Police Say 2 Slayings Not Connected

Two men arrested in connection with the bludgeoning deaths of an elderly San Diego couple are no longer suspects in similar killings in San Francisco, police said Monday.

Randall Clark Wall, 23, and John Richard Rosenquist, 28, were ruled out as suspects in the stabbing deaths of a San Francisco family after police could find no evidence to link them to the scene of the crime, San Francisco Police Lt. Bruce Lorin said.

Howard Bettencourt, 91, his wife, Helena 88, and their son, Howie, 55, were found stabbed to death in their Richmond District home March 16 after a worried relative, unable to contact them, phoned police, police said.

Wall and Rosenquist were suspected in the Bettencourt murders because the killings were similar to the March 1 slayings of John Oren, 84, and his crippled, partly blind wife Katherine, 73, Lorin said.

The elderly couple were beaten and stabbed to death in their Clairemont home, as their 10-year-old great-grandson hid in his nearby room and listened, police said.

“There were more than a few similarities between the homicides, but they have been discharged,” Lorin said. “We thought the two (slayings) were connected because of the coincidence of having an elderly couple murdered on March 1 in San Diego and then having these guys up here when another elderly couple was murdered. It is a real whodunit, but the murders are not connected.”