Valley Intruder Assaults Two in Orange County

A serial killer linked to 14 slayings in California struck in Mission Viejo early Sunday, shooting a sleeping man in the head and raping his girlfriend, investigators for the Orange and Los Angeles county sheriff’s departments said.

The early morning attack, which left the man in critical condition, occurred in the 24400 block of Chrisanta Drive in Mission Viejo. As in most other crimes attributed to the so-called Valley Intruder or Night Stalker, the residence is a single-story home in a peaceful, middle-class suburb close to a freeway.

“Due to evidence found at the scene, we definitely believe this is the Night Stalker,” Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Dick Olson said in a statement.

Manages to Escape

Officers said the intruder entered the house as the couple slept. The woman awoke to gunshots, officers said, and then was sexually assaulted. She was tied up but managed to escape and summon police after the assailant left.

Investigators would not release the names of the victims but said both are 29. Neighbors identified the shooting victim as Bill Carnes, who works for a business machine company in southern Orange County.

Carnes was in critical condition late Sunday at Mission Community Hospital after emergency surgery for a gunshot wound, a hospital spokesman said. The woman was taken to Saddleback Community Hospital in Laguna Hills, where she was treated and released.

The assailant has been called the Valley Intruder because most of the crimes attributed to him occurred in the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys. Law enforcement officials believe the series began in March and includes 21 assaults. The victims have been shot, stabbed and beaten. Sunday morning’s assault was the first in Orange County and only the second outside of the suburban Los Angeles valleys.

The last confirmed attack was Aug. 17 in the Lakeside District of San Francisco, where the assailant fatally shot a man and critically wounded the man’s wife. Officers speculated a few days later that the killer might again head back to Southern California.

‘Proves He Is Back’

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Sam Jones said Sunday, “This proves he is back in the Southland.”

Similarities between the Mission Viejo case and the method of operation in the previous crimes prompted immediate contacts between the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the 50-member Valley Intruder task force set up by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. At about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, both departments confirmed the link.

At 2:40 a.m. the Orange County Sheriff’s Department received a call on the 911 emergency line from a woman who said her boyfriend had been shot, Olson said. When deputies and paramedics arrived, the woman said she had been “awakened by gunshots in the house this morning, and that when she woke up there was a male intruder in the house, in the room, and that he grabbed her and sexually assaulted her,” Olson said.

“He then tied her up. And then he appeared to have gone through the house. He eventually left, and when he left she was able to get loose and call the emergency line.”

Olson said the woman was so distraught that she could not give a clear description of her attacker. Olson declined to release any description the woman was able to give.

The Valley Intruder has been described as 6 feet tall, slender, 25 to 30 years old, with curly hair and stained, gapped teeth.

Investigators have said he usually leaves a distinctive, but not publicly disclosed, trademark at the scene of his crimes. He also has twice left a scrawled message--the exact wording has not been disclosed--on walls of victims’ homes.

“I’m not aware of anything along those lines,” Olson said of the Mission Viejo case.

The Valley Intruder usually enters by forcing a screen on an open window or door. Olson declined to say how the Mission Viejo attacker entered. But a 3-by-4-foot screen, which was bent as if it had been pried off a window, was found on the ground outside the house.

Most of the Valley Intruder’s victims were living in homes painted in shades of yellow--and the Orange County attack occurred in a yellow house.

The house was cordoned off Sunday as investigators combed it for clues. Two cars parked in the driveway bore North Dakota license plates.

Frightened neighbors along the 24400 block of Chrisanta Drive buzzed with speculation at midday Sunday as they tried to piece together what had occurred.

Few neighbors had gotten to know Bill Carnes, a former resident of North Dakota who, they said, had bought the home about six months ago. Few of them knew anything about the woman.

However, his next-door neighbor, Jim Brafford, 35, an engineer at Burroughs Corp. in Mission Viejo, worked in the same office as Carnes. “I know Bill, he’s a heck of a nice guy,” Brafford said, adding that Carnes works in product assurance and support at the computer firm.

Brafford and his wife, Sheila, rent their home and planned to moved this Friday to a home they are buying. But after Sunday’s attack, “my wife wants to move today,” Brafford said. “My wife is beside herself with this thing.”

“We were wondering why them and not us,” said Brafford, holding his 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Jessica.

Like many neighbors, the Braffords had kept some windows open on the sultry Saturday night.

“I was up until 11 trying to get the air conditioner fixed,” Brafford said. “But we didn’t hear or see anything until the sheriff’s (deputies) came over at 8 (a.m.).”

“All of us leave our windows open,” said Diane Cox, who with her husband and two children lives across the street. “Who would think this could happen in this area?”

“I’m shocked,” she said. “Here we were last night with the windows open because of the heat. It’s real scary.”

Cox, who has lived on Chrisanta Drive for 13 years, said that as soon as she heard of the attack she felt the Valley Intruder had struck again, “and that’s real frightening.”

Heard Woman Crying

“We will put additional locks on our doors,” she said. “The police said to keep our dog in the house at night.”

A few doors away an elderly woman, who asked that she not be identified, said she heard a woman crying in the street about 2 a.m., but “I didn’t go out.” The woman placed no particular significance on the crying because “it was Saturday night,” and there had been a party on the street earlier in the evening, she said.

The party, which included adults and children, had been at the Braffords and broke up at about 10 p.m., Jim Brafford said. He said neither Carnes nor the woman attended.