Clairemont Killer/ How to Not Get Stabbed.

Join us for a special episode where I talk about the origin story of my fascination with true crime and give you tips on how to deal with a knife-wielding attacker. In my childhood neighborhood and in a nearby town, a serial killer attacked 6 women between January and September of 1990. Some of the murders occurred while the target was in the shower.  Tangents include second-hand smoke, the movies Psycho and Home Alone and the story of how uncool Radhika and I are, as if you didn't know already.

It's my first try at embedding a video so hopefully below you can click the link and watch my knife attack defenses.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ivT_e98gBbs?feature=share

Transcript

0:02

Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime Defense, the podcast that nerds out on true crime cases, gives you tips on how to stay safe, and never blames the target of any crime. Hope you enjoy the show!

Radhika: 0:13

did you watch it? I did. Are you going to have nightmares now? and it's all good now. Okay. Proud of you. I was like, so Shelly lived this, so therefore it's not going to happen to me, is how I, is how I did it. That's perfect. I love it. All right. Radhika, are you comfortable with me talking into your ear holes? Yes, Shelly. Excellent. Today we're talking about the Claremont Killer, also known as my origin story. So we'll start with some warnings. This one is very dark and murdery. There's stabbing, there's sexual assault. And honestly, I've been saying that word so many times this week in teaching, and I just, I'm just going to say S. A. from now on. Of course, we'll try to keep it pretty tame. I'm not going to go into too many details. If you really need the details, you can always go watch it or read about it. Along with my dad insisting on having the six o'clock news on right before dinner, regardless of how gory and violent was this case also shaped me in my fascination with true crime. That just gives you a little bit of background about how I came to be me. And then this case also shaped me. Okay. It is scary. So this is a psycho it literally is. Psycho. Just to set the scene, I was in high school when a serial killer started killing women in Claremont, which is the town right next to where I lived. Two of them were actually murdered in a house that I spent a lot of time in. My best friend in middle school lived in the house. She had moved out when the murders happened, but I knew the layout of the house. I knew exactly where he went in. I knew where they were packed. I spent hours just thinking about, how this happened is just so terrifying. I mean, as much as you can obsess back in the nineties, before the internet was a thing, I was like jerking the newspaper out of my dad's hands to get information., I remember going to, or wanting to go to a community police event at our high school where all the townspeople could bring their pitchforks and have their questions answered, but also feeling like if it happens, it happens. There's nothing you can do for murder or breaks in, like, why bother? So it was just really scary. We watched the ID show twisted Cleophas Prince Jr. Prince of Darkness, and we've already got a couple problems because he attacked people during the day and more importantly, I don't really want to say his name again, so we'll just call him the killer. There's actually not a lot of information out there there's this. Documentary and then Wikipedia, and then they say that there's books, but they're all out of print. So we're just gonna go on what we saw, right? So we'll just start with a killer just so we can get this over with. He was born in 1967, raised in Birmingham, Alabama in the projects. His father shot and killed a man when the killer was too apparently in self defense. But he serves, I think, 10 or so years in prison. We get all this poverty and implied racism. And I just, I don't think that explains being a killer, in 1987, the killer moved to San Diego for the Navy. He was described as being very personable. He worked out all the time and he was very passionate about it. He was court martialed in October of 1989 and convicted of larceny. He served a brief sentence and was ejected from the Navy and at that point he moves into Buena Vista Gardens apartments and I believe he supported himself by stealing things and apparently worked as a cable guy and that feels like the perfect way to case houses for thievery and murder. You're invited into these homes so it's just like practice essentially. Oh, okay. So in the documentary, the murders are out of order, but I just need to have chronology. So that's how I did it. So January 12th, 1990,, Tiffany Paige Schultz. She was 20. She was a college student living in the Canyon Ridge apartment complex. Apparently she was out just sunbathing on her deck. This story has so many red flags, Radhika, and I guess just to the people out there, if you see something, say something. The apartment manager is asked by some guy for a coat hanger to unlock his car, and if you did not know, I asked my daughter if she understood, like, what that was, because cars you can't open now with... So gather the children around to explain there used to be this little knob right by the windowsill and you could just sneak the wire in and like pop it right up. then I guess he walked off in the direction where there were no cars parked and I guess my best guess is that he used it to sneak it around just the front door and just like pick up the chain lock. That's what I

Radhiaka: 4:53

thought.

