Accused Rapist Eliminated as a Suspect in 5 Slayings

An Escondido rape suspect has been eliminated as a suspect in the five Clairemont-University City murders, police said Thursday.

Jerem Theodore Williams, 20, of the 1300 block of East Lincoln Avenue, was arrested by Escondido police early Wednesday after he used a passkey to enter an apartment in the 400 block of North Citrus Avenue and allegedly raped and beat a 21-year-old resident.

The victim was treated and released from Pomerado Hospital for a head injury, bruising, a broken nose and lacerations, said Lt. John Wilson of the Escondido Police Department.

The victim and her roommate told police they noticed a man loitering in the parking lot when they returned home abut 2:30 a.m. About one hour later, the victim said she was awakened by the same man in her bed. After her roommate ran for help, the woman was dragged to another room, beaten and raped.

When the man tried to flee, he was confronted by neighbors who had gathered below the second-story apartment with a baseball bat, a chair and other weapons. He ran back into the apartment and tried to hide in the attic but fell through the ceiling back into the apartment.

He then surrendered to Escondido police, who learned that the passkey used by the man to enter the apartment was assigned to a carpet cleaning firm. Wilson said Williams’ father is a carpet-cleaning contractor and Williams had worked for his father.

San Diego police reported in a press briefing Thursday morning that there were some similarities between Williams and the composite of the man police are searching for in the Clairemont-University City killings. But by Thursday afternoon, they had eliminated him as a suspect.

Police Capt. Dick Toneck said Williams was in jail at the time of the first slaying on Jan. 12 and was released the day the second victim was killed on Feb. 16.

Police are sifting though more than 2,000 leads in the stabbing deaths of three women in Clairemont and two others in nearby University City.

Williams will be arraigned in Vista Municipal Court today. He faces charges of rape, assault, false imprisonment, oral copulation and two counts of rape with a foreign object.