Hitchhiker Is Sought to Aid Police in Serial Slayings Case

San Diego police are looking for a female hitchhiker they believe can lead them to a killer who has slain 43 women in the county since 1985.

Members of the Metropolitan Homicide Task Force revealed Friday that they are seeking a woman who was allegedly raped in the summer of 1988, near the Buckman Springs rest stop off Interstate 8.

The victim, described as 5-foot-6 with sandy blond hair, was about six months pregnant at the time, task force spokesman Dick Lewis said.

Police only recently learned that the woman had survived a rape by someone they think is a serial killer, Lewis said. She told two other women about the rape, but not the police, he added.

According to one of the two women, Lewis said, the hitchhiker was picked up by a man in a truck who drove to an automatic banking machine, then drove to a hang-gliding strip near Buckman Springs Road, where he raped her.

After the attack she walked to the rest stop and was helped by the two women, Lewis said.

The two women were at the rest stop because the woman that police interviewed had given the other a ride after her white Mercedes broke down near Lake Morena, Lewis said.

The woman said she finally left the hitchhiker and the other woman at the rest stop and continued on her trip. The woman with the disabled car was waiting waiting to be picked up, Lewis said.

“We need to get hold of the victim,” Lewis said. “We’ve got a victim that has survived an attack from someone who has a very similar (method of attack) of our serial killer,” he said.

Police are also interested in speaking to the owner of the white Mercedes that broke down, he said.

Anyone with information about the identity of the hitchhiker or the woman who owned the Mercedes is asked to call the task force at 260-6400.