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On the evening of Dec. 27, 1986, a San Diego faculty scholar known as her dad and mom from her boyfriend’s place to allow them to know she was on her manner residence. They by no means noticed her once more, however the scratches she left on her killer’s face have been seen by hundreds of unwitting viewers of an area TV information phase two nights later.
4 many years later, the surprising circumstances of 20-year-old Cara Knott’s homicide — and the chilling manner her killer was caught — proceed to hang-out the Southern California neighborhood the place they lived.
Highschool yearbook picture of Cara Knott.
On the time of her dying, Knott was a junior at San Diego State College finding out to be an elementary college trainer. Her father described her as an environmentalist, animal lover and a talented artist. In a yearbook photo shared broadly after her dying, Knott’s tender blonde hair falls previous her shoulders, feathered within the type made common by the actor Farrah Fawcett.
Knott spent the times after Christmas together with her boyfriend, who was sick with the flu. On the twenty seventh, she known as her household to allow them to know she was about to go residence. The drive from her boyfriend’s Escondido residence usually took 40 minutes, a lot of it a straight shot south on Interstate 15.
When Knott, unfailingly immediate and communicative, didn’t arrive, her household grew uneasy, after which, because the minutes handed, turned alarmed. If Knott had entry to a pay cellphone, they have been sure she would’ve known as to clarify her lateness. Had she been in an accident? Did her automotive, a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, break down?
The Knotts known as the police — four local law enforcement agencies, the truth is — however apart from confirming there had been no reviews of an accident involving a Volkswagen, they did not take a lacking individuals report or examine. Her mom known as native hospitals, however nobody resembling her daughter had been admitted.
So the prolonged Knott household went out to look for her themselves. All evening, they retraced the route she would have taken, driving on freeways and off-ramps, scanning parking tons and building websites for indicators of her automotive.
Simply earlier than daybreak, Knott’s sister and her husband noticed her white Beetle parked on a abandoned cul-de-sac close to the Mercy Street exit of Interstate 15. By means of the open driver’s facet window, they could see the keys within the ignition, a Chevron gas card and receipt on the passenger seat, and her belongings within the again.
However Knott was nowhere to be seen. They rushed to a pay cellphone to name the police. This time, the legislation enforcement businesses responded.
San Diego legislation enforcement investigators study the world the place Cara Knott’s white Volkswagen Beetle (middle) was discovered on Dec. 28, 1986.
Investigators converged on the scene and launched a search of the world. It didn’t take lengthy for them to seek out Knott’s physique, which was mendacity in a close-by ravine beneath a 65-foot bridge. She was totally dressed, nonetheless carrying the purple sweatsuit and white leather-based boots her boyfriend had final seen her carrying.
Authorities would later decide she had been strangled by some type of ligature. An post-mortem discovered no evidence to indicate she had been sexually assaulted.
The unexplained killing set residents of San Diego County on edge. In response, an area information station filmed a ride-along segment with a California Highway Patrol officer, who offered safety tips for stranded motorists. Craig Peyer, a revered 13-year CHP veteran, shared recommendation whereas driving his traditional route alongside the I-15 hall — coincidentally, the identical route Cara Knott would have adopted two nights earlier.
Peyer appeared like a mannequin police officer, affable {and professional}. However viewers seen one thing odd: seen scratches on his clean-shaven face.
However the scratches, which Peyer later stated have been the results of falling into a chain-link fence, weren’t what spurred San Diego legislation enforcement businesses to analyze one among their very own.
Craig Peyer is filmed by an area information workforce throughout a phase on site visitors security. Scratches that authorities consider Cara Knott inflicted earlier than he killed her are seen on his nostril.
After the information phase aired, dozens of young women called the police, all reporting unnerving encounters that they had with Peyer in site visitors stops that summer time and fall. Not solely did lots of the callers resemble Knott in look and age, however they drove small automobiles. Seven of the ladies stopped have been driving Volkswagen Beetles, the identical mannequin as Knott’s automotive.
The women said Peyer, then 36, had stopped them at evening, usually for trivial offenses, and directed them to exit the freeway at Mercy Street — even when it meant reversing on the freeway against traffic to take action — and drive to the underside of the secluded, unlit off-ramp. There, Peyer detained them for so long as 90 minutes, chatting and asking them private questions earlier than letting them resume their drive.
Knott wasn’t so fortunate. Her automotive remained on the spot the place Peyer had stopped so many ladies earlier than her, till authorities towed it away.
Against the law scene investigator prepares to take images of Cara Knott’s Volkswagen Beetle, which was discovered deserted on Dec. 28, 1986.
The ladies’s calls after the information phase weren’t the primary time CHP had discovered of Peyer’s unorthodox site visitors stops at Mercy Street. Two kinfolk of girls who had been detained by Peyer called to complain in regards to the uncommon nature and site of his stops, however CHP officers dismissed them. In actual fact, Peyer was commended by his superior for a technique he believed might keep away from probably harmful stops on the freeway.
