Suspect Held in Slaying of Detective : Crime: Torrance man is arrested in shooting of off-duty officer who was searching for a prowler.

A Torrance man was arrested Tuesday in the slaying of an off-duty Los Angeles police detective who was killed on the Westside last month while checking a report of a prowler in a neighbor’s yard, authorities said.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams described the suspect, William Hite, 50, as an unemployed commercial painter who had dated the woman in whose yard Detective Edward Kislo was shot Aug. 22. Investigators have not determined a motive for the shooting, Williams said at a press conference.

“They had known each other,” Williams said of the suspect and the 47-year-old woman who was not otherwise identified. “They had been friends. They had gone out at some time.”

The woman, who lived in the Palms area, had called Kislo, 50, to report that she thought someone was prowling on her property.

Hite has made no statement to police since his arrest, and investigators have not determined why he was in the woman’s yard, Williams said.

Kislo’s close friend, Jeff Williams, who lives in a trailer next to one the detective owned, said that Hite’s mother lives next door to the woman and that Hite was often at his mother’s home.

Jeff Williams said the woman in whose yard the shooting occurred told him before and after the shooting that Hite had threatened her and had broken into her home.

“I’m bitter,” said Jeff Williams, referring to the alleged threats against the woman. “Something should have been done about this.”

He said he did not know if the woman had reported the threats.

He said he does not believe the woman knew who was in her yard when she called Kislo for help.

Chief Williams declined to comment on whether Hite had ever threatened the woman.

Kislo, a divorced father of a teen-age son, was shot after he armed himself and went across the street to check his neighbor’s yard. He had told his neighbor that 911 workers were busy and that she need not call them, the chief said.

At his news conference, Williams said that Kislo, an 18-year veteran who planned to retire next year, entered his neighbor’s home through the front door and had just stepped out the back door when he was shot without warning.

The woman and a male relative were inside the home at the time of the shooting but were unhurt, the chief said.

The shooting occurred during a bloody, three-day weekend last month when at least 27 other people were killed in Los Angeles County. Williams said Los Angeles police had made arrests in several of the other slayings but could not say how many.

Evidence against Hite came from people in the area where the shooting occurred, “a person in the house” and police laboratories, the chief said.

He praised investigators who handled the case, saying they “were literally out there crawling the crime scene on their hands and knees” looking for evidence. Investigators found a 9-millimeter pistol they believe is the gun used to fatally wound Kislo, Williams said. He would not disclose where it was found.

Hite’s arrest occurred without incident at 7 a.m. Tuesday after Los Angeles detectives and an officer from the Torrance Police Department searched his home on Anza Avenue near Pacific Coast Highway, Williams said. Hite was being held without bond at Parker Center on suspicion of murder.