Over eight months in 1990, six women were stabbed to death in their homes in San Diego. Three of the killings happened in two apartment complexes that stood next to each other in the Clairemont neighborhood, between January and April. A fourth happened in May near another apartment complex east of there, and the last two, a mother and her daughter, died together in their house in University City in September. Most of the killings took place in the late morning or early afternoon, and in most of them there was no sign that anyone had forced a way in.
The man convicted of all six was Cleophus Prince Jr., a young Black man from Alabama who had moved into one of the Clairemont complexes with his girlfriend in December 1989. He was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 1, 1991. A San Diego County Superior Court jury found him guilty of six counts of first degree murder and of raping one of the women, Janene Weinhold, along with a long series of burglaries and attempted burglaries, mostly at the homes of women, and one count of perjury. The jury fixed the penalty at death, and judgment was entered on November 5, 1993. On April 30, 2007, the California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in its entirety.
The court's opinion on his automatic appeal is the fullest public record of the case. It sets out the evidence the jury heard: DNA tests on evidence from the Weinhold killing; rings taken from three of the other victims and traced to him; shoe prints and glove marks; a sign-in sheet at an apartment weight room; and statements he made to friends, co-workers and a jail informant. Behind it lay the story of how the San Diego police, with advice from the FBI, came to treat the six deaths as the work of one man.
Little is publicly known about Prince's early life. The California Supreme Court described him as having spent his formative years in Alabama. At the penalty phase of his trial, defense witnesses told the jury that his father had been convicted of murder when Prince was two years old and had served 11 years in prison, and that Prince had grown up in a rundown, crime-ridden housing project in Alabama. He had been extremely short as a child. Relatives described a close bond with his paternal grandmother, whom he visited, and said he had also visited his father in prison. They spoke of him as hardworking, protective of his relatives, compassionate and generous. A high school counselor described how he had grown into a responsible young man, and a pastor spoke about his activities in church.
The opinion does not describe how he came to San Diego or any military service, but in its discussion of pretrial publicity it notes that newspaper articles had reported his Navy court-martial for theft, along with his father's murder conviction.
In December 1989 Prince and his girlfriend moved into the Buena Vista Gardens apartment complex in Clairemont. Next door was another complex, Canyon Ridge. On January 10, 1990, he started work at Expo Builder Supplies, usually on a shift from 3 p.m. to midnight, which left his mornings and early afternoons free. By September 1990 he had moved on to Nacomm Communications, where he installed underground cable. In the first week of May 1990 he moved out of Buena Vista Gardens to the Top of the Hill apartment complex in San Diego.
Tiffany Schultz was 21 and lived in a second-floor apartment at Canyon Ridge with a roommate. On the morning of January 12, 1990, at about 10 a.m., she was seen sunbathing in the doorway of her apartment. From 10 to 10:30 she talked on the telephone with a friend. Calls to her apartment near noon and at 12:30 went unanswered.
At about 10:30 that morning, a man approached the Canyon Ridge manager and asked to borrow a coat hanger. He said he needed it to unlock his car, which was parked on the street, but after she gave it to him he walked off toward the apartments, not toward the street. At trial the manager said she was relatively certain the man was Prince. She had not picked him out at a live lineup.
Neighbors who lived below Tiffany Schultz came home sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. They heard sounds as if someone was being beaten, and then running water. Her roommate later found her body. She had been stabbed to death. There was no sign of a sexual assault and no sign of forced entry, and whoever killed her appeared to have left by dropping from the second-floor balcony.
Her live-in boyfriend was arrested in the days after her death and released after a few days. He was never charged. A Canyon Ridge maintenance worker testified that a different man, not Prince, had asked him for a screwdriver that morning.
Janene Weinhold was 21 and a student at the University of California, San Diego. She lived in a second-floor apartment at Buena Vista Gardens, the complex where Prince lived, with a roommate who was also a student there.
On the morning of February 16, 1990, she drove her roommate to work at 9 a.m. and said she was going home to do laundry and homework. She was supposed to pick her roommate up again at 2 p.m. She did not come, which the court described as an uncharacteristic omission. Calls to the apartment went unanswered from 2:30 p.m. on.
