Sacramento Store Clerks Fear ‘Thrill Killer’

Store clerks and restaurant workers are keeping a wary watch on customers and closing early in a neighborhood where a robber has killed six people at two businesses within two weeks.

Although money was stolen from both businesses, investigators said they believe the thrill of killing, and not robbery, was the motive.

“This individual likes to kill,” Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Biondi said.

“Our biggest fear is that this guy is going to strike again,” said sheriff’s spokesman Ed Close.

Nearly all the detectives in the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department were assigned to hunt down the late-night killer after he struck a second time, shooting three pizza parlor workers Tuesday.

“Everybody’s scared. My employees are scared. . . . I’m scared,” said Darlene Clark, who is a co-owner, with her husband, of a sandwich shop.

Tuesday’s triple homicide occurred a week, almost to the minute, after two employees and a customer were shot in the head with the same handgun at a Quik Stop market a mile from the pizza parlor.

Close said about 85 detectives are searching the neighborhood each night, talking to merchants and workers and questioning people on the street. He said the Sheriff’s Department had developed about 120 leads by Thursday, most from telephone tips, and had identified about a dozen “people of interest that we are investigating.”

“It only takes one good lead,” he added.

Some stores, like Clark’s sandwich shop, are closing early. Workers have taken to moving around on the job, spreading out to make it harder for the killer to round them up.

Debra Chahal said she’s “just kind of jumpy,” especially when a customer enters her Cork Stop Liquor store at night. She and her husband, Kirpal, take turns going outside when a customer comes in.

She said she’s trying to persuade her husband that they should close early until the killer is caught. “He’s saying business will still be as usual. I’m saying if you’re dead, you can’t pay the bills,” she said.