Witness Will Face Renewed Interrogation : Slayings: Man may be given polygraph test. Knife found near injured woman’s car is tested to see if it is weapon in slashings.

Sheriff’s investigators said Tuesday that they plan to re-interview and are considering giving a lie detector test to a man who said he was present but unconscious when his mother and ex-girlfriend were stabbed to death at Universal CityWalk.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Robinson identified Paul Carasi, 30, as the only known witness to events leading to the killings of his mother Doris Carasi, 61, and Sonia Salinas, 29, whose throats were cut on the roof of a parking structure at CityWalk late Sunday evening, as they returned to their car after a Mother’s Day dinner.

Paul Carasi, who suffered cuts to his thumb and arm, has told investigators he was attacked from behind and that he was injured while trying to grab his assailant’s knife.

“He said his assailant had him from behind and he reached up and grabbed the knife,” Robinson said. “He was dazed and didn’t get a good look at his assailant,” and passed out, Robinson said.

Carasi said that when he regained consciousness, he found his mother and ex-girlfriend lying in a pool of blood and alerted CityWalk guards, Robinson said. Investigators plan to re-interview Carasi, who has not been identified as a suspect, Robinson said.

Robinson also said that Carasi has not undergone a lie detector test but that such a test is “going to be something we’re going to look at down the line.”

Detectives also want to talk to Donna K. Lee, 44, described by neighbors as Carasi’s current girlfriend, who was found about 15 minutes after the slayings with a deeply slashed stomach alongside the Hollywood Freeway about four miles from CityWalk.

Lee told authorities that she was robbed and attacked alongside the road.

“I stopped because I was feeling sick to my stomach . . . A man stopped and he got my purse and stabbed me and I’m dying . . . please, it hurts,” Lee said in a recording of the 911 emergency call she made from a freeway call box at 11:15 p.m. Sunday. The recording was made public Tuesday by the California Highway Patrol.

So far no suspects have been identified in the attack on Lee, a sheriff’s deputy said.

Investigators plan to ask Lee why officers found a bloody butcher knife--which deputies said may be the weapon used in the CityWalk slayings--and a fanny pack belonging to Doris Carasi near Lee’s car, Robinson said.

“Hopefully that will come out when she’s re-interviewed,” Robinson said. “It’s just something we have to work through.”

Lee, who was stabbed twice in the stomach and suffered a superficial wound to her back, underwent surgery for her stomach injuries. She was listed in fair but stable condition Tuesday, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Investigating deputies tried to interview Lee on Tuesday but she refused to talk, said Deputy Britta Tubbs. Lee’s injuries are “not life-threatening,” Tubbs said.

Robinson said Lee did not accompany Carasi and the others to the Mother’s Day dinner at the Country Star Restaurant on the CityWalk promenade, and no witnesses have reported seeing her at the amusement park at that time.

All those known to be involved in the incident lived in the same North Hollywood apartment house. Paul Carasi lived with Lee, his current girlfriend, just two doors from an apartment shared by his mother, his former girlfriend Salinas and their 2-year-old son, neighbors said.

Lee, Salinas and Paul Carasi all worked together at a Bank of America data processing center in Downtown Los Angeles, a bank spokesman said Tuesday. Grief counseling was provided Tuesday for about 70 of their co-workers, the spokesman said.

Robinson said investigators spent Tuesday morning at autopsies on the dead women, trying to determine whether the butcher knife discovered near Lee’s sports car could have inflicted the fatal wounds. Authorities are also running blood and fingerprint tests on the knife, they said.

“We’re trying to determine whether in fact we do have the murder weapon,” Robinson said.

Friends of Carasi described him as being in a state of disbelief over the slayings.

Francisco Avila, who identified himself as a friend of Carasi, said that police told Carasi on Monday that his mother and Sonia Salinas were dead, but that Carasi didn’t believe it until he saw a television news report Tuesday morning. “He’s so upset,” Avila said in an interview outside Carasi’s apartment.

Accompanied by a sheriff’s deputy, Carasi showed up Monday with his son at the North Hollywood apartment complex where he lived with Lee, near the apartment shared by his mother and Salinas.

Carasi began pounding on the door of the apartment he shared with Lee, pleading loudly, “open the door, Sonia, open the door.” When nobody answered, Carasi left with the sheriff’s deputy.

Carasi was questioned by investigators Monday and released later in the afternoon.

Neighbors have said that Doris Carasi objected to her son living with Lee and that several weeks ago Doris Carasi and Lee got into a fight. They said Doris Carasi hit Lee on the head with her keys.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.