Victim’s Children Lead Police to Slaying Suspect : Homeless: Three young children of a homeless woman say a security guard took their family in, then killed their mother and abandoned them.

Barefoot, dirty and frightened, three young children wandered up to the Mission Bay visitor’s center and told a horrifying story of their mother being killed by a courthouse security guard she had turned to in a desperate plea for help for her homeless family.

The ingenuity of the oldest child, a 10-year-old girl, who kept notes of their three days with the stranger, led to the arrest Friday of Kevin Kulo, 31, a private security guard at the downtown San Diego County Courthouse, police said. The girl told police that he beat her mother, put her body in a bag, and dumped it off Murphy Canyon Road.

Police said the girls, ages 10 and 4, and their 2-year-old brother apparently witnessed their mother’s death. Police also are investigating the oldest girl’s report that she was handcuffed by Kulo after she jumped on his back when he tried to attack her sister.

“All of the cases we deal with are tragic enough,” said homicide Lt. Gary Learn. “But, when you get children involved, that adds another whole dimension.”

Ted Jardine, owner of the Mission Bay Visitor’s Information Center, broke into tears Friday when he described how the oldest girl, waiting for police in his office Thursday, doodled on a note pad these words: “Mom come back” and “Kevin, you’ll pay for this.”

“I looked at her, and then saw all these strained looks on everybody’s face and tears were coming down all the cheeks of our employees,” he said. “It was gut-wrenching.”

In discussing the information the 10-year-old girl gave police, Learn said, “Her help was very crucial.”

He said she provided a detailed description of the assailant, the color of his uniform and specifics about his blue car and brown-and-white trailer, all of which were pivotal in helping authorities find Kulo on Friday in El Cajon.

He was arrested inside the trailer while it was parked near Orange and Cypress avenues. By Friday night, he had been booked on suspicion of murder and was being held in the downtown County Jail, where he had worked as a private security guard under contract with the county.

County officials said Kulo was a member of the Equity Security force and had worked on and off for the county since 1985. They said his primary duties were escorting official visitors, such as nurses and other jail support staff, into the jail at night.

Police said Kulo had no permanent address and lived in his trailer, often moving to different locations within the county.

Authorities said the children told detectives that their mother, Mary Jo Zavala, 34, took her family to the courthouse Tuesday, where she approached Kulo and sought his help for her homeless family.

“They apparently started up a short relationship after they met,” Learn said.

Zavala’s body was found about 1 p.m. Wednesday, in a gulch off Interstate 15 and Murphy Canyon Road.

“A bicyclist was riding in the area and saw the body in a field,” police spokesman Bill Robinson said. “He saw there was head trauma on the body, and we didn’t have any leads on any of the family members until we received a phone call Thursday from the Mission Bay information center. They called us indicating that the children had mentioned their mother being murdered.”

Learn said police identified the body and traced her last address to the San Ysidro area. They also learned that Zavala, who was separated from her husband, had three children, all of whom were unaccounted for. And they learned that she was homeless.

“She had no permanent address,” Learn said. “If she did have one, I don’t know what it was.”

He said detectives interviewed several of her old neighbors, none of whom had seen the children.

“That became our No. 1 concern,” he said. “We started backtracking through San Ysidro and talking to friends and associates, and we learned she had these three children.

“We were immediately concerned about the children because Mrs. Zavala took great care in those kids, and, if ever she had to leave them, she left them with designated people. But, when we checked with these people, we couldn’t find the kids. Until yesterday afternoon.”

Until then, they only had Zavala’s body. They feared the worst for the kids, noting that the mother had died of a skull fracture, apparently from being beaten.

Workers at the Mission Bay center said they saw the children about 1 p.m. Thursday outside their booth near Interstate 5 and Clairemont Drive. The kids were barefoot, their clothing full of dirt and sand. They carried a paper bag with a diaper, the little boy was holding a bottle, and the older girl had a book with her notes and several dollars folded inside.

She said the money had come from the man who killed her mother.

She said he had just dropped them off at Mission Bay. She said she had promised him that she would not tell anyone what he had done. But she said she also had promised God that she would never lie.

“That’s when she said she had to break one of those promises,” said Jardine, the information center owner.

He said she described how her mother was asleep in the trailer when she was killed. She described watching her killer dump the body off the canyon. She described how she and her brother and sister stayed with the man Wednesday night, camping inside his trailer on Fiesta Island.

She said the man tried to assault her little sister, and, when she jumped on his back and yelled at him to stop, he forced her aside and locked handcuffs around her wrists.

Learn said police are still investigating that allegation.

“All my four detectives are still out there putting the pieces of this puzzle together,” he said. “For the time being, the suspicion of murder will be enough to hold him.”

Upon hearing the girl’s stories, workers at the center called police. Waiting for officers to arrive, they fed the children hotdogs and cheese sandwiches from the snack bar.

They changed the boy’s diaper, and blew up a beach ball for him to play with. They gave the girls a sponge bath. The 4-year-old girl had stitches on her head, and the workers promised her that she would get medical care.

But what most impressed the workers was that the 10-year-old girl remained calm, trying her hardest to remember every detail of what happened to her mother.

“That girl was a peach of a kid,” Jardine said. “She is as sharp as they come.”

The children have been turned over to the county’s Hillcrest Receiving Home, officials said.

Meanwhile, the visitor’s center is seeking donations to help the children, and has set up the Mary Jo Zavala children’s fund at San Diego Trust & Savings, P.O. Box 9889, San Diego, CA 92109.