Family, CHP Settle Suit Over Officer’s Slaying of Woman

The family of a young woman murdered by an on-duty California Highway Patrol officer in 1986 has settled a lawsuit against the CHP for $2.7 million.

The family of Cara Knott decided to settle the lawsuit rather than continue the legal fight, according to the family’s lawyer, Brian Monaghan. A judge last year awarded the family a $7.5-million judgment, but the CHP, represented by the state attorney general, filed an appeal.

“This has been extremely exhausting for the family, emotionally,” Monaghan said Wednesday.

Steve Talliano, press secretary to Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, said the settlement includes no admission of fault on behalf of the state or CHP. The decision to settle the case rather than pursue an appeal was made by the CHP, Talliano said.

Knott, 20, a student at San Diego State University, was strangled and her body was thrown off a highway bridge on the night of Dec. 27, 1986. After two trials, CHP Officer Craig Peyer, a 14-year-veteran, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

Knott’s father, Sam, said he plans to use much of the money “to further our goals of safeguarding the rights of women driving alone at night on our freeways and streets.”

Sam Knott has campaigned for the CHP and other law enforcement agencies to install equipment in police cars that allows dispatchers to monitor each car’s movements and to determine when the car’s flashing light and siren have been used.

“The illegal acts of the rogue officer are society’s worst nightmare, because they destroy the public’s confidence in our police and its trust in the honorable officer,” the Knott family said in a statement.

During Peyer’s trials, witnesses testified that he had stopped numerous young women for spurious reasons while on duty.