Police Sort Through 700 Calls, Eye Possible Suspects in Serial Killings : Manhunt: Investigators try to track down solid leads from more than 700 tips, but so far no one has been brought in for questioning.

San Diego police said Friday they have several suspects under surveillance in the slayings of five women in the Clairemont-University City area but have brought none in for questioning.

Police also revealed that a man who admitted to the killings agreed to turn himself in Thursday in Balboa Park. Police waited one hour but the man never appeared.

Officials also have received a letter from someone claiming to be the killer but police have dismissed it as the work of a prankster.

The new information came during the department’s daily press briefings, which began Monday.

Police have mounted the city’s largest murder investigation to try to find a man they believe has killed five women since January.

Since Sept. 13, when the last two women were found stabbed to death in University City, 19 investigators have been assigned full-time to the case and more might be added.

Homicide Capt. Dick Toneck, one of three police spokesmen assigned to the task force investigating the murders, said Friday that police “have a number of people under surveillance” but would not say on what basis, by what method, or for how long.

“We can’t get into tactics as far as surveillance,” he said. “I can tell you my concern and the department’s concern is that this person will hit again, period. If he was to quit and never do it again, it would be the greatest thing that ever happened.”

Toneck also reluctantly confirmed a report that a man claiming to be the serial killer called a local television station Thursday and said he would surrender to police at 4 p.m. in Balboa Park. Toneck said police waited in the park until 5 p.m. and then gave up.

Earlier this week, he said, someone wrote the department to accept responsibility for the murders.

Toneck said police believe both claims to be the work of one person. He said that publicity about the letter and the promised Balboa Park rendezvous will only encourage others to do the same.

“My fear is that this kind of information, when it gets out, will wind up causing us to go out to every place in San Diego to deal with these kinds of people,” he said. “It would cause unnecessary work for us. It’s someone who wants to cause problems for this investigation.”

Police are swamped with 700 tips from people offering information about the killer, Toneck said. He said law enforcement officials are slowly working their way through the leads and trying to get back to tipsters but that hundreds remain unanswered.

“We’re inundated with calls, which is fine, we’ll take them,” he said. “We’re going to try to make phone calls back to some of the leads to make people aware we’re following them. We’re asking the public to be patient with us.”

Police are looking for a black or dark-skinned man, age 14 to 23, with short hair, a medium build, and between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-10. Many have claimed to have seen the man, who police believe has fatally stabbed four brunette women between the ages of 18 and 21 and one of the victim’s mothers, always between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.

The killings have raised a furor in Clairemont, the site of three slayings, and in University City, where two have occurred. Women are so panic-stricken that they are keeping baseball bats under their beds, checking closets and buying door and window locks.

Because some of the victims have been reported by police to have showered just before the killings, many women are avoiding morning or midday showers.

Some have hidden their kitchen knives. In all but one of the cases, women have been stabbed with knives from inside their homes.

“What I would like to see the public do is to try and remain calm and to try and feel safe in their own homes,” Toneck said. “As time goes by (without another killing), people will feel better.”

The killings occurred in January, February, April and last week. Investigators said there is no way from the irregular pattern to determine when, if, or where the serial killer will strike again.

Toneck said Friday that the task force has decided not to send investigators to Gainseville, Fla., where four young women and one man have been stabbed to death near the University of Florida campus since August. He said the task force has decided that the San Diego and Florida cases are not linked.