Duerr Killing Linked With Displeasure Over Drugs

Investigators now believe that Denise Marie Duerr’s displeasure over her live-in boyfriend’s suspected drug-dealings led to the stabbing death of the Garden Grove woman, whose body was found dumped near Corona two weeks ago.

Evidence shows that just before her death, the 21-year-old Duerr got in an argument with boyfriend, Clyde Spontak, about drug-dealing--a subject of prolonged friction between the pair that had prompted Duerr to consider leaving him, Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan C. Lough said Monday.

The heated argument appears to have turned deadly, Lough said, when Duerr was stabbed to death in the garage of her apartment building at the hands of Spontak and another man.

The first suggestion of a motive in the killing came as Spontak, 22, and Cameron Seaholm, 22, a high school friend of Spontak and Duerr who had been staying with them, were arraigned Monday in Riverside County Municipal Court in Corona. Both are charged with murder.

Both pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing was scheduled in June.

“My client, Mr. Spontak, has maintained his innocence and is shocked by this situation. He has absolutely no idea how his girlfriend was killed,” said defense attorney Thomas L. Brown of Westminster after the arraignment.

Seaholm has told officers that he stole Duerr’s car, but that only after he had a flat tire did he discover her body in the trunk, police said. They said Seaholm has told them that he did dump the body in a remote area near Corona, insisting he had nothing to do with the killing. “It appears that both of the defendants were clearly involved in the murder itself--not just in a cover-up, as Mr. Seaholm claims,” Lough said Monday. Investigators, basing their conclusions on the reports of witnesses, believe that Duerr returned home on Sunday night, April 16, found cocaine in the apartment, and became upset with Spontak, Lough said.

“There was a dispute about drugs being present in the apartment. As far as we know, there was no violent altercation then . . . but it appears that she was killed later that night or early the next morning in the garage,” he said.

Duerr was stabbed 20 times, perhaps with an ice pick, investigators have said.

Police said Seaholm has told them that on the weekend of the killing, he and Spontak had a quarter-kilo (about half a pound) of cocaine for sale.

But defense attorneys for both Spontak and Seaholm said they have seen no evidence linking the killing to an argument over drugs.

Told of the prosecutor’s comments, Brown said that Spontak and Duerr “seem to have been getting along pretty well (in the period preceding the killing). The prosecutor is really reaching awfully hard for a motive on this one.”

And Brown, noting that Duerr and Spontak had been dating off and on for the last 6 years, added: “Even if he were a drug dealer--and I’m certainly not saying he is--it seems that she would have known that a long time ago--not just 2 weeks ago.”