County sheriff's detectives and state prosecutors worked into the night yesterday interrogating Richard Raymond Tuite after a judge signed a warrant for his arrest in the January 1998 knife slaying of Stephanie Crowe.
Tuite, 33, was moved last night from Donovan State Prison to the Central Jail downtown. Tuite, a transient with a long history of mental illness, is expected to be arraigned soon after his arrest in the notorious case.
The news of action in the case was greeted with cautious optimism by the Crowe family, who spent the year after the slaying battling to clear their son, Michael, then 14, and two high school friends who had been charged initially.
"The arrest would certainly be a step in the right direction," said Steve Crowe, Stephanie's father. "But we continue to wait, as we have for years."
Michael Crowe likened it to "having some stones removed from this ton of weight on our backs."
"Seeing Mr. Tuite in a courtroom – now that will be a big step for us," he added.
Sheriff's detectives and state prosecutors declined to comment yesterday. A news conference to formally announce Tuite's arrest and the charges against him is expected today.
Attempts to reach Tuite's family, friends and one of his former attorneys for comment were unsuccessful. Tuite, who grew up in San Diego, denied any involvement in the slaying when interrogated by police in 1998.
Yesterday's developments come after three years of impasse in the case. Michael Crowe, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser were headed for trial when DNA tests found Stephanie's blood on a red sweat shirt Tuite was seen wearing the night before Stephanie was found dead.
The case against the teens was dismissed in February 1999, and Escondido police spent 13 months re-investigating before handing it over to the Sheriff's Department.
Last June, District Attorney Paul Pfingst asked the state Attorney General's Office to intervene. Sources said the decision was made late last month to prosecute Tuite, and a plan was set in motion to surprise him.
Tuite was scheduled to be released from prison Friday after serving three years for an attempted burglary unrelated to the Crowe case.
He was brought from Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento to Donovan State Prison near Otay Mesa on Monday, a move sources said was designed to raise his anticipation of being freed.
Instead, sheriff's detectives and state prosecutors went to the prison yesterday morning with an arrest warrant signed by a Superior Court judge and spent much of the day interrogating Tuite about the Crowe slaying.
Because principals in the case declined to comment, questions remain unanswered about what Tuite said during the interrogation or what evidence against him may have been uncovered over the past few years.
The Crowes have bitterly criticized the way Escondido police and county prosecutors handled the case, and have joined the Treadways and Housers in a federal lawsuit claiming constitutional rights against false arrest and imprisonment were violated.
Yesterday, the Crowes' attorney, Milton J. Silverman, blasted the "bogus case manufactured" against the teens early on. At a news conference, he said it would make Tuite's trial "one of the most difficult cases a prosecutor has ever tried in this city."
Pfingst, citing the ongoing criminal and civil cases, declined to comment on yesterday's developments or Silverman's statement.
Escondido police Lt. John Houchin said, "We gave the case over to the Sheriff's Department completely, and it's still an open case that appears headed for trial, so it wouldn't be appropriate for us to comment."
The discovery of Stephanie's body on her bedroom floor the morning of Jan. 21, 1998, was followed within days by the arrest of her brother, Treadway and Houser, all Orange Glen High School freshmen.
Escondido police detectives and the San Diego District Attorney's Office announced that Crowe and Treadway had confessed and Houser had made incriminating statements. The motive for the killing, they said, was sibling rivalry and a dark fascination with violent video games.
But the three quickly recanted and their families insisted that Tuite, who had been reported knocking on doors and peering in windows by several Crowe neighbors the night before Stephanie's body was found, was the likely killer. Police dismissed the notion, saying Tuite was not capable of quietly killing the girl in a house full of people while leaving behind no evidence.
In the spring of 1998, a grand jury indicted the trio on murder charges. But in July of that year, Superior Court Judge Laura Palmer Hammes freed them from custody and cast doubt on the district attorney's case, even as she bound them over for trial.
The prosecution's case suffered a setback in December 1998, when Superior Court Judge John Thompson threw out the statements Michael Crowe and Houser made to Escondido police, saying they were illegally coerced.
Thompson ruled that about two of the 20 hours of Treadway's interrogation, in which he gave a detailed account of the crime, was admissible but only against Treadway, not Crowe and Houser.
Then came the revelation in January 1999 that blood on Tuite's shirt – missed by Escondido investigators – was that of the victim.
Silverman, a veteran criminal defense attorney, said he believes "the evidence of Tuite's guilt will be the same as it was from Day One."
"Stephanie Crowe will be the best witness," he added. "She branded her killer with her blood."
