San Diego police detain suspect in attacks after fifth homeless man assaulted

A man suspected of killing three homeless men and critically injuring two others in a series of brutal early-morning attacks across San Diego was arrested Friday, an hour after the fifth victim was found.

The latest victim, a 55-year-old man who was sleeping near an Interstate 5 overpass at C Street, is expected to survive, police said.

In custody is Jon David Guerrero, 39, Capt. David Nisleit said at an afternoon news conference. Guerrero faces three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of arson.

Court records show a history of arrests and mental competency hearings, including one judge’s order that sent Guerrero to Patton State Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Both Nisleit and police Chief Shelly Zimmerman said they are confident Guerrero is the serial killer police have been looking for.

“I firmly believe, and want everyone to know, I am firmly confident Guerrero is the suspect,” Zimmerman said.

“There is no doubt in my mind,” Nisleit said earlier in the day.

Nisleit, who has headed the investigation since the first victim was slain, then set on fire July 3, said detectives found physical evidence at the scene of the Friday attack and in a search of Guerrero’s downtown San Diego residence that “definitively links” Guerrero to the killings.

“We have the right person in jail,” he said.

Police had arrested another man, Anthony Padgett, last week, noting he had a 2010 conviction for setting a homeless man on fire. He also resembled a man caught on a Bay Park convenience-store surveillance video near one of the current series of attacks. Padgett was released from jail Monday with investigators saying they had evidence that excluded him as a suspect.

Nisleit said officers scouring neighborhoods around the latest attack found Guerrero three to four miles away. He strongly resembles a person from the surveillance video and a police sketch, authorities said.

“This is just good police work ... having a lot of officers available in a quick minute [to] flood an area, looking at all possible avenues of escape,” Nisleit said.

About 4:30 a.m. Friday, two Harbor Police officers headed toward their station heard a man screaming, Nisleit said. They found a homeless man at 19th and C streets, bleeding from a severe chest wound.

“The victim, all he can tell us is that he was asleep and was awakened when he was attacked,” Nisleit said.

Investigators quickly determined that the attack fit the pattern, in which men sleeping alone suffered major upper body wounds. Police have not disclosed what type of weapon has been used, and Nisleit did not say whether a weapon was found near the latest victim. Two of the five victims were set on fire after being wounded.

Guerrero was spotted riding a bicycle, wearing a gray hoodie and shorts and carrying a backpack. An officer recognized him as a possible suspect from photos. Guerrero was wearing a green, Greek fisherman-style hat backward, the same kind as the man in the surveillance footage. A hammer was found in the backpack, authorities said.

Nisleit said Guerrero grew up in Coronado, but he didn’t know if the suspect had ever been homeless or knew the victims.

Michael McConnell, an advocacy worker for the homeless, said he was having breakfast when he heard about the latest attack.

“It’s going to be a huge relief for the homeless,” McConnell added. Law enforcement “certainly weren’t going to stop until they got him. This is certainly particularly heinous. What would drive a person to do this?”

Guerrero has an extensive criminal record in San Diego, according to public records, as well as mental health cases filed in 2008, 2009 and 2011.

He was arrested in 2007 and pleaded guilty the next year to charges of burglary, grand theft, and possession of marijuana and narcotics paraphernalia. His mother, Kathleen Guerrero, wrote a number of letters to the court on her son’s behalf, seeking psychiatric treatment for him in jail.

In one letter she pointed to “David’s lack of hearing and speaking ability. In the past a symptom of his illness has been to insert foreign objects into his body orifices and I am concerned that this may be the case again.”

He was arrested again in 2009 and pleaded guilty to robbery for repeatedly knocking down a homeless woman and stealing her bicycle. Again placed on probation, he violated the conditions and was ruled not mentally competent. He spent time at Patton State Hospital.

His attorney, arguing for a lesser sentence, wrote that Guerrero “begins to hear ‘good’ and ‘bad’ voices” when his medication wears off, but that on the appropriate medication he “can lead a normal, productive and crime-free life.”

In earlier cases, from 1999 to 2001, he was convicted of burglary, grand theft and possession of stolen goods

The first attack in the series occurred about 8 a.m. July 3 in Bay Park, where the body of Angelo De Nardo was found off Morena Boulevard, near railroad tracks. He had been killed, then set on fire. Video of the man believed to be the killer was caught at a nearby gas station convenience store, and the clerk who sold the man a gas can assisted police in creating a sketch of the suspect, which was widely circulated.

On July 4, about 4:50 a.m., Manuel Nunez Mason, 61, was critically injured in the Midway District. Less than two hours later, Shawn Mitchell Longley, 41, was found dead in Ocean Beach.

Then, about 5 a.m. on July 6, witnesses heard loud pounding noises and saw a man in a gray hoodie set another man on fire in a grassy spot along a walkway between condominium complexes in downtown San Diego. Investigators said a towel was ignited on top of the critically wounded man, Dionicio Derek Vahidy, 23. A witness grabbed the towel before the victim was burned. Vahidy later died of his injuries.

City Councilman Todd Gloria issued a statement saying, “With today’s arrest, I am hopeful that these senseless and cowardly attacks on some of our city’s most vulnerable neighbors will now come to a definitive end.

“No community should ever be serially terrorized or forced to live in fear, and I have the utmost confidence that our police department will continue to ensure that all residents and all communities remain safe and that the district attorney’s office will prosecute to the fullest extent.”

McConnell, the advocacy worker for the homeless, said he is in touch with other advocates around the country and finds that violence against the homeless is generally on the rise.

“How much of it is driven by the negative perception we have toward these people?” McConnell asked. “How do you gauge that?”

He said he believes the homeless are reporting violence more often now in San Diego because of the severity of the assaults. They don’t often bother reporting less-vicious attacks such as being kicked or having objects thrown at them, he said.

“It will be satisfying to see that someone doing this is off the streets,” McConnell added. “But it won’t surprise me if we see more.”

pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com

Repard writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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UPDATES:

8:30 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with more details, comments from officials.

This article was originally posted at 7:45 a.m.