Killer is a possible suspect in other assaults

Reporting from San Diego

Convicted killer and rapist John Albert Gardner III is being investigated as a suspect in assaults against women and teenage girls in San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, law enforcement officials said Monday.

“We believe he’s involved in other cases, not necessarily murder,” said Lt. Dennis Brugos, head of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department homicide detail. A multiagency “Gardner task force” is at work, he said.

Brugos said investigators talked to Gardner for two hours Friday after he was sentenced for the murders of Chelsea King, 17, and Amber Dubois, 14, in northern San Diego County. He declined to say how many cases Gardner was considered a suspect in.

Brugos’ comments came as law enforcement agencies broke their silence on the King and Dubois murders.

At a news conference, Escondido police said that in the weeks after Dubois’ Feb. 13, 2009, disappearance an officer questioned Gardner when a woman said he was stalking her in his car. The officer found an open container of alcohol in Gardner’s car and a 3-year-old boy, the son of Gardner’s girlfriend.

The incident occurred about a mile from where Dubois had last been seen walking to class at Escondido High School.

The officer, who knew Gardner was a registered sex offender, let Gardner go and did not report the incident to a task force that Escondido police had formed to look for Dubois, according to Escondido Police Capt. Bob Benton. Ten months later, Gardner killed Chelsea King.

Escondido police had a dozen contacts with Gardner while he lived there as a registered sex offender, but he was never considered a suspect in King’s disappearance, officials said.

Still, Escondido Police Chief Jim Maher said, “I have full confidence in my Police Department.”

Maher said he doubted that evidence linking Gardner to Dubois’ disappearance would have developed even if the information had been given to the task force.

Gardner was sentenced Friday in San Diego County Superior Court to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence was part of a plea bargain in which the 31-year-old escaped the death penalty in exchange for pleading guilty to murdering both teenagers during rape attempts.

Gardner was arrested in King’s murder after investigators foundher underwear stained with her blood and his semen near the jogging path at Lake Hodges, where she had been running.

In announcing the plea bargain in April, Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis said that without it, her office did not have enough evidence to convict Gardner for Dubois’ murder and seek the death penalty.

After being arrested in King’s murder, Gardner led officials to Dubois’ remains on condition that the information not be used to file a murder charge against him. Officials began searching for other evidence that would link him to the murder and could be used to seek the death penalty.

Brugos said evidence was collected at the mountainous site where Dubois’ remains were found. He declined to give details.

At the news conference, Dumanis and Deputy Dist. Atty. Kristen Spieler declined to discuss specifics about the failed investigation that led to the plea bargain or the plea deal itself, although Spieler said it was frustrating that no evidence linking Gardner to Dubois’ murder could be found.

One of the search warrants released after the guilty plea showed that two utility company workers had told authorities after Gardner’s arrest and the discovery of Dubois’ remains that they had seen people who looked like Gardner and Dubois in a car similar to Gardner’s. The sighting was in the area northeast of Escondido, where her remains were later found.

Gardner previously served five years in prison for an attack on a 13-year-old girl.

tony.perry@latimes.com