2 Are Arrested in Slayings of Elderly Couple : Crime: Authorities tracked suspects to San Francisco after finding car belonging to Clairemont victims.

Two transients have been arrested in San Francisco in connection with the slayings of an elderly Clairemont couple who were beaten and stabbed as their 10-year-old great-grandson listened in horror in the next room, San Diego police said Wednesday.

Randall Clark Wall, 23, and John Richard Rosenquist, 28, were arrested at separate locations on suspicion of murder in the deaths of John Oren, 84, and his crippled, partly blind wife, Katherine, 73, said Lt. Paul Ybarrondo of the San Diego Police Department.

The Orens were slain March 1 in their Deerpark Drive home. The great-grandson waited until the next morning before entering the room where the bodies were, then ran to a neighbor for help, police said.

The killings stunned the quiet neighborhood of long-time residents.

San Francisco police arrested Wall at 5 p.m. Tuesday and Rosenquist at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday at homeless shelters.

The two were tracked down following a string of events surrounding a beige 1978 Mercury Monarch that was stolen from the Orens’ home on the night of the slayings, Ybarrondo said.

On March 2, the two men bought gas for the car at a San Fernando gas station near U.S. 101, using John Oren’s credit card, Ybarrondo said.

That same day, a firefighter on patrol in a federal game preserve in eastern San Luis Obispo County was flagged down by Wall and Rosenquist. The two asked for a ride to the small nearby town of California Valley, Ybarrondo said. There was no car visible where the men were picked up.

After dropping the men off at a motel in the town, the firefighter notified San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s deputies, thinking it odd that the men were wandering in the remote area, authorities said.

On March 3, deputies went to the motel to question the men and took down their San Francisco addresses, Ybarrondo said.

Eleven days later, San Diego police were contacted by federal authorities who told them they had found the burned-out shell of the Orens’ car at the game preserve, Ybarrondo said. Documents belonging to John Oren were found scattered about a windblown field near the car.

San Diego police said the burned car was discovered March 5 by game preserve employees. They reported the find to the federal Bureau of Land Management, but because of its remote location, no one was sent to check on the vehicle for nine days.

On Tuesday, San Diego police, working with San Francisco police, tracked Wall and Rosenquist to the homeless shelters, Ybarrondo said.

The motive for the slayings is believed to be robbery because the car and other items were taken from the home, Ybarrondo said.

Authorities were tight-lipped about whether the couple knew their killers, saying only it was not a random attack.

Wall and Rosenquist are expected to be returned to San Diego in a few days for prosecution. The case has been turned over to the district attorney’s office, Ybarrondo said.

Police said the killings were not connected to the Feb. 29 slaying of 84-year-old Angela Kleinsorge, who lived a little more than a mile away and was found in her home with her throat slashed. Kleinsorge had been sexually assaulted, police said.