Photos Sought as Murder Clue : Crime: Couple who snapped pictures at Zuma Beach before the slaying may have unknowingly photographed killers, police say.

A couple at Zuma Beach may unknowingly have taken pictures that could help identify the suspected killers of a 43-year-old Northridge woman who was stabbed to death along the Malibu shore earlier this week, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies disclosed Friday.

Deputy Hal Grant said investigators are searching for the couple, who were seen taking pictures near the public restroom where Jaqueline Kirkham was killed a short time later by a group of young men, who fled in her red Nissan sports car.

Detectives believe that the couple inadvertently may have photographed the killers or that the film may contain other clues to the slayers’ identity.

“They (authorities) are looking for anything on the photographs,” Grant said.

Meanwhile, four inmates who escaped from the California Youth Authority facility in Camarillo on Sunday--and who deputies originally thought might be responsible for the stabbing--are no longer considered primary suspects.

Although the four are still at large, “we have nothing to connect them to the crime,” Detective Ike Aguilar said. “But you can’t ever rule out suspects.”

Los Angeles police investigating a residential burglary by three armed men in Mission Hills on Friday thought the intruders may have been Kirkham’s killers because they arrived at the house in a red sports car. The car, left behind when the robbers fled on foot, turned out to be a Camaro. Kirkham’s Nissan has yet to be found.

The English-born Kirkham--a divorced woman with two children and two grandchildren who was engaged to be married again--went to Zuma every Tuesday afternoon on her day off from selling shoes at a Northridge department store, according to her fiance, Steve Williams.

Generally she went to soak up the sun but, in cold weather, would take long, reflective walks along the sand, he said.

“She loved the beach,” he said. “She always went to Zuma.”

In recent months, Williams said, Kirkham had complained about “creeps” hanging around the beach. She rarely said she felt unsafe, but was bothered by the uninvited men who would set their towels down next to her and try to strike up a conversation.

“She didn’t feel as comfortable at the beach as she used to.” Williams said.