Suspect Held in Slaying of Woman, 21 : Man Arrested Where Car of Garden Grove Victim Is Found

A man was arrested in Lake Elsinore this morning as a suspect in the murder of Denise Marie Duerr of Garden Grove, whose body was found in a wilderness section of Riverside County on Wednesday.

She had been missing since Monday morning.

Garden Grove police said Duerr’s car was also found in Lake Elsinore at a home on Blanche Drive where the suspect was arrested. Police would not say if the man lived there.

Suspect Not Identified

They said the suspect, whom they did not identify, was brought to the Garden Grove police station for questioning. They declined to provide any further details of the arrest.

Duerr, 21, was last seen by her boyfriend as she was heading to work early Monday at Data Circuits in Orange, police said. (Story, Part II, Page 1.) Witnesses at the townhouse complex where she lived in the 13000 block of Monroe Street said they saw Duerr’s 1984 black Pontiac Fiero pull out of the garage area, but they could not confirm that Duerr was the driver.

Riverside County deputies said the body was found about 5:40 p.m. by Ronald Gray, 23, of Buena Park, who had stopped alongside the road to let his two dogs run. Gray said the body was in a small ditch three feet to the east of an iron gate at the end of the road.

“I was walking around. I walked past it two times, and I was standing right by it for a few minutes before I noticed it,” he said.

Gray said the body, partially covered with branches, was half-clad. From under the branches Gray said he could see parts of the body that “had real dark patches. They could’ve been bruises, I guess.” He said the hair was “kind of blond, I guess.”

Police found a bracelet inscribed with the first name of Denise Marie Duerr on the body, leading to a tentative identification, a friend of Duerr said this morning.

Clyde Spontak, who had lived with Duerr since January, said, “The detectives came over to my house at 1:30 this morning and said that there was a bracelet on her hand that had her name.”

‘Most Horrible Thing’

“This is the most horrible thing I ever went through,” Spontak said. “I don’t know what to do or say. . . . She was so great. That girl does not deserve to be abducted and dumped on the side of the road like that.”

Gray said one “cop was telling me it looked like pretty recent” that the body had been killed or dumped.

Authorities tentatively identified the body as Duerr but would not make any definite identification until after an autopsy is conducted later today by the Riverside County coroner’s office.

Garden Grove police said they have received numerous calls from people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties saying they saw Duerr’s black 1984 Pontiac Fiero, which has personalized license plates reading “CEEYA 3.”