5 Questioned in Shooting of Tourists : Crime: Tips and investigative work lead to a possible break in the case. The German couple was attacked near Idyllwild.

Five people were being questioned Tuesday night as “possible suspects” in a shooting last week near Idyllwild that left a German tourist dead and her husband critically injured, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said.

Deputy Mark Lohman said tips from the public, coupled with investigative work by homicide detectives, led to the most significant break yet in the May 16 shootings.

The five people were taken to the Hemet substation for questioning that lasted into the night. Lohman said investigators also were poring over evidence taken when more than 30 law enforcement officers executed search warrants simultaneously at four houses in Banning.

That city is at the base of California 243 leading to Idyllwild, near where the shootings occurred.

None of the five had been arrested. Lohman said that if the investigation pans out with major developments, a news conference will be held today. He refused to identify the five or even to disclose their sex.

Banning Police Sgt. Marshall Palmer said the car investigators believe was used in the getaway is among the evidence obtained by county detectives.

Execution of the warrants, issued after sheriff’s investigators told a Riverside judge that they had good reason to search the houses, was the first indication that investigators were on the trail of possible suspects in the shootings near a viewpoint parking lot in the San Bernardino National Forest overlooking Hemet.

Gisela Pfleger, 62, was fatally shot in the head. Her husband, Klaus Pfleger, a retired customs worker in Germany, was shot twice in the face and once in the shoulder and apparently was left for dead by the assailants. He drove about half a mile to a nearby lake, where he attracted the attention of passersby who summoned help.

Recovering from his wounds at Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, Pfleger provided investigators with the only eyewitness account of the shooting. He described the assailants as three men between the ages of 17 and 20, wearing dark clothes. Robbery was the apparent motive, and only one of the attackers wielded a gun, he said.

Pfleger is expected to be hospitalized for more than a month for reconstructive jaw surgery. Because of difficulty speaking, he has communicated with investigators through written notes translated into English by a hospital staff member.

The Pflegers had arrived in Southern California only days before the attack to visit a daughter and to go sightseeing. Authorities do not believe that they were targeted as foreign tourists.

Lohman said that none of the five people taken in for questioning resisted the officers and that they would be questioned “for as long as it takes.”

Last week, Bakersfield police and the California Highway Patrol questioned the occupants of a car that generally matched the description of the getaway vehicle. But they were later released.

In addition to fielding tips from the public, the Sheriff’s Department set up a roadblock along the mountain highway for a few days after the shootings to question motorists who regularly travel the route.