A neighbor saw a man sitting on the stairs leading to the Weinhold apartment between 11:30 a.m. and noon. He seemed sad. The neighbor then heard her dog barking, and loud sounds from the apartment above. At about 8 p.m. the roommate came home and found Janene Weinhold's body. The front door was locked, and there was no sign of forced entry. She had been raped and stabbed to death.
This was the only one of the six killings in which the jury found a rape, and the evidence from this apartment was the strongest scientific evidence in the case. The neighbor who had seen the man on the stairs became a contested witness. When police first spoke with her she said the man had kept his head in his hands and she could not see his face. In June 1991 she picked Prince at a live lineup and then crossed out her choice. At trial she said she had crossed it out because she did not want to become involved.
Holly Tarr was 18, a high school senior from Michigan. In the spring of 1990 she was in San Diego on spring break, visiting her brother, who lived at Buena Vista Gardens, with a friend from home. A few months earlier a local television station at home had interviewed her for a program about successful high school students. In the interview, which ran about 25 minutes, she talked about her interests, her plans for college and a possible career as an actress.
On April 3, 1990, Holly Tarr and her friend played tennis and then, at about 11 a.m., went to the complex's pool area. Her friend noticed a well-built Black man working out nearby. The weight room log for that day listed, in order, Holly's brother, Holly, her friend, and "C. Prince."
Five to ten minutes before noon, Holly went back to the apartment alone to take a shower. About ten minutes later her friend followed. She thought she heard a scream. The door was locked, and when the telephone inside rang, no one answered. A neighbor called maintenance, and about ten minutes later a maintenance worker arrived. The door was held by a chain, and he broke it.
As the friend ran inside, a man came out with his face covered by a white cloth. He was holding a long knife up near his ear, and he wore a red T-shirt. He ran past her and out of the apartment. Holly Tarr was still gasping for breath. She had been stabbed once, and she died. Her opal ring was gone.
A bloody knife and a T-shirt were found near the sidewalk and parking area outside. The blood was Holly Tarr's, and the knife had come from the apartment. A shoe print at the scene matched Prince's Nike Air Jordan shoes.
The maintenance worker who broke the chain gave an account that helped the defense. He described the man who ran from the apartment as probably Hispanic, and at a lineup he chose someone other than Prince.
Police spoke with Prince the next day, April 4. He said he had been at the pool until noon and had then stayed in his apartment until he left for work at 1:50 p.m. Asked to go to the police station to be fingerprinted, he declined. A few days later, when a friend mentioned another murder to him, he answered, according to the friend's testimony: "Yes I remember. I was at the pool. I saw her leaving."
In December 1990 he gave his girlfriend a ring. It was Holly Tarr's opal ring, and it was later found in the girlfriend's home.
By the spring of 1990 the San Diego police had begun consulting the FBI. Special Agent Larry Ankrom, a 13-year FBI veteran who had spent five years at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, testified at trial that the police first contacted him in early 1990 about the Schultz and Weinhold killings. They reported the Tarr killing to him in April 1990 and the Clark killings in September 1990, and at their request he met with the investigators and advised them.
The killings drew heavy coverage. In rejecting Prince's request to move his trial out of San Diego County, the California Supreme Court described more than 270 newspaper articles and a similar amount of television coverage, most of it between February 1990 and February 1992. The coverage described the police effort as the most extensive in the history of San Diego County. Some of it compared the unknown killer with Jack the Ripper, and one television announcer spoke of a reign of terror. A reward was offered for the killer's capture, and the court record refers to him, as the press did, as "the so-called Clairemont killer."
The charges against Prince did not stop at the six killings. From April 1990 into February 1991 he was linked to a series of break-ins and attempted break-ins, most of them at homes where women lived.
On April 28, 1990, at the Torrey Pines Village complex, a woman in a bathing suit heard a knock and saw her door handle moving. She looked out, saw a man at the door, and called the manager and the police. Neighbors had earlier seen a man on the stairs, and a manager's husband saw Prince's car leave the lot. She was "almost positive" at a July 1991 lineup that the man was Prince, and certain at trial.
