1,739 Tips in Slayings Case; Anonymous Tipster Surfaces

Investigators have received 1,739 tips in connection with the stabbing deaths of five women in Clairemont and University City, police said Monday.

At a morning press briefing, Capt. Dick Toneck said that more than half the leads phoned in to the San Diego Police Department “have been pursued.”

Among the more promising, in Toneck’s view, was a call from a Clairemont resident who reported confronting a man, who fit the description of the suspect’s composite, in his living room one morning in May.

The caller reported that he and the man spoke briefly--the man said he was looking for someone and was in the wrong apartment--when he then turned around and left hurriedly.

Toneck said the story is significant in that it confirms the killer’s method of operation--entering through an unlocked or open door in the middle of the day.

He said the caller is a resident at the Canyon Ridge apartment complex in the 3100 block of Cowley Way, where Tiffany Paige Schultz--the first victim in what police believe is a series of murders--was killed Jan. 12. The second and third killings occurred at the Buena Vista Gardens complex, which is next door to Canyon Ridge and managed by the same company.

Toneck said the man left a message on a Crime Stoppers’ answering machine after the fourth and fifth murders Sept. 13 on Honors Drive in University City, but failed to leave a name. Toneck said the man recently called again to reaffirm his story and leave his name. Toneck said he believes press attention given to the man’s anonymous call caused him to call again and leave a name. Police have now interviewed the man, he said.

Toneck said he had “no idea” why the man failed to call after the incident reportedly happened in May, which was shortly after the stabbing death of third victim Holly Suzanne Tarr.

Tarr, a high school senior from Okemos, Mich., was visiting her brother when she was killed in his Buena Vista Gardens apartment April 3. Immediately after Tarr was stabbed, a maintenance man and a painter reported seeing a dark-skinned man, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, with a medium build and close-cropped dark hair, flee the apartment. The maintenance man said the suspect ran toward him with a knife held over his head.

Police say the widely distributed composite drawing of the suspect is based upon that sighting. University City residents later said they saw a stranger, who matched the description, lingering in the Honors Drive neighborhood shortly before the stabbing deaths of Pamela Gail Clark, 42, and her daughter Amber, 18.

Some witnesses have described the suspect as black; others say he might be Latino or Middle Eastern. But the witness who found a man in his living room described him as black.

“What we’re saying is that the person is definitely a black male,” Toneck said Monday. “What . . . nationality he may be, we don’t know. All we’re going to say is that he’s definitely a black male.”

Toneck said the Clairemont man’s call is significant because “it helps us identify an area, although it’s not the area the subject hit last time. But it helps narrow the (general) area to some extent” and gives police more detail about the suspect’s method of operation.

Toneck said the suspect was apparently “nervous enough” about police intervention in Clairemont that he decided to target a new area. He issued a warning that the suspect could strike again, at any time, in any area of the city or county.