Radhika: 4:53

Can you imagine how devastating it would have been to have given him the means to break in? I know. I mean,

Radhiaka: 4:59

first of all, just giving someone something to be able to get into a car without verifying. Is it your car or anything? And a very clear clue that this person's not even going in the direction of cars. I would just,. You don't really react as soon as you find something suspicious because you're, you're scared yourself.

Radhika: 5:18

All right, and then four weeks later, Janine Reinhold, she was 21, she's described as giving, kind, and sweet, she never showed up to pick up her friend, which wasn't like her, and the police were called, and they say that she was probably in the middle of doing laundry, and her hands were full, and maybe she didn't close the door behind her, and so presumably he just followed her in. There was S. A., and he stabbed her, but they were able to collect DNA on her. April 1990, the Buena Vista Apartments, which is where the killer lives. A third woman is stabbed. Holly Tarr so she was 18. she was a senior in high school in Michigan. She was a performer, a musician, and a good student. She came to visit her brother who was in college in San Diego before she headed off to college. And I guess we'd hear a lot more about her maybe because she was a performer. There's a lot of video of her. So she was sort of the main, main character. She wanted to try Broadway and TV and movies. So Holly and her friend Tammy went to the pool and the friend was going to come by later. They agreed that Holly would leave the apartment open so that she could get in. And then when Tammy got to the apartment, the door was locked and she could hear a scream from inside. She got the maintenance man to let her in and the offender ran past them out of the apartment. Many witnesses saw him and identified him as a black male. He left footwear impressions as well, and there were some similarities with the other murders. I don't want to sprinkle that through. I want to put it in one spot so that if anybody wants to fast forward through it, so we'll talk about it later. and so Holly was stabbed, San Diego PD asked the FBI to profile the killer and see if it was the same offender. They confirmed that it is the serial, killer. So now I'm going to talk about some of the details. I'm going to be very delicate about it, but if you want to fast forward, go for it. some details are found at all of the crimes. They were breaking in or just walking in through on unlock doors. He would surprise the target either in the shower or just out of the shower. He took knives from the kitchen at his targets homes. He would perform what's called pickering which in all the years of. watching documentaries. I've never heard of that. and so it's disturbing. I'll talk about it really briefly. So it's multiple stabs. but then this case, in his case, he's used a sunburst shape on the target's chest with as many as 50 stabs. Yeah, pose the bodies with the arms up and the legs open. And then he took jewelry from most of the scenes and he was fine with high risk situations like daylight hours and second floor apartments. All these details allowed investigators to connect the crimes and pulled an earlier murder that they hadn't thought was part of it as related. And then just as a sidebar, Radhika, I really enjoyed the requisite cop mustaches on the investigators. I mean, a lot of them are retired, and they went whole hog on the Yosemite Sam mustaches and maintained them, even now that they're off the floors. It's part of their identity now. Okay, so back to Holly Tarr's case. The sign in sheet at the pool where, They had gone swimming, Holly and Tammy went swimming, has the name Sea Prince, very close to where they signed in at the same, similar time. Ugh, when the police track him down, he lives at the Buena Vista Apartments, police question him and he refuses to give DNA and they say that they put him on the back burner. And at this point, I had to push my chair back and put my head in my hands. And yes, I know there's no Google back then, but just a cursory call to the Navy would have revealed his larceny charges and maybe could have opened up something.

Radhiaka: 9:02

I don't understand how it's It's not suspicious enough to dig deeper and to just be let go. I like really didn't

