Paroled Rapist Arrested in Murder : Crime: Suspect is returned to Orange County from Northern California to face charges in the death of a Huntington Beach woman.

A paroled rapist with a long history of sexual assaults was returned to Orange County on Tuesday to face charges that he murdered a 23-year-old Huntington Beach woman he met at a local nightclub.

A crowd of about 100 onlookers jeered and booed as Edward Patrick Morgan Jr., 28, of Orange shuffled off a chartered airplane at Fullerton Municipal Airport, wearing a jail-issued jumpsuit and shackles. He was guided to a patrol car by the Orange police officers who had gone to Quincy, Calif., to arrest him.

Seeking to elude a statewide manhunt, Morgan had fled to the small Northern California town where he was hiding out with a longtime girlfriend and a former cellmate from Folsom State Prison, both of whom were arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive.

When he is arraigned today, Morgan, already convicted of three rapes, could be charged with murder punishable by death if prosecutors determine that the woman he is suspected of murdering also was raped.

Police and prosecutors have declined to say whether they have evidence that Leanora Annette Wong had been the victim of a sexual assault before she was beaten to death across the street from the Orange nightclub where she went with a girlfriend last Thursday. Her battered body was discovered in a nearby parking lot early Friday morning.

Orange Police Lt. Tim Browne said investigators have fingerprint evidence against Morgan and that witnesses have said they saw him with the victim. Browne said a video security camera near the nightclub also captured some information that might be helpful, but he declined to elaborate.

The case has angered Morgan’s prior victims and some police officers, who believe he is a sexual predator who took advantage of a criminal justice system that seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt at nearly every turn. They are calling for tougher punishment of sexual offenders.

A Huntington Beach woman who says she was the victim of an unpunished rape by Morgan said Tuesday the slaying would not have occurred if Orange County prosecutors had been more vigorous in pursuing her case.

Morgan was arrested by Huntington Beach police in 1993 after the woman reported being raped, but the Orange County district attorney’s office declined to file rape charges against him, preferring to let parole officials send him back to prison for the remaining year of a sentence for his third rape conviction.

The clue that led to Morgan’s capture was a postcard from Sonya Marvin, 22, inviting him to visit her in Quincy that investigators found in his Orange apartment.

“I love him. That’s all you need to know,” said Marvin, as she was released on her own recognizance Tuesday from a Quincy jail.

Also arrested was Marvin’s brother-in-law, Travis Burhop, 21, who was Morgan’s former prison cellmate.