Clairemont Greets News of Arrest in Killings With Relief : Crime: But some remain skeptical that police have really tracked down the killer responsible for the brutal murders of five women.

For the first time in months, Lori Helie of Clairemont took her bicycle out for a ride Sunday.

As she whipped into the Canyon Ridge apartment complex, her long blond hair blowing in the breeze and a broad smile creasing her face, she brought her bike to a quick stop when she noticed a friend standing in front of the rental office.

“Did you hear? They caught him ,” Helie said, beaming. “Wooo! I’m gonna party tonight!”

For anyone living in Clairemont, no further explanation was necessary. Like code words passed among friends as a kind of verbal shorthand to describe a shared experience, the identity of “him” and Helie’s jubilation were perfectly understandable to residents who, for more than a year, have lived with the fear evoked by the words “Clairemont killer.”

Throughout the middle-class neighborhood, the news that a 23-year-old Alabama man, Cleophus Prince Jr., had been arrested and charged with five 1990 murders in Clairemont and University City was greeted with a mixture of joyous relief, cautious hope and some skepticism.

The relief was underlined by the Sunday afternoon cycling excursion of Helie, a 30-year-old who said that, because of her concern over the series of daytime killings within a 1 1/2-mile area, she had not previously ridden her bicycle since moving into Clairemont five months ago.

“This is my way of celebrating,” Helie said, straddling her bike. “I just hope it’s really him.”

Nearby, at Clairemont Bowl, 21-year-old desk clerk Robin Cagle, a dark-haired woman who matched the general description of most of the victims, said that she, too, had “already started feeling less scared” in the few hours since Prince’s arrest was publicized.

“My mom’s going to feel better, too, because she’s really been paranoid,” Cagle added. “She won’t take a shower during the day unless I’m home. Once, my sister came in when she was in the shower and nearly scared her to death.”

Two other young women, Angie Valdez and Julissa Arambula, echoed Cagle’s sentiments as they sat in their car on Cowley Way, where two of the killings occurred.

“When you thought about what happened here, it was kind of scary,” Arambula said. Valdez added: “Just hearing (of the arrest) makes me feel a little safer.”

The sense of relief, however, could not dissipate the fears and concerns spawned by last year’s killings. Amid the saturation news coverage that the killings received last year, raising public concern to near hysteria at times, many Clairemont residents installed extra locks on doors and windows and armed themselves with cans of Mace, baseball bats and even guns.

For many of those people, Sunday’s arrest--and even the prospect of a conviction--hardly marked the resumption of business as usual. Indeed, most of those interviewed Sunday said that the killings had produced changes in attitude and behavior likely to last a lifetime.

“My son gave me a baseball bat to put next to my bed because I was scared to death,” said 40-year-old Janet Volpe. “I’m relieved that there’s been an arrest, but I’m not ready to get rid of the bat.”

Others said that the extra precautions that became the norm in Clairemont in recent months--double-checking that doors are locked, using wooden rods to block sliding glass doors, curtailing nighttime activities or asking for escorts to automobiles--will remain with them long after Prince’s case ends, regardless of its outcome.

“I’ve become used to taking normal precautions,” said 23-year-old Lizette Byrd. “If anything, this just made me more careful about things like locking doors and not walking alone at night. That’s definitely going to continue. I don’t look at this as being the type of thing that only one person could do. There are others out there.”

There also were more tangible signs of lingering concern and unease with strangers.

“Go away!” shouted a woman behind a locked door at one apartment without waiting for her visitors to identify themselves. Similarly, others said they no longer open doors to strangers when they are alone.

Byrd, meanwhile, declined to have her photo taken, saying she did not “want to be identified with some killings by having my picture in the paper.”

Eager though they were to see a conclusive end to the story that has kept their community on edge since January, 1990, some Clairemont residents expressed skepticism over whether Prince’s arrest will provide one. Noting that police last year briefly arrested a Puerto Rican man who vaguely matched the killer’s description, some people questioned the accuracy of Prince’s arrest--even while admitting they had no factual basis for doing so.

“I don’t think they got the right guy,” teen-ager Sharon Landhan said during a break from swimming laps in one apartment complex’s pool. “What scares me is that the real killer might come back and do it again. I’m just as worried as I was before.”

Paradoxically, others said that they had grown to feel safer in the 5 1/2 months since the last killing occurred simply because they lived in Clairemont. From their perspective, the added security measures, nighttime patrols and police scrutiny generated by the earlier murders made it unlikely that the killer would strike their neighborhood again. To some, the fact that the final two killings occurred last September in University City was seen as confirmation of that theory.

“It was just getting too hot for him here,” said Roy Cartwright.

Though the elderly often feel most threatened by serious crime, the Clairemont killings turned that generational distinction on its head. Because most of the victims had been young women, several older women interviewed Sunday said that the killings affected them less them many of their younger neighbors.

“Look at me--I’m hardly what he was after,” said senior citizen Grace Perlowski, chuckling with several friends. “Some of us actually would joke about it and say, ‘He’s only after 20 year olds. What do we have to worry about?’ Still, it’s a big relief.”