On May 2, 1990, in La Jolla Shores, a woman staying at a beach house found a man at the back door. He forced it open and attacked her. They struggled until she pushed him into a nightstand, and she ran out screaming. She identified Prince at a lineup and at trial. A defense witness testified that Prince had been having lunch with her until about 2:30 that afternoon at a place from which it would have been very hard to reach the beach in time.
By then Prince had moved to the Top of the Hill complex. The killings at Buena Vista Gardens stopped after he left.
Elissa Keller was 38. She lived with her 18-year-old daughter on Trojan Avenue, close to the Top of the Hill complex where Prince now lived. Late on May 20, 1990, she spoke by telephone with her daughter, who was away for the weekend. The next morning she did not arrive at work at 9 a.m., which was unusual for her, and later that day she did not answer the phone.
Her daughter came home at about 11:30 p.m. on May 21. The front deadbolt was unlocked and the chain was off. She found her mother's body in a bedroom. Elissa Keller had been stabbed to death. A doctor who examined her at about 3 a.m. on May 22 estimated she had been dead for 6 to 12 hours, possibly longer.
The killer had probably come in through a partly open window. Shoe prints on the sill and on a stereo nearby could have been made by Prince's Nike Air Jordans and were similar to the prints at the Tarr scene. On the bathroom counter were bloody marks with a honeycomb or cross-hatch pattern. A criminalist testified that they had been made by gloves like the ones Prince used at work from January to August 1990. A pair of those gloves was found in the trunk of his car, and another in his girlfriend's closet.
Elissa Keller's gold nugget ring was missing. Prince was later seen wearing it. The ring was afterward stolen from him, but it was traced back to him.
The police did not at first connect her death with the Clairemont killings. Agent Ankrom testified that investigators told him about the Keller case only in February 1991.
On July 17, 1990, Prince's girlfriend joined the Family Fitness Center on Miramar Road and listed him as a member. The membership was cancelled ten days later. The club would matter again.
On August 2, 1990, an apartment at the Top of the Hill complex, where three women from abroad were staying, was burglarized. Cash in 50 and 100 dollar bills was taken, along with Italian lire. The next day a man who identified himself as Cleophus Prince exchanged 94,000 lire for 74.73 dollars. He also deposited 1,100 dollars in 50 and 100 dollar bills, far more than he had deposited before.
That summer, according to a co-worker, Prince talked about "doing the massage therapist and her daughter." In September 1990, he told his foreman he was "going to do a mother and a daughter." Another co-worker testified that in September Prince said he was dating a woman and her daughter, and offered to sell him jewelry.
Pamela Clark was 42 and worked as a massage therapist. She lived in University City with her husband and their daughter Amber, who was 18. On the morning of September 13, 1990, Pamela left home at about 8 a.m. for the Family Fitness Center on Miramar Road. Her husband left at 8:30. Amber was still asleep.
Prince called in sick to work that day.
At about 10 a.m. a neighbor heard Amber talking or arguing with someone inside the house, heard her call out as if she were afraid, and heard a male voice. The neighbor did not think anything serious was happening. Another neighbor believed that Pamela's car had left and come back before 11 a.m. Pamela did not appear for an 11 a.m. appointment at work.
A colleague found Pamela Clark's body in the entryway of the house. Amber's body lay partly in the hallway and partly in a bedroom. Both had been stabbed to death.
A dining room window had been partly opened and its screen removed, and the living room sliding door was another possible way in. Marks on the door handle were consistent with gypsum, a material Prince handled at work. Shoe prints outside the dining room window matched his Eastland shoes. Pamela's purse lay on her bed with no money in it, and her wedding ring was missing. Two people who later lived with Prince testified that he had it.
After the Clark killings, the burglaries went on. By autumn 1990 Prince's girlfriend had moved out of the Top of the Hill apartment, and he was living there with two other people. One of them later testified against him under a grant of immunity.
On October 6, 1990, according to that witness's testimony, the two of them broke into an apartment at the Collwood Pines complex. Prince put socks on his hands and opened the door with a credit card. He took a knife from the kitchen and said that if the woman who lived there came back, his companion should step aside and he would "handle it." They took a television and a VCR, which were later sold or given away and traced to Prince. The witness also described other burglaries that autumn that were never charged.
