News Scrapbook 1984

L Me 11, CA (Sen Diego Co.) Le Mes Courier (Cir. W. 5,500)

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P c e , , ,us arch On For Murder Suspect bduct d from the Marsh 1 and Fl tcher Purkwny r a of El Cajon on

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,,_ (Continued from Page J) anonymous $20,000 donation. University of Srui Diego spoke wci'?):ian Sara Finn, who is coord lll ating the reward program at the school, said it will include $10,000 for infor- mation leading to an im mediate arrest or indictment. An additional $15,000 will be awarded upon conviction. Swanke wa 3 s;tudE"nt at USD. Swanke, 22. was found on Spring Valley. An autopsy revealed she d1Pd of ble<'ding as a a remott• hill m

result of neck lacerations. That method of assault is what led police to link the two cas:es, investigators said. Swanke had last been seen at 1:45 a.m. Nov. 20 walking back to her car near ,Jackson and Parkway in La :'.\1esa. San Diego Police said her vehicle had run out of fuel. No suspects in the murder case have been arrested. Swanke, the daughter of profei;sor ,John Swanke, was a French and mu,a;ic major hoping for a USD philosophy

career as an opera singer. Finn said that should an arrest be made without out- side help, some of the reward money may be transferred to a USD music scholarship m Swanke's name. Anyone who has informa• tion in the case is asked to call the San Diego Sheriff's Homicide Division at 565-5200. the Anne Swanke Memorial Fund may be mailed to Sara Finn, USO, Alcala Park, San Diego, Calif. 92110. Donations to

to have slightly bulging eyes. The victim said her sailant wore designer-type Jean and a pullover shirt. The uspect drove a dark brown, sporty car with louvers on the rear wmdow The car had a beige interior with sheepskin, bucket. eat covers. The car had an automatic tran. mission with a floor console In other developments in the Swanke case, a reward for information leading to the ar• rest and conviction of her murderer has been increased to $25,000, thanks to an (Continued on Page 2)

,June 8 during the late even• m , The kidnnpp r slashed h throat nd left the victim t the mte ctrnn of Lyons and Culavo Drive in unincor- porated l..a 1 · . The victim, who wn not identified by polic , urvived. cribed her at• tacker as white male in his late 20 or early 30 , 5 foot 10 inche with medium, but ohd build The suspect i. id to huvc blond or light hair with Ii •ht-colored yebrows nd mu tache, and ppeared She d

An artist's conception of a man wanted in connection with the Anne Swanke murder case. /

San Diego, CA (Son Di go Co I Ev ning Tribune (Cir. D. 127,4541

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San Diego, Monday, Deu,ml1Pr 17, 1984

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Hartman said no single piece of mformat10n or individual who con- tacted the Sheriffs Department led to Lucas' arrest. Swanke was last seen alive about 2 a.m. Nov. 20. She was carrying a can of gasoline toward her car on Park- way Dnve in La Mesa. Her body was found by a hiker Nov. 24 on a hillside in Spring Valley. Her throat had been slashed. The coroner has not con- firmed that she was sexually assault- ed, Duffy said. The bodies of Strang and Amber were found by Strang's 5-year-old daughter in her Lakeside home on Riverview Avenue. Amber lived with her father and Strang had been baby- sitting her. Both victims' throats had been slashed. The coroner has not determined whether Strang was sex- ually assaulted, Duffy said. Santiago was kidnapped about midnight June 9 near Marshall Ave- nue m El Cajon while walking to her car from a restaurant. She had been visiting her brother in El Cajon. After her throat was slashed, she was dumped on a roadside outside Lake- side, near Casa de Oro. She was sexu- ally assaulted. Sara Finn, director of public rela- tions at USO, said Swanke's father, a philosophy professor at the universi- ty, had called early yesterday to tell her of the arrest. ''He told 1-;ie Friday Anne had done her Christm&s shopping and they bad

found all their Christmas presents wrapped up," Finn said. Duffy praised the public response that provided hundreds of leads in the Swanke case and also the "dedi- cated and hard-nosed police "ork." State Department of Corrections officials in Sacramento today said Lucas' name does not appear in any of their records, and apparently he has never been convicted of a crime or served time in prison as an adult in California. However, he was convicted on charges of forcible rape and assault with a deadly weapon in connection with a May 27, 1973, sexual attack on the 21-year-old maid of a friend of the family. He denied the allegations and was referred to Superior Court to be examined by forensic psychia- trists. Two court psychiatrists said

they believed Lucas was a mentally disordered sex offender and recom- mended commitment to Atascailero State Hospital. • Lucas demanded a trial on 1 the issue of the disorder and a judge ruled he did not fall into that catego- ry. Consequently, he was sent to the California Youth Authority at Nor- walk for an indeterminate sentence. Youth Authority spokesman Art 'German said today that two months after Lucas was sent to Norwalk, he was transferred to Atascadero. He said Lucas was "dishonorably dis- charged" from CYA parole in August 1977 when he was arrested out of state and sentenced to a federal pris- on. He kne v of no details on the fed- eral case. - Tribune staff writer Mike Konon contributed to this story