Radhika: 9:10

understand that. I mean, yeah. So yeah, we'll talk about more about it later, May 1990. So these are really close and he's, he's really ramping up. May 1990, Alyssa Keller is 38 years old. Similar crime scene, the killer climbed in through the window and there was a ring stolen. Alyssa was older than the other victims and the investigators think that he had targeted her daughter but broke in and found Alyssa instead. They believed that he moved away from Buena Vista because the cops were present there and he didn't want to risk being caught any more than he was already doing risky stuff. Right. We have a little gap between May and September, September 13th, 1990, Pamela, age 42 and her daughter, Amber, age 18. Pamela had been in the shower and was attacked and he stole a ring from them and both were stabbed and there were no signs of forced entry. And so those were the women that were killed in my neighborhood where the house where. I, had hung out. At this point, some guy tells us if a woman is killed in her home, there's a 65% chance that the person who did it has experience in burglary. one of the mustaches told me that because I don't remember there being a lower third. I'm assuming he's talking about a stranger killer. I guess it was sort of semi interesting. So do with that what you will. the other former PD asks, is there anything else we could have done? And the answer is no. And Radhika, I'm Monday morning quarterbacking over here, but like you guys had a name, a black male who lives in the same apartment building as two of the targets kicked out of the Navy for a theft. He refuses to give DNA. I was just driving around town, screaming in my car again.

Radhiaka: 10:55

It just can't get more clear about how suspicious that is and for them to just be like, yeah, but we need a little bit more.

Radhika: 11:03

Oh, and it gets worse, right? But we're gonna sidebar to Gerilyn. So Gerilyn is in the documentary. We get to talk to her. She lives in Scripps Ranch, which is about 15 miles from Claremont. She gets in the shower after the gym and she hears noises at her door and looks through the peephole to see a black male attempting to open the lock on her door. She throws clothes on and runs out the back. And then she and her neighbor approached the man. Oh my God, please don't ever do this. I was like, how

Radhiaka: 11:30

brave were you to like circle back to the front of your house to look

Radhika: 11:34

at this person? Oh my God. Run, run away. You've already gotten out. So scary. she and the neighbor approach the man, and he just walks past them, jumps in his car, and they notice a loud muffler on the car. And at this point, they decide maybe they should call 9 1 1. Yeah. Not when she's running out. Yikes. Yeah. Jerilyn goes to work the next morning, and she hears the loud muffler while sitting at her office, and she sees the same man dropping off the receptionist. In the story they say, or in the The show, they say it's a bizarre twist of fate, but I'm assuming he just saw her working with his girlfriend and cased her and then followed her. I

Radhiaka: 12:10

think so. Yeah, I think he that's how he met her because it's such a random one. It's a random person. And two, they did mention that he had moved away from the Claremont area because he realized that it was like getting too risky. And that's why this woman was Jeralyn, she felt safe because she was like, Oh, well, it's not going to happen to me because I'm far away from it.

Radhika: 12:33

Jeralyn calls the detective and the killer is picked up at the gym. Rodica, they find gloves. Knives in his car, all of the previous stuff, and it's still not enough evidence, sweet, sweet, holy Lord. I mean, there are technically, apparently no murders after this. I have a really hard time believing that though. I think they just. haven't connected stuff because he went from San Diego to Alabama after this, there have to be other victims. He was like a spree killer. It seems like he does get arrested for a template attempted burglary. So and then bada boom, bada bing, the killer goes to Alabama. I guess he was bonded out or something. Yeah. Who gave him bonds?

Radhiaka: 13:20

He just was able to leave. Yeah.

Radhika: 13:24

Oh, so I guess he goes to be with his family. He told his San Diego neighbors before he left, though, just out of nowhere, apropos of nothing that he enjoyed tying up women, I say in the bathtub and then leaving them there. But I don't think the neighbors even called the police.

Radhiaka: 13:41

I don't think they were just like, what a weird thing to say, and then kept

Radhika: 13:43

moving on. I feel like this is another case where, unless, if they saw him actively murdering someone, they might consider it Oh, we should probably arrest him., they find a Hollyters ring in the killer's girlfriend's apartment. He is out and about on the town at this time. He had to give us to DNA when he was arrested and it matches the DNA at one of the crime scenes. Maybe it just took a long time to match them and they felt like we're just going to let them go in the meantime. Maybe the nineties is an excuse, he was in jail for petty theft in Alabama and is extradited to San Diego in 1891. I guess just finally the DNA matching is what pushed them over the edge, right? He gets the death penalty and he claims that he's innocent and his speech in court is disgusting. Thickening. Thickening. It's

Radhiaka: 14:37

like, see the The faces of the family sitting and for him to just turn around and completely deny

