‘Real Professional’ : CHP Officers Call Peyer One of Best

POWAY, Calif. —  By their words--and their stunned silence--those who know Craig Alan Peyer expressed disbelief and shock that the veteran California Highway Patrol officer could be accused of killing a 20-year-old college student.

Some neighbors, their eyes puffed and moist from tears, shooed reporters away. Others talked of how Peyer was the neighborhood good guy. Fellow officers talked of how Peyer was the epitome of a highway patrolman, one of the best.

But relatively little could be learned Friday about the 36-year-old San Diego native, largely because San Diego homicide detectives would not talk about the murder suspect, the CHP brass issued a statewide “no comment” on the background of their officer and neighbors erected a protective shell around the Peyer family home here.

One CHP officer, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said he had been one of Peyer’s partners on patrol in San Diego County when Peyer worked the overnight graveyard shift, when the CHP dispatches two-man patrol cars, and that “of all the guys I worked with, he was one of the best.”

“You could always count on him. He wasn’t a guy to screw around,” the officer said. “He was a real hard-working officer, but he was real easy going at the same time. He was good with people. He was real professional.”

Peyer’s 13-year law enforcement career has been spent entirely within the ranks of the CHP, coming after a two-year stint with the Air Force. He attended the mandatory 16-week patrol academy in Sacramento and worked there before being transferred to the CHP’s Malibu office. Eight years ago, he transferred to San Diego, where he had grown up.

Other CHP officers said Peyer worked primarily graveyard or afternoon-evening shifts, and he often was paired up by his CHP commanders with the news media for ride-alongs and interviews on how disabled motorists could protect themselves from assault.

Peyer was described Friday as a popular neighbor, with parents commonly instructing their children that if there was a problem at home in their absence, to seek Peyer’s help because he was often home during much of the day.

Peyer has been married three times. The first marriage ended in divorce in 1978 before Peyer transferred from Malibu to San Diego. The couple had a daughter who is in her mother’s custody and who was doted on by Peyer during weekend visits with him in Poway. Neighbors speculated that she is 10 to 12 years old.

He married Karen Jean Muehleisen in May, 1983, and separated from her six months later. The couple was divorced in August, 1984. There were no children by the marriage, and Peyer did not contest it, according to San Diego County court records. Muehleisen, an office worker in La Jolla, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Peyer married a third time, to his next door neighbor, in 1985. The wedding ceremony attracted a bevy of neighbors to the celebration. That summer, the newlyweds moved to a brand new home in a different Poway subdivision. Recently his wife, Karen, who had a child by a previous marriage, gave birth to their own child.