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The attempted murder and kid- napping counts are in connection with an as ault on a San Diego Coun- ty visitor, Jody Santiago, June 9 in El Caion Her throat was slashed after she was held overmght. Santiago's memory of that assault led to the arrest of Lucas at 7 a.m. yesterday, when two detectives en- tered the house where Lucas lived in the 10100 block of Casa de Oro Boule- vard in Spring Valley. They took him mto custodv without resistance. Sheriffs· homicide Lt. Scott T. Boies said that earlv last week detec- tives went to Seattle, where Santiago lives, and from her de cription of her assailant compiled a sketch of the uspect ThP drawmg was widely dis- tributed in San Diego County When Lucas. a elf-employed car- pet cleaner, was Jailed yesterday, his hair and mustache were the same length as th se on the man depicted in the sketch. Boies said he did not know if Lucas had been aware of the drawing. Santiago returned to San Diego County late last week to again aid detectives, Boie said. She was able to identify a house in which she was held and sexually assaulted, a car u~ed in the crime and, Duffy said, she identified Lucas as her assailant. Duffy said Lucas also is being que ·tioned about several other homi- cides in San Diego County and that deputies had him under surveillance for some time. "We've been watching him every minute until the arrest this morn- ing," Boies added . • As for a $25,000 reward established for information leading to the appre- hension and md1ctment of a suspect in the Swanke slaying, Hartman said

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in Swanke case e, assault records

This sketch of a man being sought in connection with a kid- nap-assault case and the slaying of a USD student helped sheriff's deputies make an arrest yester- day. The hair style and mustache of David Allen Lucas, who was taken into custody at his home, were similar to what was pic- tured by the sherifrs artist. a panel o( representatives from the Sheriff's Department, San Diego Crime Commission and USO will meet to determine how and If the reward should be paid.

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no emotion as downtown jail g what author• an nd to the

raigned in court later thi week.

Formal murder charges are being sought m connection with the Oct. 23 death of Rhonda Strang. 31, and of ""1;;;;!1'!~11n- iu;;;;- Amber Fisher, 3, both of whom were

slain while Strang was baby-sitting Amber in her Lakeside home, said San Die County Sheriff John Duffy. Plea LUCAS, A 16

Lakeside, CA (San Diego Co.) Back Country Trader (Cir. W. 4,092)

DEC 1 9 1984

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~pring Valleyman is li~fto killings A Spring Valley man after her November 20 dis- a:r~sted in the wake of the appearance. ~ilhng of a college student According to investiga- ~n La Mesa is also a suspect tors, Swanke disappeared m the October 23 slayings after her car ran out of gas of a Lakeside woman and at Fletcher Parkway and the three-year-old girl she Jackson Drive in La Mesa. had b~en babysitting. When her body was David A. Lucas, 29, was found, it was determined ~rrested Sunday by sher- that her throat had been 1ff"s deputies investigating slashed. similar to the the murder of 22-year-old deaths of Rhonda Strang, Anne S':anke. l\.11.nil(ersity 24, of lakeside and Amber of Sac Diego ,tYdent whose Lynn Fisher, the three- body was_fou:"d on a Spring year-old whose body was Valley h11Is1de four days

Ventura, CA (Ventura Co.) Star Free Press (Cir. D. 39,954) (Cir. S. 42,088)

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~')_held in slayings of women, child had hePn baby-sittmg the child.

Duffy said Lucas will also be charged with t e attempted murder and kidnapping of Jody Santia• go, formerly of San Diego and now a Washing- ton s te re ident. who was found with her throat ut r.ear Spring Valley, June 9, after she was abdu ed m El Cajon She survived, and identified Lucas Saturday from a photograph, Duffy said Santi, go flew to San Diego to cooperate m the mvestigation. "W are looking at several more cases of murder in which the pattern was similar to these four cases, committed in the last year, with slashed throats, all in San Diego, the victims all women " Duffy said He said he couldn't say how many additional murders Lucas was suspected of The sheriff said tips from the public and "hard- nosed police work" by his own and La :\1e. a detectives led to Lucas.

found beside Strang·s in a home in the 9400 block of Riverview Avenue in Lake- side. Lucas is now a suspect in all three filllrders µ1 us an attack on Jodie Santiago, a 30-year-old woman whose attacker slashed her throat and left her for dead in El Cajon on June 9. She helped detectives put to- gether a composite sketch of her assailant and this week identified Lucas as being that person. Lucas, who was sched- uled to be arraigned this week, is the owner of Carpet Maintenance Co., a carpet-cleaning firm with three local offices. He reportedly was con- victed of rape when he was 18 and was sentenced to a Cal'.f?rnia Youth Authority Facility. He used a knife to coerce the victim of that rape. local law enforcement officials are questioning Lucas about other unsolved crim