A SPECIAL REPORT: BEEPER BLIPS

BEEP BEEP: There was a time when, so went the joke, beepers were only for doctors and drug dealers. But that’s no longer true. Mothers-to-be of the ‘90s use them to locate spouses for the dash to the hospital. Parents use them to reel in overdue teens out with the family car. . . . “When you give your car to a 16-year-old and they stay out too late, you start to get a little worried,” says Ron Levi of Beeper King in Studio City.

BEEPER JUSTICE: Cops even use beepers to track down killers. Det. Rick Swanston of the LAPD’s West Valley Division recalls a 1992 murder victim whose beeper went off after he’d been slain. . . . The number was traced back to two silent business partners the police hadn’t known about, and the pair became instant suspects. Eventually they confessed. “They paged themselves right into prison,” quipped Swanston.

BEEP NO MORE: Not all clerics are so enamored of beepers. Take Pastor Stephen Hasper of Granada Hills Baptist Church. . . . He has pointedly asked his small congregation to turn off their devices during services. “Invariably, they’d go off during some quiet moment of worship,” said Hasper.

BEEPER SHOCKER: One recent Sunday morning, William Betzner’s girlfriend called his beeper in an effort to locate him. When her phone rang back, it wasn’t Betzner on the line but the coroner’s office. . . . Turns out Betzner, of Tarzana, had gotten into a struggle with an LAPD officer on Ventura Boulevard the night before and was shot to death. His beeper was still attached to him when his body reached the morgue.