On October 15, 1990, a neighbor who lived one floor above Prince lost all his liquor and 100 dollars in cash. On November 18, 1990, a house in Encinitas was burglarized; a camcorder and its bag were taken, along with a knife from a butcher block in the kitchen. The camcorder was traced to Prince.
On December 19, 1990, a man knocked at a woman's door and asked for "Terry." A neighbor confronted him and he walked away. Police later stopped Prince's car and cited him for a loud muffler. About a month later, between January 21 and 23, 1991, the same home was broken into through a damaged patio door, ransacked, and stripped of jewelry. That afternoon Prince drove an acquaintance to a pawnshop, where she pawned an earring like one of those stolen.
On January 8, 1991, another woman's home was burglarized, and six rings and a gold chain were reported missing. That afternoon Prince pawned two of the rings, using false identification in the name Rodney Higgs and signing that name. The false signature on the pawn record was the basis of the perjury charge. After his arrest, police found the woman's camera in his car, along with a wallet holding identification in the name Rodney Higgs.
On January 22, 1991, a woman looking through her peephole saw a man jiggling her front doorknob. He was carrying something and was not knocking. He went around to the back door, and she drove away. She later identified Prince at a video lineup and at trial. On January 24, a man in a gray car with a loud muffler followed a woman home from the fitness center. While she was in the shower, her mother saw a shadow in the backyard, went out, and found Prince. When she screamed, he ran.
On February 1, 1991, a screen was removed at a home on Nobel Drive, and a camera bag and jewelry boxes were moved. Prince was wearing a ring stolen in that burglary when he was arrested. On February 3, an apartment on Nobel Drive was entered through a removed screen and ransacked, and an emerald ring and a gold chain were taken. He gave the ring and the chain to two women he knew.
The end came through the Family Fitness Center. On February 3, 1991, a woman came home from a workout there to her apartment in Scripps Ranch. She heard her front doorknob rattling and saw a man leaning against the door, his gloved hands near the knob. She screamed. A neighbor came out, and the man said he was looking for a fiancée or a female friend. He left in a noisy car. The next day the neighbor picked Prince out of a photo lineup and recognized the sound of the car.
On February 4, 1991, the front desk manager at the fitness center noticed a silver car with a loud muffler, driven by a Black man. It left and came back 15 minutes later, and the driver slumped down in the passenger seat. She gave part of the license number to the police. Officers arrived about 15 minutes later and confronted Prince. He said he was waiting for his girlfriend, "Cindy." A woman named Cindy was there, but she was not his girlfriend.
The officers searched the car, which was registered to Prince. They found black leather gloves in the center console, wool gloves on the driver's seat, a knife with an eight-inch blade under the driver's seat, and more knives on the floorboard and under the front seat. Officers also saw that the car would start only if someone worked a part under the hood. Prince was placed under arrest, questioned, and released after he gave a blood sample.
On February 23, 1991, an undercover officer watched him drive into the fitness center lot, see a marked police car, and leave at high speed, his muffler loud.
Prince left San Diego for Alabama. He was arrested in Birmingham on March 1, 1991. The opinion records that he tried to resist extradition from Alabama, and that he was later extradited to California.
The preliminary examination began on February 24, 1992. In the weeks around it, press coverage spiked again, and some of it reported laboratory results described as a DNA match between samples taken from Prince and evidence from the killings.
The prosecution's case rested on several kinds of evidence, which the court reviewed in detail.
DNA and blood tests on evidence from Janene Weinhold's apartment were the strongest single link. One genetic test on evidence from her body was consistent with Prince's blood sample in a way that, an expert testified, would occur in about 7 to 8 percent of the general population. Enzyme testing on other evidence in the apartment placed him among the 19 to 21 percent of people who could have left it. DNA testing on stains on a jogging suit and on the bedspread matched his blood sample, a match expected in about one person in 120,000.
The rings were a second link. Holly Tarr's opal ring was found in his girlfriend's home, and she said he had given it to her in December 1990. Prince was seen wearing Elissa Keller's gold nugget ring. Two people who lived with him testified that he had Pamela Clark's wedding ring.
