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Police Queried Suspect After Third Killing : Serial Deaths: Cleophus Prince Jr. was interviewed as part of routine investigation 90 minutes after Tarr stabbing.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

San Diego police stopped and questioned the man suspected of killing five women in Clairemont and University City 90 minutes after the third victim, Holly Suzanne Tarr, was stabbed to death in April, investigators said Tuesday.

Cleophus Prince Jr., 23, who was arrested Sunday in his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., on suspicion of having killed all five women, was interviewed by homicide detectives, who conducted an immediate check for witnesses after the murder, police said.

Prince was interviewed two other times on “routine witness follow-ups” before being arrested Feb. 4 on a traffic warrant, police said. At the time, he was also charged with attempting to burglarize the apartment of a woman in Scripps Ranch.

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Shortly after his arrest, police took genetic DNA “fingerprint” samples from Prince for the first time. When the results came back from a private Baltimore laboratory Friday, “that locked it for us,” Deputy Chief Cal Krosch said.

Police were asked at a Tuesday news briefing why DNA samples were not taken from Prince after he was first questioned on April 3, the day 18-year-old Holly Tarr was killed, or the two other times before Feb. 4. Krosch said it would have been “premature” and “could have jeopardized the case.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Lamborn was more forceful. “We live in a country of laws, we live in a country of rules,” Lamborn said, explaining that police could not force Prince to provide a DNA sample and that second-guessing on the part of the media had led to “police-bashing.”

“What concerns me is that people don’t understand this,” Lamborn said. “This isn’t Baghdad, this isn’t Moscow. This is San Diego.

“People come in here and say, ‘Why didn’t they get hair at this time? Why didn’t they get blood at this time?’ We have a Constitution here, and if I went over and grabbed a clump of hair off you, some defense attorney would come in and say, ‘You didn’t follow the rules.’ ”

Lamborn said Tuesday he will prosecute the case against Prince in a trial that he acknowledged may not take place for some time. Authorities are trying to extradite Prince from Birmingham, where he will fight the move, his newly appointed San Diego attorney, Loren Mandel, said Tuesday.

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“If what I hear is correct, that they’re asking for his life (the death penalty), then he’s not going to make it easy for anybody,” Mandel said. A day earlier, Prince’s Alabama attorney, Roger Appell, had said he expected Prince to be extradited but did not know when.

Lamborn said the legal battle over extradition will begin next Wednesday with a hearing in Birmingham. Mandel, a veteran defense attorney, was confirmed as Prince’s lawyer in a brief hearing Tuesday before San Diego Municipal Judge Ann P. Winebrenner.

Both Mandel and Lamborn are veteran trial lawyers with experience in murder cases.

Mandel, 48, heads the county’s newly formed Alternate Public Defender’s Office, which takes those cases in which the Public Defender’s Office has a conflict of interest.

Michael J. Popkins of the Public Defender’s Office represents Christopher Jon Burns, who was arrested, then released for lack of evidence, after the slaying of the first victim, Tiffany Paige Schultz, on Jan. 12, 1990.

Since it is probable that Burns will be called to testify at Prince’s trial, the public defender’s obligation is to remain with its original client, so it passed Prince’s case to Mandel’s office.

Mandel said that representing Prince will make a severe test for his agency, which was created just last year. For the time being, Mandel said, he is likely to take on the case himself.

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Appell, the attorney representing Prince’s interests in Birmingham, said police there served a search warrant Tuesday afternoon on the home of Dorothy Prince, the suspect’s mother, and confiscated “sackloads of stuff.”

Appell said the search lasted “a couple of hours,” after which Dorothy Prince was rushed to University Hospital, complaining of chest pains. Hospital officials said she had blacked out shortly after the search and was later treated and released.

“She was overwhelmed, I guess,” Appell said. “This poor lady has been through hell.”

San Diego police said Tuesday that they talked to Cleophus Prince Jr. 90 minutes after Tarr was killed but that nothing about the meeting was noteworthy and that he appeared unruffled by officers’ questions.

Homicide Lt. Gary Learn said Tuesday that San Diego police first encountered Prince as he was leaving his driveway behind his Clairemont apartment.

Tarr, an aspiring actress from Okemos, Mich., was visiting her brother on spring break. Richard Tarr lived in a Buena Vista Gardens apartment in the 3400 block of Cowley Way, two blocks from where Prince lived at 3341 Clairemont Drive.

