Suspect in 4 Murders Held in San Diego; 2nd Is Detained but Mistakenly Released

One suspect in a string of murders in Missouri, Arizona and Nevada, as well as an abortive purse snatching in Huntington Beach, was arrested Wednesday but a second was inadvertently released.

Alan Nicklasson, 22, an ex-convict from Missouri, was arrested without incident after being seen hitchhiking on Interstate 805.

A companion, now thought by authorities to be Dennis J. Skillicorn, 34, was detained but released when a computer check showed no warrants under the name he gave officers. A third man was also detained and released.

Nicklasson and Skillicorn, who is also an ex-convict and convicted murderer, are suspects in four murders in three states, as well as a shooting incident in a Huntington Beach shopping mall that began as an attempted purse snatching.

The murders began soon after Skillicorn was released from a four-month program at the Salvation Army rehabilitation center in Kansas City on Aug. 23 and left with Nicklasson. The two had met at the center.

“We have an active manhunt going on right now,” said FBI spokesman Ron Orrantia.

Nicklasson and Skillicorn had not been positively spotted since Aug. 27, when a a 30-year-old Huntington Beach woman told police that a man wearing a red baseball cap grabbed her purse from her shopping cart at Hughes’ Market on Algonquin Street and ran from the store. Another shopper chased the man, who dropped the purse and fired three shots at his pursuer, who was not hit.

A dark blue Dodge Ram Charger with Arizona plates was spotted near the market, and police traced it to Nicklasson and Skillicorn.