Shoe prints and gloves were a third. Prints at the Tarr scene matched his Nike Air Jordans; prints at the Keller scene could have been made by them and resembled the Tarr prints; and prints outside the Clark dining room window matched his Eastland shoes. The glove marks at the Keller apartment matched the honeycomb pattern of work gloves found in his trunk and his girlfriend's closet, and marks at the Clark house were consistent with the gypsum he handled at work.
His own words were a fourth. In April 1990 he told two friends that he had forced himself on a woman after a date. Early in 1991 he told a co-worker at the cable company that he had worked out with "a girl named Janene" and had gone to her home on one or two occasions for sex. The same co-worker testified that Prince said the police never would capture the Clairemont murderer. Another acquaintance testified that Prince said he got jewelry from women he had slept with, and that he could get into any apartment that did not have a deadbolt. A third said Prince had once claimed responsibility for the Keller murder, but the remark was made while friends were getting ready for a party, and everyone there took it as a joke.
A jailhouse informant, a man with many prior convictions and an escape charge pending, testified that Prince made remarks disparaging White women, that he said his cable job let him check a mailbox to see whether a woman lived alone, and that he said he enjoyed stalking women. The informant faced at least 20 years and received a prison transfer and the chance of early release in return for his testimony.
There were also witnesses who placed him near the scenes: the Canyon Ridge manager on the morning of the Schultz killing, the neighbor who saw a man on the Weinhold stairs, the weight room log on the day of the Tarr killing, and the women and neighbors who identified him in the burglary and attempted burglary cases.
The most contested evidence came from Special Agent Ankrom. He had reviewed records of well over a hundred stabbing victims, and he told the jury he was "very firm" in his view that the same person had committed all six murders.
He based that opinion on features the killings shared. All six happened in a small area of San Diego, the first three in neighboring apartment complexes. Most happened between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., in the victims' homes, without forced entry. A knife was used each time, and all of the victims were White women. In every case except Holly Tarr's, the wounds were deep and tightly grouped in the chest; her killing had been interrupted. He also pointed to the way the bodies had been left. The trial court let him testify about crime scene analysis and the features that linked the crimes, but it barred him from giving opinions about the killer's state of mind.
The defense asked to see the FBI's VICAP database of violent crimes. Ankrom testified that his opinion rested on his own experience, not on the database, and the trial court believed him and refused further discovery.
Prince's defense at the guilt phase was mistaken identity and alibi. His lawyers attacked the eyewitnesses one by one. The Canyon Ridge manager had not picked him out at the live lineup. The neighbor in the Weinhold case had first said she could not see the man's face and had crossed out her lineup choice. The maintenance worker in the Tarr case had described the man who fled as probably Hispanic and had chosen someone else. One of the women in the burglary cases had identified him only after seeing his photograph in the newspaper, and had said the man at her door had no facial hair, unlike Prince.
The defense also attacked the witnesses who had been paid or rewarded. The witness who testified about the autumn burglaries had been flown to San Diego with lodging paid by the police, had been arrested for robbery, had received immunity for the crimes he committed with Prince, and had received a relatively light four-year sentence; he was also interested in the reward. The jail informant had his own benefits.
A witness testified that on May 2, 1990, Prince had been at lunch with her far from the beach at La Jolla Shores. Another woman testified that a different Black man, not Prince, had come to her apartment in mid-March 1990. An expert on eyewitness identification described how such identifications go wrong and said a witness's confidence is no guide to whether the witness is right. Two officers testified that Prince's car would start only if someone worked a part under the hood. His girlfriend said he never came home upset or bloodied. The defense showed that the jewelry was the kind sold commercially and that other companies sold gloves with a similar honeycomb pattern.
Before trial, Prince's lawyers asked to have the case moved out of San Diego County because of the publicity. They offered more than 270 newspaper articles and a stipulation that television coverage had been similar. Surveys showed how widely the case was known: in February 1992, about 74 percent of 300 people questioned were aware of it, and 25 percent of those were inclined to think the accused man guilty; in September 1992, the figures were 77 percent and 24 percent. One television station had run a promotional spot that repeatedly showed Prince's image alongside those of three convicted murderers; it was withdrawn in July 1992.