“He gave us his name, his address and, at that point in time, he was in the process of going to work,” Learn said. “The following day, two of the detectives went back and talked with Mr. Prince further.

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“So we were fully aware of Mr. Prince and his location and the fact that he was a black male who generally matched the description” of the light-skinned black male seen running from the apartment where Tarr was killed.

Learn said Prince had been at the Buena Vista Gardens swimming pool at the same time as Tarr, as indicated by a sign-in sheet kept at the entrance. Investigators contend that Prince followed Tarr back to her brother’s apartment, which he entered through an unlocked or open door.

He then attacked her, they say, moments after she had showered. His method was similar in all other cases, they say--following victims home from outdoor locations, entering through unlocked or open doors in the middle of the day and stabbing them to death after they had showered or were starting to undress.

Learn said that, at the time Prince was stopped by police, he was driving a subcompact, silver Chevrolet Cavalier. Hours after the Tarr killing, Bill Maidhof, who worked at Buena Vista Gardens, told The Times that several residents had seen the killer flee down an alley and then drive off in a gray, “primer-paint-colored” car that resembled a Ford Pinto.

Learn disputed that account Tuesday, saying: “That was a matter of conjecture. A couple of cars were seen going in opposite directions. To this day, no one can say they saw the suspect drive off in a particular car.”

Tim Buckingham, 18, said Tuesday that he lived a block from Prince in another Buena Vista Gardens apartment. He said that, shortly after noon on the day Tarr was killed--he doesn’t know whether it happened before or after the murder--he saw Prince driving down an alley behind Clairemont Drive.

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He said Prince was in a silver, “primer-colored” car and was wearing a red shirt and a pillowcase shaped into a bandanna--clothing similar to that worn by the man seen running from the apartment where Tarr was killed.

Buckingham said he told police about Prince at the time of the killing but did not hear from them again until Tuesday, when they told him that “the investigator did have the notes from when I talked with him, but that somehow they weren’t put into the computer like they should have been” back in April.

About two months after Tarr was slain, the killer struck again, on Sept. 13, when 42-year-old Pamela Gail Clark and her 18-year-old daughter, Amber, were stabbed to death in their home in University City.

Joseph Lazzaro, Clark’s husband and Amber’s stepfather, said Tuesday night that it was difficult to describe his feelings, knowing that Prince came to the attention of police before those closest to him lost their lives.

“I have so many different thoughts that come into my mind,” Lazzaro said. “Looking back, it’s all hindsight. Is it fair to say that, if the police were more diligent with Mr. Prince, Pam and Amber would be alive today?

“Pam and I used to live by the philosophy that there are no mistakes. I continue to believe that. I think the police have done the best they can do. That’s not to say they’re absolutely perfect, but then, none of us are.”

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Learn said the strongest evidence against Prince is the DNA genetic fingerprinting and the account of witnesses who saw the killer run from the apartment where Tarr was slain.

Suzanne Rosborough, the manager of Buena Vista Gardens, said Tuesday that Prince shared his apartment with a woman named Charla M. Lewis, whom she believed was a student at a local college. Prince and Lewis lived in the one-bedroom unit, which rented for $520 a month, from December, 1989, to last May, Rosborough said.

“He was taking care of the rent,” she said. “He was an average guy, friendly. . . . He would always say hello. And he always paid his rent on time.”

In May, Prince and Lewis moved to another apartment in East San Diego. A woman who lived next door to Prince at the Top of the Hill apartments in the 5200 block of Orange Avenue in that area shared Rosborough’s impression.

“I remember his (Alabama) accent and how he always used to call us ‘gal,’ ” said the ex-neighbor, who asked not to be identified. “He would come by fairly often and just sit and chat. He seemed like an OK guy.”

The woman said the news about Prince has left her “shocked . . . devastated. We (she and her female roommate, who also knew Prince) felt real crazy when we found out.”

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The woman said that when Prince moved into the complex, he shared an apartment on the floor below her with Lewis, whom she described as a young black woman who attended UC San Diego. She said Lewis “moved out last summer” when Prince moved into the upstairs apartment next door.

Prince is also accused of killing 20-year-old Tiffany Paige Schultz and 21-year-old Janene Marie Weinhold. Both were slain in their apartments in Clairemont in a fashion similar to the other three women. All of the victims were white.

Times staff writers Alan Abrahamson, Russell Ben-Ali, Mark Platte and H. G. Reza contributed to this report.

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