Escondido Man Sentenced for Murder, Sexual Assault

Ronald Elliot Porter was sentenced Monday to 28 years to life in state prison for second-degree murder and sexual assault in a case investigated by the Metropolitan Homicide Task Force.

The former auto mechanic from Escondido was found guilty last month of murdering Sandra Cwik, a 43-year-old transient whose body was found near Buckman Springs in 1988.

The jury believed that Porter assaulted and choked five other women, but it could not find enough evidence to convict him of attempted murder in those attacks. Prosecutors were unable to seek lesser charges of assault because a three-year statute of limitations had expired.

One of those five victims was a pregnant 21-year-old mentally retarded hitchhiker, authorities said.

“He is an extreme danger to anyone in his wake,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Dusek said.

Superior Court Judge William Kennedy sent Porter to prison for 15 years to life for murdering Cwik. He also sentenced him to eight years in prison for sexually assaulting the retarded woman. Another five years were added because Porter has previously been convicted of a serious felony.

Kennedy followed the prosecutor’s recommendation for the maximum sentence. “Indeed, this is a very dangerous and violent individual,” the judge said, noting that Porter has been a “sexual predator for over 20 years.”

Porter, 44, has an extensive history of sexual assaults and is a suspect in a number of other cases involving transients and prostitutes slain in East County during the 1980s.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Dusek said after the sentencing that Porter is being investigated for 10 to 15 additional killings and assaults.

During the sentencing hearing, Dusek outlined Porter’s criminal history, which includes a plea- bargain conviction in 1970 to a misdemeanor charge of child molestation.

Additionally, Porter pleaded guilty in 1976 in Los Angeles County to kidnaping a 16-year-old boy. He was sentenced as a sex offender to an 18-month term in Patton State Hospital.

Porter was arrested in the latest case as he was being released from prison after serving four years for sexual battery in another East County attack. In March, 1989, he was convicted of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, as well as sexual battery.