New Witness Says Patrol Car Stopped VW at Mercy Road

Bolstering prosecutors’ efforts to link former California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Peyer to the slaying of Cara Knott, a new witness testified Monday that she saw a CHP cruiser stop a car resembling Knott’s on the Mercy Road off-ramp the night the young university student disappeared.

Traci Koenig said she and her fiance were driving south on Interstate 15 between 8 and 9 p.m. on Dec. 27, 1986, when they saw a CHP cruiser with its lights ablaze pulling a light-colored Volkswagen Beetle off the freeway at the exit near Poway.

Koenig said the Volkswagen had a lone female occupant, but she could not provide any description of the woman or the person driving the patrol car.

Assumed There Were Witnesses

Koenig said she did not come forward to testify in Peyer’s first trial because her parents were hesitant about it and the family assumed authorities had other witnesses who could provide similar accounts.

We “didn’t think it was that significant,” Koenig said. “We thought there would be other witnesses coming forward to talk about seeing the CHP car pull over the Volkswagen bug.”

However, when she heard that Peyer’s first murder trial ended in a hung jury in February, Koenig said, she resolved to share her observations and contacted police.

Koenig is the first witness in Peyer’s retrial to place a CHP car and a Volkswagen at the Mercy Road exit on the night Knott dropped from sight while on her way home to El Cajon. Knott’s strangled body was found the next morning in a ravine less than a mile from the off-ramp, and her car was parked nearby.

In the first trial, two witnesses said they saw a state patrol car stop a light-colored Volkswagen at the off-ramp that night, and one identified Peyer as the officer behind the wheel. But jurors later expressed doubts about the credibility of those witnesses--milkman Robert Calderwood and former security guard Michelle Martin--and prosecutors might not call them to testify in this trial.

Error on Arrest Date

Koenig appeared tense on the witness stand but sure of her answers as Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst questioned her for 15 minutes about that night 17 months ago. And she held up well under an intense, 50-minute cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Grimes, who will continue his questioning today.

One apparent error in her testimony--the date of Peyer’s arrest on suspicion of murder--went unaddressed by Grimes. Koenig, referring to a calendar in which she makes notations of daily events, said she was watching television with her parents at about 5 p.m. on Jan. 14, 1987, when news of Peyer’s arrest was broadcast.

Peyer was actually arrested at 7 p.m. Jan. 15 at his Poway home.

Asked about the confusion after Monday’s proceedings, Pfingst declined to comment, saying he probably would address the issue in court today.

Peyer, 38, was on his regular patrol along I-15 the night Knott vanished while driving home from her boyfriend’s house in Escondido. Prosecutors allege that Peyer pulled Knott’s white Volkswagen over, strangled her, and threw her body into a dry creek bed from a 65-foot-high bridge on a nearby frontage road. A 13-year veteran until he was fired last year after a CHP investigation of the case, Peyer has been free on bail since March, 1987.

A major theme in the case against Peyer is his stopping of young women at night and forcing them to drive down the unlighted Mercy Road exit. There he engaged them in lengthy conversations about their personal lives, according to testimony from two dozen women.

Had Just Entered Freeway

Koenig said she and her fiance had just entered the southbound lanes of I-15 at the Poway Road exit when they saw a CHP car turn on its lights and commence a traffic stop at Mercy Road. The time was “8 or 9” p.m., Koenig testified, recalling that the couple were on their way to “our spot,” a secluded empty lot in Mira Mesa. Knott is believed to have been southbound on I-15 in that area just after 8:30.

“They were going down Mercy Road. They hadn’t gone all the way; they were about halfway down (the off-ramp),” said Koenig, who married her fiance, Scott, earlier this month. She said she remembers a woman was driving the Volkswagen because “I made a comment to my husband that she was going to be busted. I know it was a girl.”

Koenig said she told her mother about the stop when she arrived home that evening and did not talk about it again until learning of Knott’s death several days later. At that point, she said, she and her fiance had a conversation about how it was “a coincidence” that they had seen a CHP car in the area that same night but that “we didn’t really piece it all together.”

Two weeks later, she again discussed what she had seen with her parents when news of Peyer’s arrest was broadcast. Under cross-examination by Grimes, Koenig said she did not contact authorities because she felt sufficient evidence was already available.

“I thought you’d have so many witnesses calling in that I didn’t think mine would be of any help,” Koenig said. “I know now that it would have been.”

Grimes, who successfully sowed doubts about eyewitnesses Martin and Calderwood in the first trial, peppered Koenig with questions about her memory. He also asked how she knew the Volkswagen’s driver was female if she could not provide any descriptive details such as hair color and length.

‘Re-Enacted’ Day’s Events

And, noting that Koenig had not written anything about the traffic stop on her daily calendar, he wondered how she was sure the night she witnessed the stop was Dec. 27. To that question, Koenig said she “re-enacted” the events of Dec. 27 in her mind when discussing it with a police detective and remembered that she had witnessed the stop the same night.

Also testifying Monday were a married couple who saw a police car speed by their parked limousine at the foot of the Mercy Road off-ramp at about 9:30 the night Knott disappeared. Duane and Anne Clinkscales testified that they were in a broken-down limousine, waiting for help, when a police car screeched by them onto the southbound I-15 ramp.

Duane Clinkscales said the car had a police-style emblem on it and came under the freeway bridge from the direction of the frontage road where Knott’s car was discovered the next morning. Anne Clinkscales said the car was a “black and white” model with a push bumper. She did not see it go under the bridge.

Startled that the car sped by them and did not stop, Anne Clinkscales said, she angrily remarked, “To protect and serve”--the motto written on San Diego police cars.

Another couple testified that they encountered clouds of dust when they drove under the I-15 bridge at Mercy Road on their way to the old U.S. 395 bridge from which Knott’s body was thrown. David Gonzalez and his girlfriend, Shana Bolger, said they frequently went to the secluded area to park. They said they arrived in the area at about 9:45 the night of Dec. 27.

“As we were coming out from under the bridge, there was dust in the air, like somebody had just been there,” Gonzalez said, noting that they then drove past Knott’s parked Volkswagen toward the bridge but saw no one in it.

The couple testified that they left the area 45 minutes later, after hearing two bangs not far from where they had parked. Gonzalez said the bangs sounded “like two rocks being struck together or a stick against a pillar,” while Bolger said she first thought the sound was a tire blowing out. Both witnesses said the noises appeared to come from beneath the I-15 bridge that parallels the U.S. 395 bridge.

Opening Monday’s testimony was Knott’s self-defense instructor. Sandy Strong said the course Knott took with her mother in 1985 taught participants to attempt to “gouge” at the eyes if attacked.

“Get to the face however you best can,” Strong said, explaining the message he imparts to his students.

In the first trial, many witnesses--including Peyer’s wife--testified that the patrolman had scratches on his face the night of Dec. 27. Peyer has told authorities the scratches occurred when he slipped and fell against a chain link fence.

Today, Grimes will continue his cross-examination of Koenig. Then, Scott Koenig and Traci Koenig’s parents are expected to take the stand.