San Diego

The mother of David Lucas took the witness stand Thursday and gave partial alibis for her son concerning three of the six slayings with which he is charged.

Patricia Katzemaier, who has attended the murder trial of her 33-year-old son almost daily since it began Jan. 3, testified as a defense witness in San Diego Superior Court.

Lucas, of Spring Valley, is charged with killing four adults and two children from 1979 to 1984. All the victims had their throats slashed.

Katzemaier said Lucas was attending a birthday party for her granddaughter on Dec. 8, 1981, around dusk--the same time that real estate saleswoman Gayle Garcia, 29, was killed while apparently showing a vacant house to a prospective renter in Spring Valley.

She also testified about a purple sports car she owned in 1979 when Suzanne Jacobs, 31, and her 3-year-old son, Colin, were slain. A prosecution witness previously said the same type of car of the same color was seen in the driveway of Jacobs’ Normal Heights home May 4, 1979, the same day the two were killed.

Katzemaier said the car was “not drivable” from March to late May, 1979, and suggested that her son could not have driven the car then.

Lucas is also charged with killing University of San Diego student Anne Swanke, 22, of San Carlos on Nov. 22, 1984; Rhonda Strang, 24, and Amber Fisher, 3, both of Lakeside, on Oct. 23, 1984.