D.A. Lacks Proof, Accused Killer Says : Courts: Representing himself at trial, man says there is no physical evidence connecting him to the ’82 slaying of CSUN educator.

A Minnesota man accused of the 1982 murder of a Cal State Northridge administrator urged jurors Tuesday to acquit him because prosecutors built their case by pressuring witnesses, yet still had no physical evidence linking him to the slaying.

“No fingerprints. No blood. No hair,” ties him to the strangulation, said Jonathan K. Lundh, who is representing himself in the Van Nuys Superior Court trial.

Lundh, 44, who police say is a smooth-talking con man who lived off women while visiting California a decade ago from the Midwest, also asserted: “I’m no mad dog killer roaming the streets of L.A.”

He is charged with murder in the April 27, 1982, slaying of Patty Lynn Cohen of Tarzana, assistant to the dean of Cal State Northridge’s School of Arts, in a case that drew widespread media attention.

She was last seen walking toward her car that evening in the parking lot of the Burbank Holiday Inn after attending a self-improvement seminar. Her nude body was found five days later in the trunk of her car in a North Hollywood alley.

Lundh, who was arrested the following day in North Hollywood for car theft, became a suspect in Cohen’s killing when police noticed that he resembled a widely circulated police artist’s sketch of a mustachioed, knife-wielding man seen stalking women outside the hotel that night.

But prosecutors refused to charge Lundh with Cohen’s slaying after concluding that witnesses’ identifications were inadequate.

However, Lundh was convicted of attempting to abduct another woman at knifepoint at the same hotel the night Cohen disappeared, and was sentenced to four years in prison.

The Cohen case was reopened by police in 1989 and witnesses were re-interviewed. This time, the district attorney’s office agreed to prosecute.

Lundh, who did not testify in his own defense, remained composed throughout his four-hour closing argument Tuesday. He used the opportunity to convey to jurors his argument that he made an honest living fixing cars in 1982.

He argued that the four women who testified that they saw him at the hotel that night, plus another who said she saw him driving Cohen’s Ford Mustang in Van Nuys the following morning, became more certain of their identifications each time police talked to them.

He also contended that the use of the term “disheveled” by several witnesses indicates that police used the power of suggestion in securing their testimony.

By contrast, Lundh described his alibi witnesses as people who came forward of their own accord and had no ax to grind.

Chief among these are a stand-up comedian who said he chatted with Lundh and tried out some of his comedy routines on him in Inglewood less than one hour after Cohen disappeared in Burbank.

The comedian, Bruce J. Douglas, who was moonlighting as a gas station attendant, said he remembered Lundh because he was the only customer ever to ask for directions to the Comedy Store in West Hollywood and because he laughed at his jokes for about 10 minutes.

Another defense witness said that he saw two men emerging from Cohen’s car as it was parked in the North Hollywood alley. That was four days after she had disappeared and at a time when Lundh can account for his whereabouts, according to testimony.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Phillip H. Rabichow, who contends that the defense witnesses are mistaken, is expected to conclude his final argument today.

If convicted, Lundh could be sentenced to life in prison.