Hearing Begins for Suspect in San Diego Serial Killings : Crime: Prosecutors outline 32 felony counts, including six of murder, against Cleophus Prince Jr.

Cleophus Prince Jr., the 24-year-old former Navy machinist charged in a series of stabbing deaths that frightened San Diego women into hiding their kitchen knives by day and keeping baseball bats under their beds by night, began his preliminary hearing Monday in a courtroom filled with the victims’ families.

Nibbling on a pen and leafing through legal documents, the muscular and mustached Prince listened carefully as prosecutors outlined the particulars of his 32 felony counts, which include the murders of six women, five of them in the University City-Clairemont area, during 1990.

While Prince’s mother, Dorothy, sat on one side of the visitors’ gallery, relatives of the victims sat across the aisle as graphic photographs of the killings and sketches of the crime scenes were shown to witnesses in the courtroom of Municipal Judge Patricia Cowett.

The murders spurred the largest police manhunt in San Diego history, as thousands of flyers warning of the “Clairemont Killer” circulated throughout the city and police stopped dozens of young black men for questioning.

Prince was arrested in his native Birmingham, Ala., last March after police matched DNA from a semen sample taken at one of the murder scenes with the DNA in a blood sample given by Prince during a previous arrest on a traffic warrant.

The DNA match--from a seminal stain found on the clothing and bedsheets of 21-year-old Janene Weinhold, the second murder victim, and from Prince’s blood--is perhaps the strongest evidence prosecutors will present to link Prince to a murder. Weinhold was raped and stabbed to death in February, 1990.

Police also found an opal ring that belonged to Holly Tarr, the third victim, at the apartment of Prince’s girlfriend, Charla M. Lewis. Lewis told police the ring was a gift from Prince.

Tarr, an 18-year-old Michigan high school student, was visiting her brother in San Diego the day she was murdered in April, 1990. The ring, given to Tarr by her father, Paul, was made in New York and distributed by a Michigan company, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Lamborn said Monday.

“There are only 33 of these rings, and 31 were distributed in the Michigan area,” he said. “None were sent out to California. Holly Tarr came out to California with that ring, and when her body was discovered, the ring was missing. In March, 1991, police executed a search warrant at the residence of Charla Lewis. The ring was found on her bathroom counter.”

During the time of three of the murders--those of Weinhold, Tarr and Tiffany Schultz, a 20-year-old San Diego State University student killed in January, 1990--Prince lived in the same apartment complex as Weinhold and Tarr’s brother. Schultz lived at an adjacent complex.

One month after Tarr’s slaying, Prince moved into an East San Diego apartment complex. Within three weeks, police found the body of Elissa Naomi Keller, 38, who lived across the street from Prince. She had been stabbed repeatedly in May, 1990.

After Keller’s murder, her gold nugget ring was discovered missing. Prince reported to police in December, 1990, that a ring of a similar description had been stolen from him.

Prosecutors said police had traced the ring to four other owners before confiscating it for evidence in the Keller case.

“We will trace that ring back to Cleophus Prince at or about the time of Elissa Keller’s murder,” Lamborn said.

The final two murders occurred in September, 1990, in University City. Pamela Gail Clark, 42, had just returned from a workout at a health club on Miramar Road, close to where Prince’s girlfriend, Charla Lewis, had an apartment.

Clark and her daughter Amber, 18, were stabbed to death inside their home, and money and jewelry were taken. Prosecutors said Prince deposited $80 in the bank soon after the murders.

Pamela Clark was a massage therapist, and prosecutors say they have a witness who quoted Prince as saying he was “doing” a masseuse and her daughter.

In all but one of the murders, the women were stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Tarr was stabbed once before the attacker ran out the front door of the apartment and was confronted by a maintenance worker who struggled with him but was fought off.

Prosecutors say the positions of the bodies, the stabbings and the blood stains in all six slayings fit a pattern.

Besides the six counts of murder, Prince is charged with 13 residential burglaries, six attempted residential burglaries, two counts of indecent exposure and one count each of battery, assault with a deadly weapon, forcible rape, perjury and possession of a weapon in jail.

In cases where no slaying occurred but where Prince is charged with other crimes, Lamborn and Deputy Dist. Atty. Rick Clabby say they have established another pattern. For instance, they say, Prince is accused of stealing $1,600--in denominations of $100 and $50--from a woman and her two roommates in August, 1990. A day later, they say, he deposited $1,100 worth of $100 and $50 bills into his bank account.

In October, 1990, Prince allegedly stole a television and videocassette recorder from a nearby apartment. Police say they confiscated the goods from people said to be friends of Prince.

Three months later, a woman named Melinda Pinkerton reported a burglary of jewelry, including a custom-made ring she had received from her parents. The ring was found at a pawn shop on El Cajon Boulevard. Police said Rodney Higgs, a friend of Prince, signed a ledger required to sell the property but that an accompanying thumbprint was that of Prince.

Higgs, who served in the Navy with Prince and now lives in Philadelphia, testified Monday that he pawned several articles for his friend, including two rings and a chain.

A chain stolen from Judy Kinney in February, 1991, turned up in the apartment of Charla Lewis, Prince’s girlfriend, police say. Kinney’s 14-karat gold emerald ring was given to another friend of Prince, they say.

And when Prince was arrested in Alabama last year, police found a gold ring on a chain around his neck. San Diego police traced it to Louis Depamphilis, who lives in San Diego County and whose home was burglarized in February, 1991.

Prosecutors say six of the female victims--one of whom was murdered, three of whom had attempted burglaries at their homes and three whose homes were burglarized--were members of the same Family Fitness Center on Miramar Road.

Police arrested Prince on an outstanding traffic warrant Feb. 4, 1991, outside the health club, where he said he was waiting for a woman named Cindy. Through a court mix-up, Prince was released and not arrested again until a month later in Birmingham.

Officials believe Prince stalked the women from the club to their homes, waited for them to shower, then tried to break in.

In one instance, prosecutors say, Prince attempted to burglarize a club member’s home in December, 1990, and returned to break in a little more than a month later. The woman was not harmed.

In May, 1991, a woman from Texas visiting a friend in La Jolla was returning from the beach to her friend’s home when a man approached her and inquired about renting in the area. The woman, Leslie Hughes, said she didn’t know the area and that the man walked away. As she unlocked the door, he ran toward her. The woman identified him in a police lineup as Prince.

Hughes “will describe how Mr. Prince turned and came after her, pushed her into the house and started attacking her,” Lamborn said. “She was able to push him and get him off-balance, and she ran down to the beach area, where she called for a lifeguard. The police were called, everyone converged on the residence, but Mr. Prince was not to be found.”

The preliminary hearing, which is held to decide if there is sufficient evidence to bind Prince over for trial, is expected to last two to four weeks. Ninety to 100 witnesses are expected to be called.