The judge who heard the motion found the coverage serious but said it lacked the hostility and prejudgment seen in the coverage of an earlier capital case, that of Robert Alton Harris, and that the court could not conclude a fair jury was unlikely. The motion was denied. The case was then assigned to another judge for trial, who refused to reconsider. Jury selection began in March 1993. San Diego County then had an estimated two million residents. Twelve of the 13 jurors who served at trial had seen something about the case, but their memories were vague, and none had made up their mind. The defense did not use all of its peremptory challenges and did not renew the venue motion after jury selection.
The jury found Prince guilty of the charged offenses: six counts of first degree murder, for the deaths of Tiffany Schultz, Janene Weinhold, Holly Tarr, Elissa Keller, Pamela Clark and Amber Clark; the rape of Janene Weinhold; the burglaries of the five homes where the women died; nine burglaries and six attempted burglaries at other homes; and perjury. It found that he had used a knife in each murder, and it found true a rape-murder special circumstance and a multiple-murder special circumstance, which made him eligible for the death penalty. The opinion records no count on which he was acquitted and no count on which the jury failed to agree.
At the penalty phase the prosecution offered evidence of Prince's conduct in jail. On November 22, 1991, he told a sheriff's deputy, Samuel Sheppard, that he would hurt him, struck the deputy in the ribs with his elbow and tried to trip him, and was forced to the ground by Sheppard and other deputies. On December 7, 1991, a search of his cell found a toothbrush with a razor blade attached to it, hidden between the mattresses on his bed.
The victims' families testified about the women and about what their deaths had done to them. The parents of Tiffany Schultz, Janene Weinhold and Holly Tarr testified, as did Elissa Keller's daughter. The jury was also shown the 25-minute television interview Holly Tarr had given a few months before she died, in which she talked about college and acting.
The defense called members of Prince's family, a friend and a former girlfriend, who asked the jury to spare his life and described his childhood and character. A sociologist described the housing project where he grew up and testified that family violence, poor housing, poor schools, drug and alcohol abuse and gangs harm a child's development. A former employee of the California Department of Corrections described life in prison for those serving life without the possibility of parole. A fellow inmate testified that Prince had not started the confrontation with Deputy Sheppard.
The jury fixed the penalty at death. The court imposed the death sentence and also sentenced him on the noncapital counts. The death judgment is dated November 5, 1993.
Prince's appeal to the California Supreme Court was automatic, as the opinion notes. The case, No. S036105, was decided on April 30, 2007. "We affirm the judgment in its entirety," the court wrote.
Two of the claims the court decided concerned the guilt phase as a whole.
On the change of venue, the court found no reasonable likelihood that Prince had been denied a fair trial and no basis for presuming prejudice. It pointed to the size of the county, the time that had passed since the peak of the coverage, the largely factual tone of the reports, the jurors' assurances that they could be fair, and the defense's failure to use all its peremptory challenges.
On Agent Ankrom's testimony, the court held that the trial court had not abused its discretion. It rejected each of Prince's arguments in turn. The testimony was not scientific evidence of the kind that needs a special hearing, because it rested on the agent's experience rather than on a new scientific technique. It was not profile evidence, because the agent never mentioned Prince or compared him with any profile. It did not tell the jury how to decide the ultimate question of guilt, since the agent never said Prince was guilty, and the jury was told it alone judged credibility and need not accept an expert's view. It was not improper probability evidence, because no formula was used. The weaknesses Prince saw in the opinion went to its weight, which the defense had tested on cross-examination. The court also upheld the refusal to order discovery of the VICAP database, since the agent had said he did not rely on it and the trial court had believed him. One related claim was forfeited because the defense had not objected at trial.
Since March 13, 2019, California has been under a moratorium on executions. On that day Governor Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-09-19, which placed a moratorium on executions, withdrew the state's lethal injection protocols and closed the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. The order released no one and changed no conviction or sentence. At the time, 737 people were under sentence of death in California.
In 2024 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation moved the men held on death row at San Quentin to other prisons under its Condemned Inmate Transfer Program. Transfers began on February 26, 2024, and by May 28, 2024, everyone in San Quentin's East Block had been moved to general population housing at other institutions. The department lists 512 men moved from San Quentin to other prisons, 62 of them to California State Prison, Sacramento, and the rest elsewhere. Their sentences did not change.
