CHP Officer Held in Slaying of S.D. Student

SAN DIEGO —  A California Highway Patrol officer with a “very clean record” was arrested by San Diego police Thursday and charged with murdering a San Diego State University student while he was on duty.

Officer Craig Alan Peyer, 36 and a 13-year CHP veteran, was arrested shortly after 7 p.m. at his home in Poway by San Diego police homicide investigators and charged with the murder of Cara Evelyn Knott, 20, of El Cajon. He was booked at County Jail late Thursday night and held in a cell separate from other prisoners.

Knott’s body was thrown off a bridge into a creek bed off Interstate 15 on Dec. 27. She was strangled.

Friends described Peyer as a friendly man who is married and has an infant child.

“It saddens me to tell you that the suspect is a CHP officer who was on duty at the time,” San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender said.

Peyer is the second CHP officer ever charged with committing murder while on duty. In 1984, George Michael Gwaltney was convicted in a civil rights homicide case stemming from the rape and killing of a young woman whom he stopped in the desert near Barstow.

Knott’s fully clothed body was discovered by her brother-in-law at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 28 after relatives launched an all-night search when she failed to return from a visit to her boyfriend’s house in Escondido.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph L. Van Orshoven, who appeared at the Thursday night press conference where Peyer’s arrest was announced, said that the officer probably pulled Knott’s car over while she was en route home. A coroner’s report attributed Knott’s death to strangulation and did not say if she was sexually molested.

Officials at the press conference refused to say if Knott had been sexually assaulted. Instead, Van Orshoven said that, for the moment, Peyer is being held only on a murder charge.

In a bizarre twist to the case, KCST (Channel 39) broadcast a report the day after Knott’s body was discovered in which a reporter rode along with Peyer. During the report, Peyer was advising viewers, particularly women, not to accept rides from strangers if their cars break down in the freeway.

“Stay in the vehicle. Lock all doors. Turn on the emergency flashers and wait for help to come. Even if you have to wait all night, it’s better to be in the safety of your vehicle and spend the night than to try to walk and get assistance,” Peyer said on the Channel 39 broadcast. “Anything can happen. Being a female, you can be raped, robbed if you’re a male, all the way to where you could be killed. Once you get in that other person’s car, you’re at their mercy.”

Investigators said Knott’s car was in working order when it was found.

Ben Killingsworth, chief of the CHP’s border division, said Peyer had been stationed in the San Diego area for eight years and had “a clean record.” Peyer, who was arrested without incident, is being held without bail. A 50-page arrest warrant had been issued by a judge, prosecutors said.

“We have confidence in this case in that we have filed a very serious accusation against a young man who has a very clean record,” Van Orshoven said.

Killingsworth, who appeared at the press conference with Van Orshoven, Kolender and other law enforcement officials, expressed shock at the arrest. With tears in his eyes, Killingsworth said, “It’s probably the worst thing that’s happened to me on the job.”

Homicide investigators informed Killingsworth on Jan. 5 that Peyer was a suspect in the killing. “We took him off patrol rather quickly,” said Killingsworth, who answered “yes” when asked if Peyer was told that he was a suspect in the slaying.

The law enforcement officials refused to say if Peyer, who normally worked the 2:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. shift, patrolled the area of the crime scene.

Homicide Lt. Phil Jarvis said that Knott was probably killed on the bridge over Mercy Road on Old Highway 15, and her body was dumped into the creek below. The woman’s white Volkswagen was found parked on the bridge. Old Highway 15 runs parallel to Interstate 15 south of Poway Road.

Investigators did not reveal the evidence or information that led them to Peyer, but Jarvis said the arrest was aided by “bits and pieces of information” received from several citizens “that we put together.” Jarvis said that investigators are still hoping to hear from people who may have seen a “law enforcement vehicle” stop a “white Volkswagen vehicle” on Interstate 15 the night of the slaying.

According to Killingsworth, CHP officers do not always radio in when they stop a motorist and the CHP has no record of Peyer stopping Knott’s car. Investigators have determined that Peyer did not know the victim, Jarvis said.

Former neighbors painted a picture of a friendly man with a new wife, new baby and new house. Peyer had married the woman next door after his first marriage ended in divorce, they said, and two years ago he moved his family to a new home across town.

One of Peyer’s former neighbors, Sandy Rhea, said she has known the officer for at least six years. She described Peyer as friendly.

“I was really shocked,” Rhea said. “He was so nice, always let all the kids come over and swim in his pool. Knowing him as a neighbor, I don’t see how he could do it, really. My son used to go over there. He was so good with kids.”

Another neighbor, Margaret Maki, who has known Peyer for seven years, also described him as being good with children. “I always told my two daughters: ‘If you have any trouble, go see Craig,’ ” Maki said.

Another friend, Gordon Kerr, said: “It’s just not him at all. He would be one of the last (people who) could do something like that.”

After the discovery of his daughter’s body, Sam Knott expressed anger with San Diego police and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department for refusing to respond to a missing-person’s report that he attempted to file at 11 p.m. Saturday--nine hours before her body was discovered.

Knott described his daughter as an accomplished artist and environmentalist who cared about endangered animals. Knott said that she had taken rape defense courses at SDSU.

Times staff writers Bill Ritter, Hilliard Harper, Tom Gorman and Kathie Bozanich contributed to this story.