Prosecution Tries to Put Lucas in Killer’s Shoes at the Scene of Slayings

A San Diego police officer testified Wednesday that he found bloody footprints in the Normal Heights home of a woman and child allegedly slain by David A. Lucas, who is on trial for those killings and four others committed between 1979 and 1984.

Prosecutors say the prints--which Officer Frederic Edwards said appeared to have come from “combat boots”--match “in every detail” the type of sole on a pair of boots Lucas allegedly purchased just before the May 4, 1979, slayings of Suzanne and Colin Jacobs.

Lucas, 33, was arrested Dec. 16, 1984, at his home in Spring Valley. The former self-employed carpet cleaner is charged with six counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and two counts of kidnaping. Prosecutors say the throats of all of the victims were slashed in a similar fashion with tremendous force.

Could Face Death Penalty

The trial, which is being held before Superior Court Judge Laura Palmer Hammes, is expected to last until June. If convicted of the murder charges, Lucas could face the death penalty.

Edwards was one of four witnesses who testified during the second day of the long-awaited trial, which has drawn a crowd that includes relatives of both Lucas and his alleged victims. He said he noticed the bootprints in pools of blood on the carpet and wood floors of the Jacobs’ home.

Under questioning from defense attorney Steven Feldman, Edwards said the prints left a trail toward the back door. The defense is likely to use that testimony in an attempt to prove their claim that another man--Kentucky drifter Johnny Massingale--is guilty of the Jacobs slayings.

Massingale, who initially confessed to the Jacobs killings but later recanted, was jailed for 10 months but released after Lucas was arrested. Feldman said during his opening statement Tuesday that Massingale’s confession reveals details about the crime scene that only the killer would know--among them, that the murderer allegedly left through the back door.

Neighbor’s Testimony

The day began with testimony from Margaret Harris, a close friend of Suzanne Jacobs who lived across the street. Under questioning by Deputy Dist. Atty. Daniel Williams, Harris said that in the early morning of May 4, 1979, she saw a maroon sports car with faded paint parked in the driveway of the Jacobs’ home. She later identified the car as an MGB.

Also that morning, Harris said she telephoned Jacobs to invite her to go bicycling but that no one answered the phone. Some time after noon, Harris said she saw a department store truck arrive to deliver a dinette set at the family’s home.

“I was surprised she would be so irresponsible to leave when the new table and chairs were arriving,” Harris said, recalling her reaction when the delivery men were forced to leave the furniture on the home’s front porch.

Harris said Suzanne’s husband, Michael, arrived home from work late that afternoon. Minutes after entering his home, Michael Jacobs emerged, looking “very distraught,” Harris said. She said she and her husband, Edward, rushed across the street and went inside the Jacobs’ house, where the bodies of Suzanne, 31, and Colin, 3, lay in pools of blood.

In cross-examining Harris, Feldman sought to raise doubts about her certainty that the sports car in the Jacobs’ driveway was an MGB. Feldman also asked Harris about an attempt by police investigators to hypnotize her and improve her memory of what she saw on May 4. Harris said the effort was unsuccessful because she could not be hypnotized. A tape-recording of the session was destroyed by law enforcement officials, Feldman said.

Also testifying Wednesday was Edward J. Fairhurst, a former captain with the San Diego Fire Department who was the first to arrive at the Jacobs home on the day of the slayings. Fairhurst said he made a cursory check of the home, spotting the boy’s body, before sealing the premises to protect evidence.

Feldman suggested in his questioning of Fairhurst that the firefighter may have left the bloody bootprints that prosecutors say tie Lucas to the murders. The fire captain confirmed that his boots were resoled shortly before the May killings, but he insisted that his shoes had flat soles--not the thick, textured soles that left the print in the Jacobs’ home.

Gary Gleason, an investigator with the district attorney’s office who was a police detective at the time Suzanne and Colin Jacobs were slain, was the final witness of the day. During several hours on the stand, Gleason described the crime scene and evidence found in the home.

Lucas is also charged with the Oct. 23, 1984, slayings of Rhonda Strang, 24, and Amber Fisher, 3, a girl Strang was baby-sitting in Lakeside; the Dec. 8, 1981, slaying of real estate agent Gayle Garcia, and the Nov. 20, 1984, kidnaping and murder of Anne Catherine Swanke, a University of San Diego student. He also is charged with the kidnaping and attempted murder of Jodie Santiago Robertson in El Cajon on June 8, 1984.

The trial will resume Monday, when the defense will cross-examine Gleason.