believe the killings of three transients in Balboa Park over an eight-day period were committed by the same person, and officers went through the park Monday to warn the homeless who live there.

Men living in the park alone should be especially careful, police said. All three victims were men, said Deputy Police Chief Mike Rice.

“Men by themselves in the park after dark should use extreme care,” Rice said. “There is someone out there who has already killed three of them.”

Homicide detectives refused to discuss the evidence they said confirmed that the killings were related. They said, however, through department spokesman Bill Robinson, that their investigation has “conclusively linked three recent homicides in Balboa Park.”

The series began with the discovery Nov. 19 of the body of David Siino, a 31-year-old transient. A person feeding squirrels found Siino’s body in the park’s secluded Redwood Circle area.

On Friday, the body of 60-year-old Edward Hope was found in a park area adjacent to California 163 and a northbound ramp to Interstate 5. Hope had been dead for three to five days, Robinson said.

The most recent victim was identified as Brian Poole, 36, a transient whose body was found Saturday in a bathroom in the park’s Marston Point area.

“All three had been murdered with multiple gunshot wounds,” Robinson said.

Police recently increased their presence in Balboa Park in response to an unrelated rash of assaults and burglaries of park-goers.

According to Robinson, hundreds of transients seek shelter in the park on most nights.