Suspect Allegedly Had Slain Woman’s Ring : Serial Killings: According to Alabama affidavits, Cleophus Prince Jr. gave jewelry belonging to Holly Tarr to his San Diego girlfriend for Christmas.

Murder suspect Cleophus Prince Jr. gave his girlfriend a ring for Christmas that police believe was taken from 18-year-old Holly Suzanne Tarr, the third of at least five victims in a serial killing in San Diego, authorities allege in court documents filed here.

The documents, filed this week, allege that Prince stole jewelry, photographs and other personal items from the homes of each of his victims.

The search warrant affidavits filed in Jefferson County District Court outline the evidence San Diego police have against Prince, 23, who is charged with stabbing to death five women in Clairemont and University City from Jan. 12 to Sept. 13, 1990.

Authorities confirmed Wednesday that they are looking at Prince in connection with two other murders, one in Alabama last March, the other in East San Diego last May.

Affidavits on file describe some of the strongest evidence against Prince in the Clairemont-University City cases.

According to the affidavits, which were filed in court to justify the searches, police have “an exact match” between DNA obtained from semen found on the clothing of 21-year-old Janene Marie Weinhold, the second victim in the series, and from blood and saliva samples taken from Prince.

“This fluid from the crime scene, and the fluids collected from . . . Cleophus Prince Jr. were compared for DNA characteristics and revealed that the suspect sample and known sample from the suspect was an exact match,” police said in the affidavits.

San Diego police have been tight-lipped about details of the case, saying only that genetic DNA material is a “major factor” in linking Prince to the five murders. But the affidavits suggest significant evidence beyond the DNA.

Among the items seized from Prince include camouflage gloves that police believe the killer wore while stabbing his victims and a pair of Nike Air running shoes, the same kind that made a footprint outside one of the victims’ homes.

But the most explosive evidence is the ring apparently owned by Tarr and, according to the affidavits, later given to Prince’s San Diego girlfriend as a Christmas gift. The affidavits suggest that the girlfriend, Charla M. Lewis, who lived with Prince from December, 1989, until last month, is cooperating with authorities.

According to the affidavits, San Diego police served a search warrant last Saturday at Lewis’ home in San Diego, the day before Prince was taken into custody in his hometown of Birmingham.

The affidavits say police found a ring “tentatively identified as belonging to Holly Suzanne Tarr . . . who was killed April 3, 1990.”

Lewis told investigators last Saturday that the ring was given to her in December as a Christmas present from Prince, the affidavits say.

Assistant Police Chief Norm Stamper on Wednesday declined to comment on the details of the affidavits, saying, “Clearly, I cannot comment on the service of a search warrant in another jurisdiction, or even in our own jurisdiction, that would in any way jeopardize the prosecution.”

Police in Birmingham filed the affidavits Monday to gain court permission to search the Alabama homes of Prince’s mother and sister. Birmingham authorities returned Tuesday with San Diego police detectives to the mother’s house to pick up clothing, a Gucci travel bag and gloves Prince allegedly brought from San Diego. Those items were recovered.

The searches were authorized by District Court Judge O. L. Johnson to find several pieces of jewelry, photographs, a diary and other items police say were missing from each of the four murder scenes.

According to the affidavits, none of the items police sought was found at either the mother’s or the sister’s homes in Gate City, the impoverished housing project where Prince was living at the time of his arrest Sunday.

The clothing taken Tuesday includes a red turtle-neck shirt, the pair of white Nike shoes with black trim and the pair of camouflage gloves, the affidavits say.

A painter who said he saw the killer run from the apartment where Tarr was killed described him as wearing a red shirt. Police believe the suspect may have worn gloves when committing the murders, the affidavits reveal, because investigative “efforts to obtain latent fingerprints at these crime scenes had only turned up impressions of fabric on various surfaces, which indicate . . . that the perpetrator wore gloves.”

Police also found an imprint of a running shoe in a flower bed outside one of the victims’ homes. They have since matched the imprint to a Nike Air shoe, the affidavits say.

In other news Wednesday, police in Homewood, Ala., and San Diego confirmed that they are investigating Prince in connection with two other homicides. Homewood police were investigating a possible link between Prince and a stabbing death there last March.

San Diego police said Prince may have been involved in the killing of 38-year-old Elissa Naomi Keller on May 22, a block from where he was living at the time in East San Diego.

Police said Prince moved into the Top of the Hill apartments in the 5200 block of Orange Avenue, near San Diego State University, in May. Three weeks later, the body of Elissa Keller, naked and propped against a bed, was found by her 18-year-old daughter, with whom she shared the apartment. Keller had been stabbed repeatedly.

San Diego police released a statement Wednesday that read, in part:

“From the very moment the Keller murder was discovered, we looked at it closely to see if there was any tie to the three Clairemont murders. There were some similarities and a number of dissimilarities. We continued to look at the Keller case as we developed information on Cleophus Prince.

“We’ve also conducted a citywide review of all unsolved homicide cases, along with burglary, hot prowls (burglaries of an occupied building), assaults with a deadly weapon and any other types of cases that might produce a link to the murders.”

Stamper said Prince will not be ruled out as a suspect in the Keller case until an investigation has excluded him.

“The fact of the matter is, when circumstances of any homicide remain a mystery, then it’s unwise to rule out any suspects,” Stamper said. “So, on that premise, I think people at large or in custody would have to remain suspects in that case.”

Police have been guarded about discussing the case against Prince. On Wednesday, the department postponed until further notice its daily briefings on the case, saying in a statement that “we do not want to give the impression of trying the case in the media, and we do not want to contribute to the possibility of a change of venue.”

A source close to the investigation told The Times on Wednesday that police do not “believe there’s enough there to tie him to the thing”--meaning the killing of Elissa Keller.

“Other than the fact that the guy lived (nearby), I don’t think there’s anything there,” the source said. “Absent some major breakthrough, it won’t get charged.”

The five serial slayings began Jan. 12, 1990, when 20-year-old Tiffany Paige Schultz, an English major at San Diego State University, who moonlighted as a nude dancer, was found stabbed to death in her Clairemont apartment.

On Feb. 16, 1990, UC San Diego student Janene Marie Weinhold was found stabbed to death in a Clairemont apartment two blocks from where Schultz lived.

Police revealed earlier this week that Prince moved into the same apartment complex--in the same block as Weinhold--in December, 1989, two months after his court-martial and discharge from the Navy for larceny and a month before the first of the five slayings.

On April 3, 18-year-old Holly Suzanne Tarr, who was visiting from Okemos, Mich., was found stabbed to death in her brother’s apartment in the Buena Vista Gardens complex, a block from the suspect’s residence.

On Sept. 13, 42-year-old Pamela Gail Clark and her 18-year-old daughter, Amber, were found stabbed to death in their home in University City, about a mile and a half from where the previous three slayings occurred.

Mark Platte reported from Birmingham and Michael Granberry from San Diego.