As of June 1, 2026, Prince remained on the official list of persons under sentence of death in California kept by the state's Habeas Corpus Resource Center. The list gives his death judgment date as November 5, 1993, and San Diego as the county of conviction. It shows that counsel had been appointed for him for state habeas corpus proceedings and that no petition of his was then pending in the California Supreme Court.
The six women had little in common except where they lived and how they died. Tiffany Schultz was 21 and lived at Canyon Ridge with a roommate. Janene Weinhold was 21, a university student who was due to pick her roommate up from work. Holly Tarr was 18, a high school senior on spring break who had talked on television about going to college and becoming an actress. Elissa Keller was 38 and shared her apartment with her 18-year-old daughter, the person who found her. Pamela Clark was 42, a massage therapist who went to the gym before work; her daughter Amber was 18 and still asleep at home when her mother left that morning.
Their families came to court, and four of them testified at the penalty trial: the parents of Tiffany Schultz, Janene Weinhold and Holly Tarr, and Elissa Keller's daughter.
Proven by the verdicts and affirmed on appeal: the six murders, the rape of Janene Weinhold, the burglaries of the five murder scenes, the nine other burglaries, the six attempted burglaries and the perjury count.
Contested at trial and resolved by the jury: whether the witnesses who identified Prince were right, and whether one man committed all six killings. Several witnesses wavered or did not pick him out, and the maintenance worker at the Tarr scene described a man who did not match him. The jury heard those weaknesses and convicted on all counts.
Not tried: the other burglaries in the autumn of 1990 that his former roommate described. Reports attribute no killing to him beyond the six.
Points that differ between accounts: the date of his arrest (the court gives March 1, 1991; some later accounts give March 3); and the status of his post-conviction challenges after 2007, which have not been reported beyond what the June 2026 list shows.
December 1989: Prince and his girlfriend move into Buena Vista Gardens, Clairemont, San Diego.
January 10, 1990: he starts work at Expo Builder Supplies.
January 12, 1990: Tiffany Schultz, 21, is killed at Canyon Ridge.
February 16, 1990: Janene Weinhold, 21, is raped and killed at Buena Vista Gardens.
Early 1990: San Diego police consult FBI Special Agent Larry Ankrom.
April 3, 1990: Holly Tarr, 18, is killed at Buena Vista Gardens; the weight room log lists "C. Prince."
April 4, 1990: Prince tells police he was at the pool until noon; he declines to be fingerprinted.
April 28, 1990: attempted burglary at Torrey Pines Village.
May 2, 1990: a woman is attacked at a beach house in La Jolla Shores and escapes.
First week of May 1990: Prince moves to the Top of the Hill complex.
May 20 to 21, 1990: Elissa Keller, 38, is killed on Trojan Avenue.
July 17, 1990: his girlfriend joins the Family Fitness Center on Miramar Road and lists him as a member.
August 2, 1990: burglary at Top of the Hill; lire exchanged the next day.
September 13, 1990: Pamela Clark, 42, and Amber Clark, 18, are killed in University City; Prince had called in sick.
October 1990 to February 3, 1991: further burglaries and attempted burglaries, including Collwood Pines, Encinitas, Nobel Drive and Scripps Ranch.
January 8, 1991: he pawns stolen rings under the name Rodney Higgs (the perjury count).
February 1991: investigators tell Ankrom about the Keller killing.
February 4, 1991: detained at the Family Fitness Center, his car searched; released after giving a blood sample.
February 23, 1991: seen fleeing the fitness center lot.
March 1, 1991: arrested in Birmingham, Alabama; later extradited.
November 22 and December 7, 1991: incident with a deputy and a weapon found in his jail cell.
February 24, 1992: preliminary examination begins.
March 1993: jury selection begins.
1993: the jury finds him guilty on all charged counts and fixes the penalty at death.
November 5, 1993: death judgment.
April 30, 2007: the California Supreme Court affirms the judgment in its entirety (People v. Prince, No. S036105).
March 13, 2019: Governor Newsom's moratorium on executions.
February 26 to May 28, 2024: San Quentin's condemned men moved to other prisons.
June 1, 2026: listed as under sentence of death, with state habeas counsel appointed and no petition pending in the California Supreme Court.