Palm Springs Rape Suspect Linked to Murder

A man arrested on charges of raping a woman and slashing her throat in a hotel here has been linked to the stabbing death of a woman whose body was found stuffed into the trunk of a car in Washington state, police said Tuesday.

Authorities investigating the attack in Palm Springs early Monday on a 33-year-old woman from Arcadia said the suspect, Cal Coburn Brown, 33, implicated himself in the Washington state murder.

The Palm Springs victim told police she had met Brown on a flight from Seattle to the resort city. Sgt. Ron Starrs said the woman was left in critical condition after Brown held her captive, raped her and slashed her throat in a room at the Ramada Inn on South Palm Canyon Drive. Following up on a description provided by the victim, police arrested Brown on Monday a short distance from the hotel.

Investigators said Brown provided information that led them Monday to the body of Holly Washa, 21, at a car rental lot near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Washa, of South King County, Wash., may have been the first victim killed in what authorities alleged was a string of attacks by Brown.

Washa apparently was attacked in a motel room in the Seattle area, King County Police Capt. Michael Nault said. Her wounds and those of the woman attacked in Palm Springs were similar, he said.

Brown was paroled from a Eugene, Ore., prison in March after serving eight years for choking a Corvallis woman with a leather cord. He had been sentenced to 15 years after being convicted of first-degree assault but was released March 25, said a spokesman for the Oregon Corrections Department.

Benton County Dist. Atty. Pete Sandrock, whose office prosecuted Brown, said he sent the state parole board a letter stating that Brown “remained a potential mutilator and killer of women,” but state psychological examiners did not share that opinion and Brown was released.