Girlfriend Can’t Provide Prince Alibi : Hearing: Woman who lived with the murder suspect testifies that she knew his whereabouts during the time of only one of the crimes of which he is accused.

The 23-year-old girlfriend of Cleophus Prince testified Friday that, except for once, she doesn’t recall seeing Prince during the time of any of the six killings or the dozens of other crimes of which he is accused.

In her first public comments about the man she calls “Prince,” Charla Maria Lewis, a student at UC San Diego seemed reluctant to disclose details of her relationship with the former Navy mechanic.

In statements to San Diego police, Lewis already has said that she had no clue that Prince was involved in any of the murders. Prosecutors said they don’t expect her to disclose any information that would link Prince to the crimes. Lewis spent the first day of testimony Monday sitting next to Prince’s mother, Dorothy.

Appearing self-assured but slightly defensive, Lewis, a petite woman with large loop earrings, a brown print blouse and tan pants, culled through her meticulously kept calendars of 1990 to answer questions posed by Rick Clabby, deputy district attorney.

By recounting Prince’s whereabouts on the dates of the 31 crimes with which he is charged, Clabby sought to eliminate the suspect’s potential alibis. In each instance, except the case of an attempted residential burglary that occurred Feb. 3, 1991, Lewis was not able to say for sure that she and Prince were together.

Lewis said she met Prince at a nightclub in Tijuana in early 1988 and she moved in with him in late 1989. She moved into the Buena Vista Gardens apartments in Clairemont with Prince and moved out in May, 1990. Within that span, two women were murdered at the same complex and another women stabbed to death at an adjoining development.

Police questioned Prince and Lewis at least twice about the murders, she said, but when they asked him to go downtown to police headquarters to be photographed, give blood samples and surrender any red T-shirts he had, she insisted that he not cooperate because he was not a suspect.

Two witnesses have testified that they saw a man with a red shirt running through the Buena Vista apartments shortly after the murder of Holly Tarr on April 3, 1990.

“I asked (a detective) if Prince was a suspect and he said he was questioning everyone in the neighborhood,” she said. “I said I didn’t feel that he had to go down there to provide a picture for (the detective) to take around the neighborhood. . . .”

By May, 1990, Lewis and Prince moved to the Top of the Hill Apartments in East San Diego because they were tired of police harassment, Lewis said. Within three weeks, Elissa Naomi Keller, 38, was found dead in an apartment across the street from Prince’s. She had been stabbed repeatedly.

Lewis testified that she maintained a hectic schedule: a full load of classes, including managerial accounting and macroeconomics as part of her economics major; full-time or part-time jobs, and other school activities.

During one break in the proceedings, as attorneys were meeting privately with Municipal Judge Patricia Cowett, Lewis was left on the witness stand and Prince at the defense table. Lewis tried not to meet his gaze and Prince looked solemnly ahead. But eventually, their eyes met and Prince broke into a smile and began laughing.

Prince worked a variety of jobs, including construction work with shifts beginning at 3 p.m. Lewis testified that, on the days of most of the crimes, he worked such a late shift. All the murders reportedly occurred around noon or earlier.

Lewis moved out of the Top of the Hill apartments in September, 1990, fed up with Prince’s male roommate who had moved in the month before, defense attorneys said after the hearing. Nine days before she moved into a new apartment, two more women were stabbed to death in University City.

On Monday, Lewis is to resume her testimony and is expected to address whether Prince gave her a ring that belonged to one of the murder victims. She is also expected to explain a November, 1990, incident in which Prince allegedly found Lewis in bed with Leo Robinson, a friend of Prince’s.

Prince was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and intent to commit great bodily injury on Robinson and battery on Lewis.

In other testimony Friday, a woman from Abilene, Tex., told how a man she later identified as Prince confronted her during a visit to La Jolla in mid-1990.

Leslie Hughes Webb said she had climbed the steps from the beach to a friend’s beach house on El Paseo Grande when a young black man in shorts, T-shirt and sunglasses approached.

The man told Webb that he and others had rented the beach house on occasion but Webb said it was clear to her the man didn’t know who owned the home. After a short conversation, she turned to enter the house and closed the door, trying to turn the dead-bolt when he forced the door open and attacked her.

“I watched the door open and he came after me,” she testified. “I can remember the way the muscles in my legs felt. They were very tense, very tight. I wanted to get out. He’s pulling me. He’s pushing me. He’s grabbing my face.”

Webb, about 5-foot-4 and slightly built, pushed the man away and he stumbled, falling into a night stand.

“I ran out of the house and ran sideways down the stairs,” she said. “I never took my eyes off him.”

Screaming, Webb saw a man and woman walking on the beach who came to her aid. Lifeguards in the area called police, who sent a SWAT team to the home. In the meantime, the man had run off.

Although Webb identified Prince at a live lineup, attorneys for the alternate public defender’s office who are representing Prince say she is mistaken.

“The man she saw was not Cleophus Prince,” attorney Loren Mandel said. “I’m not convinced the same person committed all these crimes. I’m sure she thought she was right when she chose (Prince), but the man she saw had shorts and sunglasses and wasn’t him.”

Shortly after the killings began, police released a composite of the man who was said to have committed the crimes.

After Prince was caught, it turned out that he looked nothing like the sketch.

Only six of 30 witnesses have been able to identify Prince in a live line-up.