However as the ladies’s accounts have been made public, rank-and-file officers and their superiors questioned Peyer’s sterling popularity. Murder investigators quickly collected sufficient proof to arrest Peyer. He was taken into custody on Jan. 15, 1987, and charged with first-degree homicide.
Authorities believed Peyer killed Knott someday after 9 p.m. After leaving her boyfriend’s home, Knott stopped for fuel at a Chevron station simply off I-15, about 10 miles north of the place her physique can be discovered. A clerk on the station said he noticed her pull in, buy fuel and depart, heading towards the southbound on-ramp. The proprietor stated transaction data confirmed the time as round 8:30 p.m.
At 9:30 p.m., an attendant at one other fuel station situated about 7 miles south of the Mercy Street off-ramp stated she saw Peyer pull in. She seen he “appeared nervous, matted and had scratches on his face.”
When she requested how he was, the attendant stated Peyer responded by saying it had been “a rough night.”
Even Peyer’s wife said that she noticed scratches on his face when he bought residence from work later that evening.
Questions have been raised about Peyer’s timeline. Two brothers stated Peyer had pulled them over for rushing at round 10 p.m., however on their ticket he crossed out the original, accurate time and altered it to 9:20 p.m., primarily giving himself an alibi for the time investigators believed he had strangled Knott and heaved her physique over the bridge.
On this information phase that aired on Dec. 29, 1986, Craig Peyer shines a flashlight that police consider he used to strike Cara Knott within the face earlier than he killed her two days earlier.
It’s not clear why Peyer attacked Knott after letting so many different girls go. Perhaps she vocally objected to being detained for lengthy. In any case, she knew her household was anticipating her, and within the period earlier than cellphones, she had no manner of contacting them. She might have rejected an advance or threatened to report him, and he might need believed his profession or popularity have been in jeopardy.
No matter his motive, prosecutors stated when the case went to trial, Peyer attacked Knott, who tried to defend herself by scratching at his face, a tactic her mom stated she had discovered in self-defense lessons the 2 had taken collectively. In the course of the trial, which started in early 1988, prosecutors advised Peyer had struck Knott with his CHP flashlight earlier than strangling her. They offered to the jury massive graphic images of her accidents, aligning the flashlight over a bruise above her proper eye.
Authorities believed Peyer then used a rope discovered within the trunk of his patrol cruiser to strangle Knott. The pathologist who carried out Knott’s post-mortem testified that the ligature marks on her neck have been the identical width — about three-eighths of an inch — as Peyer’s rope.
Blood and fiber evidence additionally implicated Peyer, prosecutors stated. Purple fibers from Knott’s sweatpants matched these retrieved from Peyer’s gun belt, his boot, and the bridge the place he disposed of her physique.
Prosecutors additionally stated that fibers discovered on one among Knott’s fingers matched these from his uniform jacket. Authorities additionally linked a gold thread discovered on her garments to Peyer’s CHP patch.
Blood discovered on one among Knott’s boots and her purple sweatshirt matched Peyer’s blood type, a police criminalist and blood knowledgeable testified.
However jurors questioned the credibility of two witnesses who testified that that they had seen a CHP cruiser cease a VW Beetle on the Mercy off-ramp on the evening she was killed.
After deliberating for seven days, the jury was deadlocked, with seven of the 12 jurors voting to convict.
The decide declared a mistrial in February 1988, and Peyer remained free on bail.
Cara Knott’s physique was discovered beneath this bridge on Dec. 28, 1986. The creek mattress was dry on the time, however on this image taken on Dec. 24, 2023, it’s now lined by water and crops.
The Knott household, amongst others, complained that the primary trial was disorganized and complicated. For Peyer’s second trial, which started only a few months after the primary, the DA introduced in a brand new prosecutor, who offered new proof and new witnesses. This time, in June 1988, jurors reached a verdict: responsible.
Peyer didn’t testify in his personal protection or communicate at his sentencing listening to, and he has continued to keep up his innocence. In 2004, he reportedly rejected an offer by the San Diego County district legal professional’s workplace to check the DNA proof in his case as a part of a wrongful conviction program.
He has been denied parolethree times and can be eligible again in 2027, when he shall be 77.
Sam Knott diedon Nov. 30, 2000, on the age of 63. In an ironic coincidence, he suffered a fatal heart attack not removed from the place his daughter was killed after tending to a small memorial backyard he had devoted to her.
The oak saplings Sam Knott planted have grown right into a small grove of timber, every trunk circled by colourful memorials to different victims of violent crimes, misplaced family members and lacking individuals. The most important memorial is to Cara Knott, its authentic namesake, and a bench devoted to her father sits close by. The byway resulting in the backyard and operating parallel to I-15 is called Cara Means.
At his sentencing listening to again in August 1987, Sam Knott said that Peyer had been “hiding behind his badge and breaking his sacred belief to society.”
“Cara was harmless,” Knott stated, “and she or he was particular.”
A memorial to Cara Knott sits on the base of an oak tree that her father planted many years in the past in what’s now often called the Crime Victims Memorial Oak Backyard in San Diego, Dec. 24, 2023.
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