Con Man Preyed on Victim’s Innocence, Police Say : Violence: Alleged killer met murder victim, 19, at health club. He had been jailed only days before her death, but tricked authorities into overlooking an arrest warrant in a Florida rape.

Around the small Burbank fitness center, Douglas Oliver Kelly was Mr. Helpful--always willing to lend a hand with the equipment or give training tips, particularly to attractive young women.

So it was that he met Sara Weir, a shy, devout 19-year-old, new to the city, who had been bitten by the entertainment-industry bug after landing a job as a gofer on the set of a TV sitcom.

“So young and innocent,” one detective called her.

In retrospect, Los Angeles police say, Weir--who was raised in Thousand Oaks and attended a private Christian high school--had few defenses against the likes of Kelly, a 35-year-old charmer whom detectives describe as a con man with a drinking problem, a quick line and a history of violence toward women.

When he suggested that he become Weir’s $40-per-hour personal fitness trainer at the Family Workout Fitness Center early this year, she readily accepted.

And sometime on Sept. 6 or 7, police allege, Kelly suffocated and stabbed the teen-ager to death in his apartment on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the flats of the San Fernando Valley. Then he disappeared, as did Weir’s 1986 Ford Bronco.

Last week, in announcing that they were seeking Kelly on suspicion of Weir’s murder, detectives disclosed that he also is wanted in a 1991 knifepoint rape in Miami Beach. In addition, he had been arrested for battering his girlfriend just a week before Weir was killed.

Frustrated investigators say that Kelley was free at the time only because he had slipped through the cracks of the criminal justice system. By giving police a false birth date when he was arrested for beating his girlfriend, he kept them from discovering the earlier, more serious, charge against him.

“I just feel so sorry about this girl,” said Sgt. Mike Coffey, who heads the homicide unit at the Los Angeles Police Department’s North Hollywood station. “She was . . . just out on her own.”

Last Friday, family, friends, classmates and co-workers overflowed the tiny chapel at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale for a memorial service for Weir. An extra 70 folding chairs had to be set up in a courtyard to accommodate the mourners.

Those who knew her commented on her faith, her pride in her Blackfoot Indian heritage and her long, glossy red-black hair. They remembered how she loved horses, sang like an angel and teased her mother, Thousand Oaks attorney Martha Farwell, about becoming a movie stunt artist.

During her senior year at Newbury Park Adventist Academy, everyone assumed she would go right on to Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska. Born in Calgary, Canada, and adopted when she was 6 months old, Weir said she dreamed of working with Eskimos.

Weir surprised friends and teachers, however, by announcing that she wanted to take some time off before continuing her education. She was accepted for an apprenticeship at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, leading to a production assistant’s job there--answering phones, running errands and greeting visitors to the set of the sitcom “Shaky Ground.”

Weir was popular at the office, according to her boss, producer Suzy Friendly. While women tended to feel motherly toward the wide-eyed newcomer, men offered to buy her lunch and brought her flowers.

Friends said Weir was meticulous about her appearance. She was one of the legion of health-conscious young women around Los Angeles who worked hard to achieve and maintain the perfect look.

The Family Workout Fitness Center, in a small shopping center on San Fernando Boulevard, was not far from the studio. She took aerobics classes and worked out with weights.

Though Kelly was officially a maintenance man there, on the side he took on clients as a personal trainer, Detective Steve Hooks said, until he was fired recently for taking money from club members.

“He certainly struck up many relationships with people at the gym,” Hooks said. “He was always described as being personable and friendly--up to a point. He scammed people out of money.”

He also was arrested Aug. 31 for beating his live-in girlfriend.

He spent only a night in jail, however, because he gave the false birth date and his full criminal history did not surface in a police computer check with the FBI’s National Crime Information Center in Washington. “If the number is not the same, it will not be a hit,” said Harper Wilson, the center’s chief law enforcement support officer.

Kelly went to court Sept. 1, entered a quick plea to a misdemeanor spousal abuse charge and was back on the street the next day.

Van Nuys Municipal Judge Alan Ellis sentenced him to two years probation and ordered him to serve 15 days with a Caltrans work crew and to complete a six-month domestic violence education program.

As far as Ellis and the prosecutor, Deputy City Atty. Kenneth D. Tso, were concerned, it was Kelly’s first offense. Because of budget cuts, the city attorney’s office--which handles misdemeanors--no longer has the ability to do more complete checks of outstanding warrants from either California or out of state, Tso said.

Authorities hope to eventually have fingerprint scanners that will instantly match suspects like Kelly with their criminal past.

He was out of jail for just days when Weir was killed. Police say they do not know how she wound up in his Valley Village apartment, but Hooks believes she died while resisting his advances.

By the time investigators found out Weir was dead, Kelly was nowhere to be found.

Weir’s body was discovered by the girlfriend Kelly had beaten two weeks earlier, who had returned to the apartment to collect some of her possessions.

Only then did police conduct a thorough records check on the missing Kelly and turned up his arrest warrant for a rape in Florida.

On May 7, 1991--coincidentally Weir’s 17th birthday--he had allegedly raped a 21-year-old South African student at knifepoint in Miami Beach. Authorities said he had met her at a hotel where they both were staying, befriended her and invited her out for drinks.

According to Hooks, Kelly came to California and wound up in a group home for alcoholics in Pasadena.

“He took off,” the detective said. “He’s a drifter. He comes and goes.”

Wherever Kelly is now, Hooks said, he will have trouble hiding one distinguishing mark. His first name and last initial--”Doug K”--are tattooed on his right bicep. Police say he might try to find work as a chef or personal trainer.

Hooks says he has no doubt Kelly will try to befriend another young woman. “He’s a predator,” the detective said.

To track him down, homicide detectives have sent bulletins to other police agencies and distributed his photo to the news media.

In the meantime, the health club where he befriended Weir closed Sept. 18. It had financial problems and “this was kind of the final straw,” Hooks said.

The case clearly is not a routine one for Hooks and his supervisor, Sgt. Coffey.

“I have one of my own about that age,” Coffey said, sliding a photograph of his own fresh-faced daughter from his wallet. “This one hits close to home.”