First Suspect in Killing Feels Vindicated

Christopher Jon Burns, who was jailed for five days on suspicion of having murdered the first of the five victims in the Clairemont-University City serial killings, feels vindicated by events of the past week, his attorney said Friday.

“He feels relief--finally--that what he’s been saying for the last year and a half is true, except now, people are listening,” said Michael J. Popkins, Burns’ attorney.

Burns, 29, was arrested only hours after he found the body of his fiancee, Tiffany Paige Schultz, the 20-year-old San Diego State University student who was slain in the Clairemont apartment she shared with Burns, on Jan. 12, 1990.

Burns was released from County Jail after the district attorney failed to issue a murder complaint, citing lack of evidence. Cleophus Prince Jr., 23, is now in custody in his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., having been charged with Schultz’s slaying and four others.

Popkins said Burns could conceivably be called as a witness by either side once Prince comes to trial, but Burns has not been contacted. Prince is expected to fight extradition to San Diego, when the matter comes before a district judge in Birmingham on Wednesday.

“Chris is a witness like anyone else would be who happened to have found a victim’s body,” Popkins said. “He’s a victim as much as anybody. He came home and found her stabbed. He went through hell for a year and a half. He loved her very much. Fortunately, now, maybe he’ll be able to go on living his life without this black cloud over his head.”

Homicide investigators said Friday that they are looking at Prince in connection with an unsolved stabbing case that occurred in Santee on May 2, 1988. The victim, Diane Dahn, 29, was a white female who was slain in the middle of the day, said Sgt. Manny Castillo of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

“The case is unsolved, and we would be remiss in our duty if we did not check into the possibility--however remote--that these other stabbing cases may be related to ours,” Castillo said.

Castillo said sheriff’s deputies had been in touch with San Diego police investigators, trying to determine if Prince could have been in the area at that time. Prince served in the Navy from 1987 until October, 1989, and was stationed at Miramar Naval Air Station at the time of the murder in Santee, a Navy spokeswoman said Friday.

San Diego police revealed Friday that Prince was involved in a brawl at his East San Diego residence, the Top of the Hill apartments at 5252 Orange Avenue, in January, roughly a month before being arrested for attempting to break into a woman’s home in Scripps Ranch.

Police are evaluating the incident, for which no arrests were made, as part of its overall inquiry into Prince, a spokesman said.