Sailor Held in Slayings of 2 Prostitutes : Crime: Community service officer spots Eric Lockhart leaving liquor store. Handgun later found in his car may link him to the killings and another shooting.

A Navy man assigned to the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was arrested Wednesday morning in connection with the shooting deaths of two prostitutes, killed three hours apart last month, and the attempted murder of a third.

The arrest of Eric Lockhart, 27, came after a San Diego community service officer noticed a man fitting the suspect’s description enter a Logan Heights liquor store Tuesday night and drive away.

The officer, Ronna Franson, followed Lockhart in her van and notified other patrol cars. Police stopped him on northbound Interstate 5 at Pacific Highway and found a semiautomatic handgun under the seat.

“The handgun was the same used in the shootings of all three prostitutes,” Lt. John Welter of the San Diego Police Department said Wednesday. “We are also looking at Lockhart for a number of additional robbery cases involving prostitutes.”

On Sunday night, a prostitute flagged down a police officer and said she had been threatened with a gun. She described a clean-shaven black man of medium height with close-cropped hair and identified the car he was driving. Based on that detail, police circulated flyers about the suspect and warned patrols in central and eastern divisions about the suspect, who had killed two and shot a third prostitute in those patrol areas.

Lockhart, who is being held without bail at the County Jail, arrived in San Diego as a petty officer 3rd class last February aboard the Kitty Hawk, which left the area Wednesday. An aviation ordnanceman, Lockhart joined the Navy in March, 1989.

Before his assignment on the Kitty Hawk, he was on the aircraft carrier Forrestal, which was stationed in Jacksonville, Fla., at the time Lockhart was aboard. Before Florida, Lockhart was in naval training in Memphis, Tenn.

Authorities said they will ask Navy officials in Florida about similar crimes there.

Sgt. Frank Japour of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department homicide unit said two or three prostitutes have been murdered in the city during the past three years, but none shot to death.

“We’ve had a few unresolved deaths of females who may have been involved in prostitution, and we’ll certainly look into this,” Japour said.

In San Diego, Lockhart is charged with the murders of Rosemary Curry and Freda Woods, which came less than three hours apart June 20. Woods was pronounced dead in the 4300 block of Altadena Avenue at 4 a.m. Just before 7 a.m., Curry was shot to death at Memorial Park on Marcy Avenue several miles away.

Witnesses to Wood’s death said the 25-year-old woman collapsed on the porch of an East San Diego home after asking for help. Shortly before the shots were fired, neighbors said, they heard noise in the street and a car speed away as the woman staggered to the porch.

On May 28, another prostitute was shot in the leg on Kearny Avenue in Logan Heights, just a few blocks from where Curry was shot. She was able to describe the gunman to police.

Lockhart was believed to have solicited the services of the three prostitutes he shot and may have tried to rob each of them, Welter said.

Other robbery charges may be filed today, he said.

Police were looking for other possible victims but would not release Lockhart’s photo because he is to be part of a criminal lineup. Nor would they discuss whether Lockhart had a previous record.

The prostitute murders are not linked to a series of 45 other killings beginning in 1985 that were part of an intense manhunt on the part of a multi-agency homicide task force. The group was disbanded July 1, but prosecutions of several cases are continuing.

As far as police know, Lockhart was not in San Diego before last February, and most of the other killings occurred years ago.

Police supervisors praised the quick thinking of Ronna Franson, a community service officer since December, 1985, who led police to Lockhart.

The El Cajon woman had been filling out a report in the parking lot of a liquor store and spotted Lockhart getting into his car. Then she remembered hearing about the prostitute murders the day before at the police lineup at Central Division, where she works.

“I had been thinking about it and when I saw the car, I thought, gee, that sort of matches the description,” Franson said Wednesday. “I just followed him, and it turned out to be the guy they arrested. It’s really exciting because I try to listen and be aware. I’m just really stoked. I love working at the Police Department. Everyone here is the best.”

Community service officers are paid to assist sworn officers in areas where intense enforcement is not needed, such as issuing citations, directing traffic and doing home security inspections.