Transient Arrested in Triple Slaying in Yucca Valley

A man described by authorities as a transient and parole violator was arrested late Monday on suspicion of killing three people in this small desert town in San Bernardino County.

Police arrested Mark Fitzwater, 37, after he led the California Highway Patrol on a brief chase on a motorcycle in Joshua Tree and then tried to hide inside a house.

He became a suspect in the slayings after investigators interviewed associates of the victims, said Robin Haynal, a San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman. The bodies were found Monday night in a home guarded by pit bulls in the 7100 block of Joshua View Drive.

“Murder charges are pending,” Haynal said. “And no one else has been arrested.”

Fitzwater is a parolee and detectives were still researching his criminal record, Haynal said.

San Bernardino County coroner’s officials Wednesday identified two of the victims: Patty Jo Crevoisier, 49, and William John Landers, 43. The identity of the third victim, a 36-year-old man, had not been verified by Wednesday night.

Residents of the Yucca Valley neighborhood where the killings took place said they have long suspected that people living in Crevoisier’s house might have been involved in illegal activities.

The modest yellow stucco home has cedar pines in the frontyard and several junked racing motorcycles in the backyard. Rooms were stacked high with junk and furniture. A neighbor said Crevoisier’s former boyfriend was a recycler.

One neighbor described the home as a “drug house.” The woman, who did not give her name, said she was so fearful of the activities there that she installed a 6-foot-high security fence between her home and the victims’ house.

“There’d be 10 to 20 people a day coming and going at that house in everything from junkie cars to shiny new Jaguars,” the woman said. “Nobody has that many friends.”

The killings occurred in the living room, officials said. The bodies were found Monday by one of Crevoisier’s friends. Blood stains on the carpet were visible through the front window.

Lee Matthews, a neighbor, said she visited Crevoisier just hours before the killings in hopes of taking from the home a truck that belonged to Matthews’ daughter-in-law.

“Patty seemed fine,” Matthews said. “However, she was cleaning up a big mess in the living room. It seems her dogs had torn apart her couch, and there was foam all over the place.”

Matthews described Fitzwater as an occasional visitor to Crevoisier’s home.

Neither the coroner’s office nor the Sheriff’s Department would provide details about how the victims were killed.