Police Want to Question Transient in Slaying of 3 in Clairemont Home

San Diego police said Thursday that no motive or suspect has emerged in the slayings of a Clairemont woman, her 3-year-old son and a male acquaintance.

Autopsies by the San Diego County coroner’s office revealed that the woman, April Gilhousen, 20, died of a stab wound in the heart and a blunt injury to the head, and that her child, Bryan Gilhousen, who turned 3 Wednesday, died from strangulation and blows to the head with a blunt instrument.

Kevin Morton Chandler, 29, an unemployed commercial fisherman who was living at the residence, was beaten and stabbed, the coroner’s office said.

Police were seeking a man known only as “Roger,” who apparently answered the telephone at the victims’ Clairemont Mesa Boulevard residence Wednesday, the day of the slayings, but San Diego Police Capt. Bill Taylor said that Roger was only wanted for questioning and was not a suspect.

A friend of the slain woman told police she had telephoned the victim’s home about 9 a.m. Wednesday and had spoken with Roger, who apparently was an acquaintance, according to police.

The slayings are believed to have occurred at the dwelling between 9 and 10 a.m., said David Cohen, a police spokesman.

Frequented Community

Roger was described as a white male, possibly a transient, in his 30s who frequented the Clairemont community, including the Diane Shopping Center, not far from the victims’ residence, and occasionally rode a bicycle in the area.

Meantime, Taylor, who is overseeing the investigation, said police were continuing to question neighbors in the hope that someone may have witnessed suspicious activity Wednesday at the duplex in the 4300 block of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, where all three victims lived and are believed to have been slain. Two of the bodies were moved and found elsewhere along the boulevard, police said.

Also living at the Clairemont dwelling, police said, was Michael Ross, the father of the slain woman’s two children, one of whom--a baby girl--was not harmed. But police said they had spoken with Ross and did not consider him a suspect. Ross was at work when the bodies were discovered, authorities said.

There was no evidence that either of the adult slaying victims had been involved in criminal activity, police said.

Police also spoke Wednesday with one other unnamed male acquaintance of the woman, but Taylor said he had been cooperative and was not a suspect.

Police speculate that the three were slain at the home Wednesday morning and that two of the bodies were then removed from the duplex, loaded into a vehicle and transported to other sites along Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, where they were dumped and later found by passers-by. A neighbor discovered the woman’s bludgeoned body on the bedroom floor of the duplex shortly after 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Taylor said, not far from the crib that held her infant daughter.

“We’re hoping to find someone in the neighborhood who may have seen someone carrying something to a car and then leaving,” the police captain said.

As for motive, police said there was no sign the residence was ransacked. A window was broken, police said, and robbery has not been ruled out as a motive, Taylor said.

The duplex showed evidence of a “slight struggle,” the police captain said. An unspecified blunt instrument possibly used in the slayings was found at the scene, police said.

All three victims appear to have been beaten, and there was no evidence that firearms were used, Taylor said.

One mystery surrounding the slayings, Taylor said, is why the killer or killers decided to dispose of the two bodies at two places--one about 1 1/2 miles west of the house, the other 1 1/2 miles east of the residence. The man’s body was found shortly before 11 a.m. in an alley along the 3200 block of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, police said, and the child’s remains, wrapped in a blanket, were discovered more than 1 1/2 hours later in a carport in the 5400 block of the same street.