Murder Suspect Arrested for Parole Violation

An Escondido man who has been under 24-hour surveillance by a task force investigating a series of 44 prostitute and transient slayings was arrested Monday for violating his parole, officials said Tuesday.

Ronald Elliott Porter, 44, was charged Monday with reckless driving and placed in R.J. Donovan State Prison for breaking the terms of his parole, according to Art Ayala, a state parole board supervisor.

Ayala said a parole board hearing will be held within 30 days to determine if Porter should stay in jail.

Porter is under investigation for murder, according to task force spokesman Dick Lewis, but has not been charged.

In an interview with The Times earlier this month at his Escondido apartment, Porter said law enforcement officials were watching him around the clock and following him whenever he left the house. He said he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Shortly after media publicity surfaced about his connection with the task force, Porter lost his job as a mechanic, he said.

“I’m harmless,” he said during an interview. “And now I’m unemployed.”

Porter pleaded guilty in 1989 to two felony counts in an attack on a 30-year-old prostitute in October, 1988. Porter was sentenced in April, 1989, to four years in state prison and was released late last year. While in prison, task force members interviewed him about the serial killings, law enforcement officials said.

A task force report released in March, 1989, identified Porter as one of five men under investigation in prostitute slayings. The report said Porter was being investigated in connection with the killing of Sandra Cwik, 43, a transient from Florida who was raped and dumped in the Buckman Springs area.