Local Crime Fighter Slain by Husband, Police Say : Violence: Palmdale man had named a squatter in the slaying of Teri Lynn Peitz in connection with her Neighborhood Watch activities.

A Palmdale man who claimed that his wife was shot to death because of her crime-fighting work as a Neighborhood Watch organizer was charged Monday with killing the woman himself.

Like the infamous case of Charles M. Stuart Jr. in Boston, husband Jeffrey D. Peitz, 38, at first claimed that an African-American man had committed the Aug. 12 slaying of Teri Lynn Peitz, 37, as she sat watching television in their home.

But investigators learned that the sus pect named by Jeffrey Peitz had a solid alibi, and Deputy Dist. Atty. John A. Portillo said other evidence incriminates the dead woman’s husband.

“This man did it,” said the prosecutor, who filed one count of murder against Peitz.

Although there are parallels between the Peitz and Stuart cases, one key difference exists, Portillo said.

Stuart told Boston police that his wife, who was 7 1/2 months pregnant, was abducted and killed in 1989 by an African-American gunman who leaped into the couple’s car as they were leaving a childbirth class. Stuart later picked a suspect out of a police lineup.

In the Palmdale case, Peitz gave investigators the name of a man who allegedly had been living in a nearby house as an illegal squatter, saying the man had engaged in angry confrontations with the Peitzes and other Neighborhood Watch members.

But prosecutor Portillo said Monday: “The man that he named has conclusive proof that he was in the state of Michigan at the time” of the slaying.

Portillo declined to discuss other evidence linking Jeffrey Peitz to his wife’s death. Peitz, who was being held without bail, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Antelope Municipal Court.

Like Stuart, Peitz spoke warmly about his wife in the days after her death.

“She was probably the most well-liked person in the neighborhood,” he told a reporter last week. She “would do anything for anybody.”

Peitz, who works as a letter carrier, said he knew that sheriff’s deputies believed he was involved in the killing. He alleged, however, that they merely wanted to make a quick arrest without a thorough investigation.

“I am the easiest target,” he said. “They could make up any number of reasons . . . I am really the only witness, and also a real good suspect.”

Peitz said the slaying occurred while he was in an upstairs bedroom, folding clothes, and his wife was downstairs in a reclining chair, watching one of her favorite television shows, “Cops.”

Jeffrey Peitz said he heard the shots, went downstairs “and saw a person at the screen door, at the front, leaving the house.”

Although he owns a number of firearms, Peitz said he could not react more quickly that night because he had taken pain-killing medicine for a back problem. He said in an interview last week that he kept the firearms for protection.

Authorities said Teri Lynn Peitz died at the scene of multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

In the days after the shooting, Peitz told reporters and friends that the evicted house squatter had killed his wife and that she had died because of her dedication to reducing crime in her east Palmdale neighborhood.

That effort began about 18 months ago, when Teri Lynn Peitz contacted Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Denham, who oversees Neighborhood Watch programs in the area, and asked him how to get an anti-crime group started.

“She went out and knocked on doors throughout her neighborhood and organized a program,” Denham said. “It was one of the largest and one of the most active” Neighborhood Watch groups, he added.

Denham said last week that he was unaware of any other Neighborhood Watch leaders being harmed because of their work. He also said that he was skeptical of Jeffrey Peitz’s belief that his wife was killed because of her involvement in the program.

On Monday, Denham said he was not surprised by the husband’s arrest. “This murder is a case of domestic violence,” he said. “The Neighborhood Watch group will continue.”

Colleen Carr, a neighbor and close friend of the Peitzes, confirmed that she and other block captains were committed to continuing the Neighborhood Watch. She said group members want to distribute T-shirts bearing Teri Lynn Peitz’s name as a tribute to their founder.

Carr also has set up a fund at Antelope Valley Bank’s Palmdale branch to benefit the Peitzes’ 16-year-old daughter Michelle, who is staying with relatives.

Carr said that beyond her work with Neighborhood Watch, Teri Lynn Peitz was widely admired for her child-care business and for the Fourth of July picnics she organized for the neighborhood. The dead woman also had served as president of the Sumac School PTA.

Carr said that many of the family’s friends are still stunned and puzzled by the recent slaying and arrest.

“I find it hard to believe that Jeff could kill Teri,” Carr said. “In all of the years I’ve been good friends with them, Teri never complained about Jeff, and Jeff never showed any violence toward her. They were the center of the neighborhood.”

Nevertheless, while Teri Peitz often listened to other people’s problems, she rarely discussed her own, Carr said. The neighbor talked to Teri Peitz a few hours before the shooting and said her friend sounded depressed, but that she didn’t say why.

On Saturday, Carr and other neighbors gathered around the Peitz house as investigators searched inside and told them authorities are confident they have arrested the killer.

“There are people here who do not believe Jeff could possibly have done it,” Carr said. “I don’t want to believe it. But sometimes when you see all the evidence in front of you . . . I find it hard to imagine that they would come in here and search the house so thoroughly and arrest a man for nothing.”

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