Series of slayings prompted by jealous rage?

Demian Bulwa, Henry K. Lee, Carolyn Jones,Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writers

Thursday, September 2, 2010

(09-01) 19:18 PDT VALLEJO -- A string of crimes that left five people dead and one of the victims' sons missing may have been prompted in part by jealousy, investigators said Wednesday as they tried to untangle a web of violence that ended with officers fatally shooting the main suspect.

The suspect, 38-year-old Efren Valdemoro, beat a 73-year-old man to death in Hercules because he thought there was "something going on" romantically between the man or his son - who is still missing - and Valdemoro's girlfriend, said Hercules police spokeswoman Michelle Harrington.

The body of Valdemoro's strangled girlfriend - Cindy Tran, 46 - was in the passenger seat as he led police on a high-speed freeway chase across the East Bay on Tuesday night that ended at a Richmond mall. There, two California Highway Patrol officers shot him to death when he waved a cleaver at them, authorities said.

Hours earlier, police found the bodies of two missing Vallejo women, longtime friends, at a home where one of them lived. The husband of one of the women said Valdemoro was a stalker who had plagued his wife's friend and her husband since they rented a room to him sometime in the past.

Still a mystery, police said, is what the connection was, if any, between the Hercules case and the Vallejo discovery.

Husband's odd role

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the story that emerged Wednesday involved the husband of one of the Vallejo women, Charles Rittenhouse, 72.

His wife, Segundina Allen, 63, and her friend Marcaria Smart, 60, disappeared Aug. 25, Smart's husband said. The two friends had been dead for some time when police found them Tuesday in the home where Allen lived with Rittenhouse, authorities said.

One body was inside the yellow, one-story house on Upland Court, police said. The other was in a shallow grave in the backyard.

Rittenhouse had reported his wife missing Sunday and was still living in the home, which police said was buzzing with flies.

When Rittenhouse, a chemical engineer in Fairfield, came home from work Tuesday, police who met him there found not only the bodies but an array of what authorities described as "precursors" for making explosives. They said he had brought the chemicals home from his job.

Rittenhouse was arrested on suspicion of possession of an explosive device and manufacturing an explosive device without a permit. He was being held at the Solano County jail in lieu of $2 million bail. Police said he had not been booked in the deaths.

It wasn't clear how the women died. The Solano County coroner's office plans to conduct autopsies today.

'Fishing buddies'

Smart's husband, Joe Smart, 63, said his wife and Allen were "fishing buddies."

"My wife was loyal to her friends," Smart said. "If she thought there was danger there, she wouldn't have hesitated to help her friend."

The investigation is continuing to determine whether Rittenhouse was involved in the deaths of the two women, said Vallejo police Lt. Abel Tenorio.

"It's very chaotic," Tenorio said. "We're trying to put this puzzle together. Sometimes when you put a puzzle together, all the pieces aren't there, so you keep working on it."

Tenorio said Rittenhouse "didn't react in a way that we felt a normal person would react" when told of the bodies at his home.

Smart said he last saw his wife Aug. 25 as she left to visit Allen, who had called saying she was feeling ill. He said he reported his wife missing Saturday.

Mysterious 'stalker'

Investigators are trying to determine how Valdemoro, a former security guard whose state license lapsed last year, could be linked to the deaths.

Smart said Valdemoro had rented a room from Rittenhouse and Allen at a different house in the past, and had "kept showing up as they moved to new houses."

Allen, he said, "expressed fear of this guy."

"This guy would sneak into the house, almost like a ghost," Smart said. "Somehow he had duplicated keys of their cars and would take them for two to three days. They felt powerless to do anything."

Smart said Rittenhouse and Allen had asked him twice in recent weeks to change the locks of the Upland Court home in an effort to keep Valdemoro out.

A couple of weeks ago, Smart said, Allen called to say Valdemoro had dropped in and she had locked herself in her room. Smart said he drove over, grabbed Valdemoro and forced him to leave.

A flyer that Smart distributed after his wife vanished had a picture of Valdemoro with the word "Stalker" hand written above.

Smart said Rittenhouse had helped him in his search for the women. Smart said he visited the Upland Court home on Saturday, and again on either Sunday or Monday, but did not notice anything wrong.

Valdemoro stayed "off and on" at the Vallejo home over the past decade, said Tenorio, the police lieutenant. Officers had been to the house 10 times to investigate arguments involving Valdemoro, Allen and Rittenhouse, Tenorio said.

Valdemoro had no arrests that involved violence, police said. Solano County court records show that he was arrested for allegedly being drunk in public May 22, but prosecutors declined to file charges.

Hercules killing

Valdemoro was named Tuesday as the suspect in the beating death of 73-year-old Ricardo Sales in Hercules, and police there said he had been seen driving Allen's Cadillac Escalade. The SUV was found abandoned Wednesday at a Hercules business park not far from Bio-Rad Laboratories, where Valdemoro worked as a contract security guard with Allied Barton Security Services until 2008, said Bio-Rad spokesman Ron Hutton.

The Hercules home where Sales and his 35-year-old son, Frederick Sales, lived on Crepe Myrtle Drive was owned by Tran, Valdemoro's girlfriend. Tran also had been living there, but whether there was anything romantic involving her and either of the men is not clear, said Harrington, the Hercules police spokeswoman.

Police believe the elder Sales was beaten to death Friday. Five days before, Valdemoro had a fight with Sales and his son at the home, Harrington said.

A neighbor, Fred Ballesteros, said he had seen Valdemoro several times over the past month, working on a white Corvette in the driveway of the home. Residents of the quiet, well-manicured subdivision don't usually work on their cars outside, and Ballesteros said that made him suspicious.

"I saw this guy and smelled trouble," Ballesteros said.

At about 9 a.m. Friday, there was loud rap music playing from the home, which was another anomaly, Ballesteros said. Police said the noise may have been used to cover the sound of the elder Sales being beaten to death.

Where is son?

Frederick Sales has not been seen since before his father's body was found Saturday afternoon. "We are very concerned about his welfare," Harrington said.

Tenorio, the Vallejo police lieutenant, said of Frederick Sales, "Is he a victim? Is he an accomplice? We don't know."

At 8 p.m. Tuesday, a few hours after he was named as a suspect in the killing of Ricardo Sales, Valdemoro was spotted by police in Pleasant Hill, driving an Acura. An officer fired one shot from a shotgun that hit the car's left rear tire, but Valdemoro got away and led officers along freeways on a chase that reached speeds of 100 mph before he exited Interstate 80 and drove to the Pacific East Mall in Richmond.

There, he abandoned the car and ran into the 99 Ranch Market, where two CHP officers shot him to death after he refused to drop a large cleaver, authorities said.

Tran's body was found in the Acura's front seat, police said. She had apparently been kidnapped Tuesday from outside the Vallejo hair and nail salon where she worked, strangled to death and beaten, authorities said.

Before she was killed, Tran managed to call a relative to report the kidnapping, police said.

From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/02/MNOQ1F6S5P.DTL