Suspect in Stabbing Deaths of 5 San Diego Women Lived Near Victims, Police Say

The 23-year-old Alabama man suspected in the serial killings of five women here lived in the same apartment complex as two of the victims and lived near the other three, authorities said Monday.

Cleophus Prince Jr. was arrested Sunday in his hometown of Birmingham, Ala. He was charged Monday by the San Diego County district attorney’s office on five counts of murder. He is expected to be extradited by the end of the month, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office said.

Roger Appell, Prince’s attorney in Birmingham, said Monday that his client is innocent. He said a composite drawing circulated by San Diego police “looks nothing like my client.

“My client is 23 and stocky with short hair,” Appell said. “The guy in the composite looks like he’s 16 years old and thin with bushy hair. He looks like a boy, and my client is a man.”

Local authorities say their case against Prince is strong, citing DNA evidence that they say links him to the crimes and noting his proximity to all five of the murder victims.

Prince moved into the sprawling 1,000-unit Buena Vista Gardens apartments in the Clairemont section of San Diego one month before the first of five slayings that terrorized the city, police said.

He rented a two-bedroom unit in December, 1989. On Jan. 12, 1990, Tiffany Paige Schultz, a 20-year-old student at San Diego State University, was found dead in her apartment in the adjacent Canyon Ridge complex. She had been stabbed more than 50 times.

April Weyh, the resident manager at Buena Vista Gardens, said Prince was a tenant at the complex until mid-April, 1990. Holly Suzanne Tarr, 18, was murdered on April 3 of that year.

Tarr, an aspiring actress from Okemos, Mich., was visiting her brother during spring break. The brother was a tenant at Buena Vista Gardens, as was the second victim, Janene Marie Weinhold, a 21-year-old UC San Diego student who was found stabbed more than 30 times Feb. 16, 1990.

Weinhold’s address in the complex was 3301 Clairemont Drive, an investigator said. Records show that Prince lived at 3341 Clairemont Drive, a few doors away.

Prince is believed to have stalked his victims, sometimes following them home from the Buena Vista Gardens swimming pool, police said. Police said the first three victims may have been at the pool shortly before their deaths.

The killer last struck Sept. 13, when Pamela Gail Clark, 42, and her 18-year-old daughter, Amber, were found stabbed to death in their home in University City, 1 1/2 miles north of the other slayings.

Navy officials said Monday that Prince was discharged from the Navy in October, 1989, three months before the first slaying. His record during a short tour of duty was characterized by disciplinary violations, culminating in a court-martial for larceny, said spokeswoman Bobbie Carleton.

Prince continued living in San Diego until about a week ago, police said. During much of that time he was unemployed.

Police say Prince is not considered a suspect in the serial slayings of 44 prostitutes in San Diego that date back to 1985. Before his recent arrest in Birmingham on a misdemeanor theft charge he had no criminal record in Alabama, authorities said.

Prince became a suspect in the murders less than a month ago when he allegedly committed a burglary in the Scripps Ranch area, San Diego police said Monday. He was arrested the following day after a traffic stop.

Similarities in the burglary case and the four murder scenes prompted police to order DNA testing, Deputy Chief Cal Krosch said. Police said the tests link Prince to the four murder scenes.