Police Eliminate Suspect in Serial Killings : Investigation: A man facing rape, burglary and auto theft charges in San Diego was in Massachusetts when the women were killed, officials learn.

The 23-year-old Massachusetts man being held in a Las Vegas, Nev., jail on suspicion of rape is no longer considered a suspect in the serial slayings of five women in Clairemont and University City, San Diego police said Thursday.

Louis Angel Mandez moved from New Bedford, Mass., to San Diego in October, about a month after 42-year-old Pamela Gail Clark and her 18-year-old daughter, Amber, were stabbed to death in University City on Sept. 13, authorities said.

Mandez, who also spells his name Mendez, waived extradition at a hearing in Las Vegas on Wednesday and will be returned to San Diego early next week, Lt. Gary Learn said at Thursday’s press briefing on the serial-killing case.

Mandez is wanted in connection with the rape of a 22-year-old UC San Diego student in Pacific Beach on Saturday. He was arrested by the Nevada State Highway Patrol on Interstate 15 just south of Las Vegas at 4:35 a.m. Sunday.

He was driving the victim’s car, a Volkswagen Rabbit, Learn said, and faces charges of rape, auto theft and burglary when he returns to San Diego.

Learn said police in New Bedford, Mass., were aware of Mandez, and “through reliable information, we’ve learned that he resided in that city for a majority of 1990. Even though we’ll be conducting some other inquiries, this all but eliminates him in connection with the Clairemont series.”

Mandez drew the attention of San Diego police when, allegedly, he entered a woman’s home in the 900 block of Loring Street through an unlocked, sliding-glass door in the middle of the day and raped her at knifepoint with a weapon obtained in her apartment.

This matches the pattern of the serial slayings, in which five women have been stabbed to death in their homes during the day with weapons obtained in their kitchens. In each case, police say, the killer has entered through unlocked or open doors.

The rape of the Pacific Beach woman occurred on the first anniversary of the first Clairemont slaying. Tiffany Paige Schultz, 20, was stabbed to death in her Cowley Way apartment Jan. 12 of last year.

Mandez “vaguely” fit the description of the serial-killing suspect, Learn said. A man whom witnesses described as a light-skinned black, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10 with a trim to medium build and short-cropped dark hair was seen fleeing the apartment, also on Cowley Way, where 18-year-old Holly Suzanne Tarr was stabbed to death April 3.

Mandez, 6-foot-1 and 175 pounds, was listed by authorities at the Clark County jail in Las Vegas as white, although Learn said Mandez is of Puerto Rican descent.

Learn said Mandez had been working at a fast-food restaurant in Pacific Beach and receiving mail at a community center in Ocean Beach. He apparently befriended the boyfriend of the rape victim the night before the assault, authorities said, and stayed at the couple’s apartment--at the boyfriend’s urging--the night before the rape.

Learn said the cost of the serial-killing investigation since the Tiffany Schultz slaying now exceeds $1 million. He said the 18 investigators and five superior officers working the case have processed more than 3,000 tips phoned in by the public.