Two women were seriously wounded early Tuesday in apparently random stabbings that occurred within minutes of each other in downtown El Cajon and in an unincorporated community several miles to the south, and a suspect was arrested hours later following a high-speed road chase.
The first of the two assaults was reported shortly before 3 a.m., according to the El Cajon Police Department.
Patrol officers found the victim in a parking lot at a strip mall in the 300 block of North Second Street, ECPD Lt. Eric Taylor said. A witness reported seeing the woman pushed out of a Mercedes-Benz sedan that was then driven out of the area.
Medics took the victim to a trauma center, where she underwent emergency surgery for wounds to her upper body. She was listed in critical but stable condition, sheriff’s Lt. Tom Seiver said.
A few minutes after the first assault was reported, authorities got 911 call about an attack on a Frito-Lay delivery driver outside a 7-Eleven store in the 4600 block of Avocado Boulevard in the Calavo Gardens neighborhood, near Mount Helix.
San Diego Sheriff‘s deputies found the 35-year-old victim on the floor of the convenience store, suffering from stab wounds. Medics took her to a hospital, where she was admitted for treatment of severe but apparently non-life-threatening injuries.
Witnesses to the two assaults provided similar perpetrator and vehicle descriptions, and deputies soon spotted a man who looked to be a close match to the assailant driving a Mercedes-Benz near the site of the second crime, Seiver said.
The suspect sped away when deputies approached, prompting a pursuit over surface streets and along state Route 94 into Spring Valley. There, the fleeing motorist wound up cornered in a cul-de-sac, at which point he put his hands out the driver’s side window as if surrendering, the lieutenant said.
As deputies approached him, however, the man accelerated toward them, narrowly missing one. He then drove off once again, heading east through Rancho San Diego at speeds exceeding 100 mph.
In the Jamul area, one of the pursuing deputies lost control of his cruiser and crashed it, suffering minor injuries. When the lawman’s colleagues stopped to assist him, the suspect got away, Seiver told news crews during an afternoon briefing.
Later in the morning, authorities found the suspect’s car damaged and abandoned on Campo Road, near Dulzura Vineyard. Deputies then began searching the remote locale with help from U.S. Border Patrol agents.
About 7:45 a.m., members of the federal agency reported that they had detained a man matching the suspect’s description in a remote, brushy area. Deputies took custody of him and arrested him on suspicion of felony evading of police and attempted vehicular assault on a peace officer.
Investigators remained uncertain Tuesday afternoon if the arrestee was the person who attacked the two women, Seiver said. Authorities declined to immediately release the captured man’s name, citing concerns about compromising the ongoing investigation, and withheld the victims’ identities.
Because descriptions of the suspect and his vehicle were general in nature, detectives were “having to work backwards to try to determine if (man in custody) is the stabber,” the lieutenant told reporters. Nonetheless, authorities were not looking for any outstanding suspects in connection with the assaults, Seiver said.
There was no preliminary evidence suggesting that the assailant knew his victims, or that the women were acquainted with each other, and the motive for the attacks was unknown, the lieutenant said
— City News Service
