Prince at Work on Day of Alabama Slaying, Former Employer Says : Serial: Despite the similarities to San Diego killings, he is all but ruled out in that case, police say.

The man suspected of killing five women in Clairemont and University City could not have committed a murder in his native Alabama last March because he happened to be at work that day, his former San Diego employer said Thursday.

Cleophus Prince Jr., the 23-year-old construction worker who Birmingham police arrested Sunday in connection with the San Diego serial case, was also being looked at this week in connection with the slaying in Homewood, Ala., on March 9, 1990. Late Thursday, police there said he has all but been eliminated as a suspect in that case.

Managers at Expo Builders Supply at 7465 Carroll Road in Mira Mesa, where Prince worked as a dry-waller from January through August of last year, said he was at work from March 8 through March 10, the period in question.

Meanwhile, a source close to the investigation told The Times on Thursday that Prince did not show up to work Sept. 13, the day that 42-year-old Pamela Gail Clark and her 18-year-old daughter, Amber, were found stabbed to death in University City.

Shortly after being laid off from Expo Builders Supply, Prince took a job at Standard Drywall Co., 8517 Ablett Road in Santee, and was employed there Sept. 13, the source said. Officials at Standard Drywall declined to comment Thursday.

The case in Homewood, which is on the southern outskirts of Birmingham, bears striking similarities to the five in San Diego, particularly the stabbing death of 20-year-old Tiffany Paige Schultz on Jan. 12, 1990.

Schultz, a San Diego State University student who moonlighted as a nude dancer, was found stabbed more than 50 times in her Clairemont apartment--the first slaying in the so-called Clairemont-University City series.

The victim in Homewood was a 23-year-old topless dancer who worked at a nightclub across the street from the bar where Prince was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of stealing a waiter’s tips.

Sgt. Ed McKenzie of the Homewood Police Department said the victim, Toni Lim, was a regular at the bar, Sunova Beach, which, like the nightclub, Sammy’s Go-Go & Lounge, is in Birmingham, just down the road from Homewood.

Like Schultz and the other four victims in San Diego, Lim was slain during the day. Police found no sign of forced entry, also the case in the San Diego slayings. Lim was stabbed, and some of her jewelry--rings in particular--was missing from the apartment. Police say that pattern was also exhibited in San Diego.

Prince is alleged to have given his San Diego girlfriend a ring for Christmas that was taken from 18-year-old Holly Suzanne Tarr, the third victim in the Clairemont-University City series, according to court documents on file in Birmingham.

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

Late Thursday, McKenzie said Prince has all but been ruled out as a suspect in Lim’s slaying.

“Well, he couldn’t be there and here at the same time,” McKenzie said after hearing the news. “I guess I’m back at square one.”

McKenzie said there are dissimilarities between the Homewood and San Diego cases: Lim’s throat was slashed and she did not suffer multiple stab wounds, as did four of the women in San Diego. Lim’s hands and feet were bound with rope, which McKenzie said was not the case with any victim in San Diego.

Suzanne Rosborough, manager of Buena Vista Gardens, the Clairemont apartment complex where Prince lived from December, 1989, until last May, said Thursday that San Diego police have been interviewing employees and residents who may be able to identify Prince in a lineup. Three of the slayings occurred in that neighborhood.

The lineup cannot be presented until Prince is extradited from Birmingham to San Diego, which could take weeks because he is expected to fight extradition, his San Diego attorney, Loren Mandel, said earlier this week.

Also on Thursday, a source close to the investigation told The Times that police have concluded that one of the five women killed in San Diego, 21-year-old UC San Diego student Janene Marie Weinhold, had been raped. The source said the same conclusion could not be drawn in any of the other cases.

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