Serial Task Force Focuses on 3 Arrested for Attempted Murder

Three men arrested for the attempted murder of San Diego-area prostitutes are being investigated further by a special law enforcement task force to determine if they are responsible for a series of 3 dozen slayings in which street women have been killed and their bodies dumped in remote parts of the county.

The San Diego Metropolitan Homicide Task Force, which this week announced its renewal after a six-month beginning, detailed its suspicions about the three men in a lengthy status report released Friday.

The report also outlines the group’s method of investigation and says the task force is working in several key directions to gather evidence and locate what they now believe is more than one killer responsible for the slayings that began here in June, 1985.

The task force’s primary emphasis appears to be in comparing cases in which women have been assaulted but not slain, and hoping that their stories will lead detectives to the killers of the other women.

“Unlike some task force efforts in other parts of the country,” the report says, “the San Diego Metropolitan Homicide Task Force has adopted an investigative practice that is more broad and, it is felt, more in line with the needs of the public.”

The task force is made up of investigators from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, the San Diego Police Department and the county district attorney’s office. They made clear in their report that they do not suspect there is a lone killer.

“It is erroneous to conclude a single suspect committed all or even most of the killings,” the report says.

But, it adds, “It is likely one suspect did commit a substantial number of the homicides and suspected homicides.”

Until recently, the task force has been highly secretive about its work, declining even to say where its offices are. Within the past week, however, the task force has released two reports, perhaps reflecting a new approach to providing information to the public.

Eye on Three Cases

The three cases that detectives have focused on involve the arrests of Daniel Thomas Stafford, Blake Raymond Taylor and Ronald Porter.

- Stafford was arrested in connection with the October, 1987, attack on a juvenile prostitute.

According to the report, the attack occurred when the girl stepped into Stafford’s car, “expecting to perform an act of prostitution.” Instead, Stafford drove out Interstate 8 to the Pine Valley area, where he choked the girl and threatened her with a knife, the report says.

The girl escaped and fled half-naked until she was rescued by a passing truck driver. Stafford pleaded guilty to kidnaping after his arrest, the report says. In September, he was placed on five years’ probation and required to serve a year in custody.

“All detectives regarded this case as a possible instance where a homicide was intended but was not completed,” the report says. “Stafford remains under consideration for some of the subject homicides.”

- Taylor, of Lemon Grove, was arrested in the assault last June of Irene Quinland, whom the report describes as a “street prostitute.”

She told authorities she was working as a prostitute in the 4200 block of El Cajon Boulevard when she was picked up by the driver of a white Ford Bronco and driven to a secluded area near the San Diego River, beneath the Interstate 805 overpass, the report says.

Produced a Shotgun

The driver “produced a shotgun and stated he was going to kill her,” the report says. “He ordered this victim to lie down in the floor area of the Bronco and cover herself with a quilt or moving pad. As he started the car, Quinland managed to escape.”

She told investigators that the assailant said “he had to kill her because she might lead the police to him, and they would find out about the other girls.” She also said he “asked her if she was going to cry and beg like the Mexican girl.”

Task force detectives “made the investigative assumption” that he was talking about Melissa Sandoval, a Latina prostitute found dead near Black Mountain Road last May, less than two weeks before the attack on Quinland. The report also notes that “some evidence” showed that Sandoval was last seen getting into a “light-colored Bronco or Blazer automobile.”

Taylor was arrested in the attack on Quinland. He was tried and convicted of attempted murder. In January he was sentenced to life in prison.

The report adds: “Investigation is continuing as to whether Taylor is responsible for the Sandoval homicide or any of the other subject homicides.”

- Porter was arrested in the attack last October on Annette Russell, described as “a prostitute working on El Cajon Boulevard.”

The report says she was driven to the Buckman Springs area, “where she was choked unconscious and left on the shoulder of the road.”

A sheriff’s deputy patrolling nearby found her moments later. She survived, and Porter is scheduled to stand trial soon.

Similar to Other Attacks

“The attack on victim Russell is similar to three other attacks, in each of which the victim was a young female transient or prostitute, all of whom survived,” the report says.

“The case is also similar to a homicide of a young woman whose body was found July 22, 1988, in the same area of East County. Porter remains under consideration in those cases.”

In all, the task force has made six arrests, resulting so far in three convictions. Still unresolved, however, are 38 separate murder investigations in the string of cases.

In other revelations from the report, the task force described many of its investigative techniques. These include using vice officers to solicit information from prostitutes, formulating a “more sophisticated” method for preserving evidence at homicide scenes and developing a computer base to analyze individual characteristics of each of the slayings.

In addition, the report says, the group has spent about $88,200, not including salaries and personnel benefits, during the first six months.

The report also attempts to deflect public criticism of the task force’s work, particularly as it compares to a five-year investigation by Seattle area detectives in a similar series of prostitute killings along the Green River there.

“It is certainly regrettable that the series, or groups of series, of homicides have not been solved” in San Diego, the report concludes. “Nonetheless, substantial progress has been made, uninformed outside carping notwithstanding.”