Details of Hilbun Arrest in Postal Shootings Revealed : Courts: Records show the fugitive spent the night before his arrest at a Garden Grove hotel with a woman. Police feared worst until they checked room and found no one.

SANTA ANA — While police were frantically looking countywide to arrest him for a shooting rampage at the Dana Point post office, former postal worker Mark Hilbun checked into a Garden Grove hotel room with an unidentified woman, according to court records obtained Wednesday.

After Hilbun was arrested and authorities learned from a motel key in his possession that he had spent the previous night at the Best Western International Inn, police obtained a search warrant for Room 111 thinking they might find a woman who had been “injured, shot or stabbed” by the fugitive killer, according to search warrants filed in Superior Court.

Court records indicated, however, that police found no one in the room. Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard King, the prosecutor who is building the state’s case against Hilbun, declined to say Wednesday whether authorities ever identified the mystery woman.

Hilbun has been charged with the May 6 slayings of his mother at her home and a former colleague at the post office, where he had worked for nearly four years before he was fired last December, in part for stalking a female employee.

For the next 38 hours, Hilbun successfully eluded police, allegedly shooting and wounding five others in separate attacks in other Orange County communities. He has also been charged with those shootings. He was finally arrested as he sat in a Huntington Beach sports bar watching television.

According to the search warrants, Hilbun checked into the Best Western May 7. A worker at the hotel who told police that Hilbun came in with a woman said Wednesday his memory of that night “is not really good because it was a Friday night and we were very busy.”

However, said Mohammed Khan, “I’m pretty sure he didn’t check in by himself.” Khan told police Hilbun checked in using the name Robert Plant--the name of the lead singer of the defunct rock group Led Zeppelin.

The search warrant returns, which list what evidence was collected, revealed that police found a framed “Looney Toons” poster and some women’s clothing in Hilbun’s hotel. Police also confiscated nine arrows, a hatchet, bullets and various camping equipment.

A Municipal Court judge Tuesday scheduled a hearing in Superior Court July 13 to determine if Hilbun is mentally competent to stand trial. He reportedly jumped from a second-story walkway in Orange County jail last month. Hilbun’s attorney contends he is not mentally fit to assist in his own defense.