Radhika: 14:43

everything. It's gross.. Lewis Schlesinger has the mightiest of all Yosemite Sam mustaches, which is an indication of I don't know, wisdom. It says pathological liars lie even when they don't have to lie to have a sense of control. Interesting factoid. I think they just, kind of sums him up to a T. He lied about everything. So he would wait, at the gym for a woman to leave and then he would follow them home. And then Radhika, what's the first thing you do? Is you jump in the shower. Of course. The detective says that he stood at the bottom of the stairs and he could hear when another officer turned on the shower, much like the killer would have done. And then a majority of serial killers kill within their own race, so I guess that's an important detail. Interesting. Maybe the cops are so focused on that that they didn't consider him to be a realistic suspect and that allowed him to go and notice longer. Maybe. Yeah, I

Radhiaka: 15:40

don't know if that's what the FBI profiler them on that track or something so they kept dismissing this.

Radhika: 15:48

They said that he blended in. He had a long time committed girlfriend. He was articulate, handsome, well groomed. He was into fitness. It is interesting to me that he broke into homes. I feel like he easily could have posed as the cable guy. He seemed charming enough to have talked his way into people's houses. So I guess maybe that's some sort of thrill. And then, anything else you want to say about the documentary?

Radhiaka: 16:12

I just found it extremely creepy. I think I remember telling you, how much Home Alone, the third movie scared me so much because the break ins happened, in the daytime. And I just remember being like, daytime? That's crazy that someone would think to do that. First, why isn't everybody at work? Second, The people who don't go to work, a. k. a. pretty much a lot of, like, healthcare workers who have all these, random days off, to me, you're supposed to be happy and not scared in the daytime, and when these crimes happen in the daytime, it makes it that much more frightening. And I personally haven't seen Psycho, which I know is not the coolest thing to say out loud, but that's what they kept referencing is that's one of the scariest scenes is because you're just so vulnerable. You have nothing on you and you're just it's just so disarming to know that someone's about to come get you.

Radhika: 17:06

Now that we're talking about uncool things, never seen Psycho. I've seen one horror movie when I was 17 and I slept in my parents room for two nights after that.

Radhiaka: 17:16

I know that feeling very well.

Radhika: 17:20

So in diving into Wikipedia and the sources for the article on the killer I found. Sums up the attitude of the time, maybe now because I made like the time then at least the city council member at the time advised women to be more careful. Okay, very

Radhiaka: 17:38

helpful. Thank you

Radhika: 17:40

so much. And you know, honestly, I guess women should just not go to the gym and work out and then take a shower in their own homes in the middle of the day without asking to be killed. I've been doing that maybe three to four times a week since probably the 1980s. How I'm not dead, I don't know. So that's not what we're here for. We're just going to give some facts and info that might make you safer. That's all. Okay. And I did want to say yes, I'm going to give some information, some tips, but these were some blitz surprise attacks. It's not okay to say if they had only. they might have prevailed and survived. I do not believe that, even though I personally know knife defenses, if someone grabbed me in the shower out of nowhere, I would be dead too. There's no, there's no fighting that. I did want to share this one. It terrorized me personally, and it shows some big holes and police investigations and opens the door to discussion of weapons. Even with training and weapons defenses it would be like miraculous to be able to hold your own against a military trained assailant who's bigger and stronger and he also has the job on you. I put the information out there just to maybe even the score a little bit. Most of these tips are from law enforcement officers and the dozens of self defense seminars I've attended. Thank The most recent 1 I went to the officer said that about 80% of stabbing victims survive and his suggestion was to fight and try to get away. Although I do know that some people practice like they play possum, play dead, and then they're able to survive that way. Obviously these women, he would have continued stabbing. So what, if God forbid, whoever this happens to, if you need it, you just have to determine what you think is going to be. The safest. Oftentimes targets of stabbings think they're being punched at the first few stabs, just showing how surprising an attack can be general rules about self defense when a weapon weapon is involved. If a person uses a weapon to intimidate you into going somewhere with them do whatever you have to do to not go with them. Going from the primary crime scene to the secondary crime scene of their choosing only increases your chances of injury and death. Thank you. I have heard law enforcement say to put up the fight of your life where he is uncomfortable. There's at least the chance of a bystander intervention. If you can, try to negotiate the weapon out of the attack. Some people have had success in showing the predator they're so scared and will comply that the predator doesn't need a weapon and sometimes they will abandon it, so it's worth a try. I teach my students to say, please don't hurt me. I give up. I'll do whatever you want because that is what people generally say when they're in a situation like that. and then in the middle of that, we'll perform, the technique so that they're off. That, they're surprised at that moment. Because they

Radhiaka: 20:33

think you're about to give in, so they don't have to be on guard anymore.

