Suspect Seized in Strangling of Woman Dumped on Road

A police task force investigating the strangulation slayings of 40 women near San Diego arrested a transient suspected in one of the killings Tuesday, authorities said.

Alan Michael Stevens, 46, was arrested on suspicion of murder in a van parked in a commercial area of San Marcos, about 40 miles north of San Diego, Sheriff’s Sgt. Liz Foster said.

Stevens, who apparently was living in the van, is suspected of killing Cindy Lou McVey, 26, of Livermore, who disappeared last month while looking for work in northern San Diego County. Her body was found dumped along California 76 on the remote Pala Indian Reservation.

“The arrest is the result of evidence obtained after the discovery of McVey’s body on Nov. 29,” Foster said, declining to provide further details.

McVey died as a result of strangulation, according to the San Diego County coroner’s report. She was a transient from the San Francisco area.

Foster said there currently is no evidence linking Stevens to any other slayings.

“That possibility (involvement in other slayings) exists, but at this time he is charged with one murder,” Foster said.

McVey was the latest of 40 women--most of them prostitutes and transients--who have been found strangled along rural stretches of highways outside San Diego over the past four years. Investigators from the San Diego Metropolitan Homicide Task Force believe that the killings may be the work of a serial killer or killers.

The task force includes investigators from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, San Diego Police Department and the district attorney’s office. The cases under investigation date back to 1985.