University City Mother, Daughter Found Slain

A 42-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter were found stabbed to death inside their University City home Thursday afternoon in a case that police say bears strong similarities to the deaths of three young women in Clairemont earlier this year.

Shortly after receiving a call at 12:41 p.m., three homicide units arrived at 5890 Honors Drive, where Pamela Clark and her daughter Amber had been found by a family friend, stabbed to death. The friend had gone to the home at the request of Clark’s husband, acupuncturist Joseph Lazzaro.

The friend told authorities that Lazzaro called her, worried, after his wife failed to arrive for an 11 a.m. appointment the couple had confirmed before he left the house about three hours earlier.

Police said the friend entered through the unlocked front door and found Clark lying on her back just inside the doorway and her daughter farther down the hallway.

Investigators said late Thursday that Clark and her daughter died of multiple stab wounds but that “no direct connection” could yet be made to the Clairemont slayings.

“It’s too early to say, or even to speculate,” said Lt. Gary Learn, one of 15 homicide agents working the case for the San Diego Police Department. “But there are similarities.”

Police said that a knife, believed to be the murder weapon, was found near one of the victims.

Spokesman Dave Cohen said that, by 9 p.m., a total of 30 officers had been dispatched to the scene, only a few miles north of where the Clairemont slayings occurred.

“We are aware of what happened in Clairemont,” said Lt. Dan Berglund, one of two officers heading the homicide unit. “We have taken steps to set up a (mobile) command unit and cover all the bases.”

As of 5 p.m., police had not moved the bodies out of the house, and as of 6 p.m., a spokesman for the San Diego County Medical Examiner said that his office had yet to be notified about the killings.

However, Deputy Coroner Robert Engel said agents from his office were summoned to the scene shortly after 7 p.m.

Police Lt. Learn, who headed the homicide unit during the Clairemont slayings, was recently assigned to Criminal Intelligence. He said Thursday night that he had been re-assigned to Homicide, because, as one officer put it, “We’re swamped.”

Learn conceded that police now believe one person probably committed all three killings in Clairemont.

“There’s a great likelihood that one person did all three,” Learn said Thursday night. “But as I’ve said before, there’s no single piece of evidence that allows you to establish a conclusive link. And it’s the same with this crime. There’s no conclusive link that it’s related” to the Clairemont killings.

Richard W. Eveleth, head basketball coach at La Jolla High School and a resident of University City, said neighbors on Honors Drive “went home nervously” after hearing about Thursday’s two slayings.

Eveleth said he would describe the “quiet, peaceful, low-crime” neighborhood as upper-middle-class to upscale.

“It’s the type of neighborhood you would not expect a double murder in,” Eveleth said. “It’s the type of San Diego neighborhood you would move into to avoid . . . any kind of crime.”

Victor H. Munnecke, a neighbor, said that Joseph Lazzaro works as an acupuncturist and that Pamela Clark, his wife, assisted him. He said Amber Clark was Lazzaro’s stepdaughter. Another neighbor said Amber had recently graduated from University City High School and was enrolled at Mesa College. She was Clark’s daughter from a previous marriage.

Requesting anonymity, another neighbor said, “We’re all frightened. Two lovely ladies murdered in broad daylight in their own home.”

In the string of slayings in Clairemont, the first victim was Tiffany Paige Schultz, a 20-year-old student at San Diego State University who was found stabbed repeatedly in her apartment in the 3100 block of Cowley Way on Jan. 12.

Janene Marie Weinhold, a 21-year-old student at UC San Diego, was found stabbed to death in her apartment in the 3300 block of Clairemont Drive on Feb. 16, less than two blocks from where Schultz was killed.

Holly Suzanne Tarr, an 18-year-old high school senior from Okemos, Mich., who had come to San Diego to visit her brother, was found stabbed to death in his apartment in the 3400 block of Cowley Way on April 3.

Police say the cases are similar in that all of the victims were stabbed; the women were similar in age and physical appearance; all lived within two blocks of one another, two in the same apartment complex; there was no sign of forced entry in any of the cases, and each killing occurred in the middle of the day.

A young man, thought to be either black or Latino, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10 and weighing an estimated 150 pounds, was seen running from the apartment where Tarr was slain.

Police have arrested two suspects in connection with the Clairemont killings, but both men were released shortly afterward.