Radhika: 20:37

Right. So if you're going to make your move, if you feel comfortable making a move, but also understanding that, compliance with S. A. may be the, the best way to survive an attack with a weapon. That's a perfectly legitimate survival tactic. Also if you do get control of the weapon, maintain control of it. Often when I train people to get a weapon, they forget, they just like leave it behind. And I'm like, Oh no, you're going to grab it. You got to keep it. Yeah. That's yours. I found an article in the Jerusalem Post by a Krav Maga instructor who said to try to grab the hand with the knife with both of your hands and yell for help, kick or knee the groin and aim for the throat, which is solid advice I think. Just remembering that if the attacker is on drugs or alcohol they may not respond to painful stimuli the way you would like. I have heard another instructor, that told me that one of her students was mugged without a weapon and she just took with the blade of her forearm. She just walked up and like, she just got him right in the throat and he ran off crying. It's very painful. So if you aim for the wind pipe, even if you just gently touch it on yourself, it's very sensitive. Yeah and it can have some impact on breathing, so it could be a very useful place to go. I'm going to put some videos on the website just to show some some ways. I think some other general rules if you can create some distance do that. And then I did want to kind of talk about some other cases where the person was able to get away. a friend of mine, she actually was telling me about a woman that she was good friends with who was attacked in her home. He was S. A. and then she actually got control of the knife and she stabbed him until he died. he was distracted and so she was able to get away from him that way. And then have you seen Dirty John or heard the podcast? No. Okay. Well, I'm going to wreck it for you right now, but it's awesome. So Tara, was the woman who was attacked by her mother's husband. She fell on the ground and his, you know, they call him dirty John. He stabbed her a few times. She kicked at him so hard. And so many times that he lost control of the knife and she got it and she just stabbed him and stabbed him until he was dead. he did survive at the hospital for a few days, but just that's following that rule of when you get control of that weapon, you keep control of it. Also, ideally lock doors and windows. Obviously the killer was an expert at breaking in. So sometimes even that didn't work. I just started getting myself into the habit of locking the door in between trips to the, to get grocery bags. I just saw a case of a woman who went out to get cigarettes in her car and the killer came in, when the door was open. Also, just don't smoke, please.

Radhiaka: 23:26

Well, maybe that's the step one to avoid this, but, That's just a couple seconds, Shelly. I go put grocery bags back in my car all the time and just like leave the door open because it's a hassle to have to open it again just so I can come back in. But totally, you just don't know who's like gonna run or be around the corner or something.

Radhika: 23:47

100%. That freaks me out! Sorry, you know, you should be more scared of secondhand smoke, honestly, but you know, it's unlikely, but just if we're handing out advice, don't smoke and maybe lock your doors. I always hate at the end of weapons classes and at the end of this one, it's like, Okay, well, bye.

Radhiaka: 24:09

Here's all this stuff. Bye bye.

Radhika: 24:11

Yikes. Anything else you wanted to tell the people?

Radhiaka: 24:17

I guess just mostly learning from my own things. is definitely don't be playing your music too loud. I won't even hear that my mom's come home. And then I freak myself out when I open the bathroom door and I see her walk down the hall. I was just so unaware. So I guess just make sure that even though you're home alone and you have all your doors locked, just like be aware of your surroundings and then I think the other thing is probably. Find another exit in your house. I think about that all the time. I'm always like if someone's coming through the front door and I pop that little screen door in my bedroom and like run out the back or someone's coming through the kitchen door I just I'm always. thinking about other ways to get out of my own house. Cause I mean, I, I was not someone who snuck out when I was in high school or anything. And so I just never knew about these secret entrances in my house, but I guess also just like as a, fire safety, all of those things, just know where your exits are in your own house.

Radhika: 25:17

Yeah. I mean, I it's valuable advice. we love talking about true crime, but honestly, The chances of this happening are so minimal, you know, so we like to spend our time thinking about it but yeah I think just for fire safety, it's probably more valuable. I read the book meditations on violence by Sergeant Rory Miller and he says and I do this now to even though I probably doesn't isn't necessary but he's like everywhere I go I always look to see what's behind me where the exits are. I do that too. It's probably paranoia, awarenoia. Knowing your exit routes, it's not going to hurt you probably, unless you're suffering from anxiety.

Radhiaka: 26:02

Then too much information is a bad thing, but yeah, I think it's just the awareness. Sometimes I just like walk into places, not, not being aware. And I think that. Just that knowledge, that piece of knowledge is what could save you in the off minimal chance that something does happen. It's that what if I had just known that what if could, could have been answered if you were

Radhika: 26:27

just more aware. What if someone you just don't want to talk to shows up? Still know your exits. Totally.

Radhiaka: 26:42

actually I wanted to ask you this question. You know how the episode that you sent me, the title was underneath the series Born to Kill? Yeah. Okay, so what were your thoughts on it? Because like, I, I'm a huge nature versus nature person. And so I've always thought there's just has to be something that causes this person to never know it's the butterfly effect like just one thing that you didn't think could affect a person so much is actually what turned them. to be this way. And my sister yesterday when I was like, no, I mean, are people born to kill? She was like, there are totally people born to kill. That's just in their, makeup of their mind. and it has to do with mental illness, but some people are just born with different chemicals in their brain. And so we were Having a conversation about that. But what, what do you think, Shelly? Do you think people are born

Radhika: 27:35

to kill? I mean, I think there definitely are, if you think of like Ted Bundy, he didn't have that bad of a childhood, I think there are people who are just born psychopaths. And I do think that there are people who maybe wouldn't have been violent, and there, they, there are studies that show, childhood trauma, head injuries, things like that, they can cause you to be very violent. So I think it's probably a mixture of both.

Radhiaka: 28:01

I think so. But it's just so scary to me to be like, nothing was wrong and you were just born that way. Cause it, it makes me, it makes me sad to know that that's almost unpreventable then at least if it was nurture versus nature, then I could always. Reason it to be like, but if we love all the children in the world, then they'll be fine. And this, this just shows me that some, you just can't save or some, you just can't change. And that part,

Radhika: 28:32

I feel like there's we always want to blame moms. well, yeah, his mom didn't protect him. His mom didn't, or her, you know, didn't do the right thing. And so now that's, this is why. Yeah. But I think that I do think there are some people who have perfectly lovely childhoods, and they still are monsters and I think there probably are monsters born out there who were able to be, nurtured into not being monsters will never know though, those are the ones that we don't have any idea about what what nurture did to them. That's fair. Yeah.

Radhiaka: 29:03

I think just his like blatant. Lies and absolute belief that he had done nothing wrong and just stoic expressions in court, like total psychopathic behavior. He straight up looked these people's families in the eye and said, I don't know what all this evidence is about, but I've never even touched your daughters. That to believe that those type of people to me can pass lie detector tests just because they sometimes believe it in their souls and just like trick their own minds into thinking these

Radhika: 29:33

things. Yeah. And then of course, my thought during that too is okay, well, here's this African American man. They're all white, pretty female. was he framed?

Radhiaka: 29:43

Right. Yeah. Cause in that time, it totally fits that profile of people

Radhika: 29:48

being framed. I mean, even now that can happen, I think you have to trust the DNA. If you don't where. Where are we?

Radhiaka: 29:58

Yeah, exactly. DNA is usually the number one way that people kind of feel at ease, okay, but that's irrefutable, DNA,

Radhika: 30:05

yeah. Oh my gosh. I feel like there's more questions than answers. And there really was so little information about him and his story. Thanks. Awesome. This was so fun. Thank you so much.

Radhiaka: 30:16

Thanks Shelly, as always for doing all this hard work and just inviting me to chat.

Radhika: 30:20

I love it. It's so fun.

Radhiaka: 30:23

All right. Bye.