Night of Stalker Has a Thousand Eyes : Neighbors in Monterey Park Take Turns Keeping a Wary Watch

The Night Stalker is keeping Shanna Campbell and some of her Monterey Park neighbors awake at night.

Instead of getting a full night’s sleep, Campbell stays up late or gets up in the middle of the night to take her turn sitting at the window of her home, watching for the serial killer.

Campbell is one of a growing group of Monterey Park residents, mobilized by fear, who have joined the Police Department’s Operation Night Watch. They stand guard over the community of 54,000, where at least six of the more than 30 slayings, rapes and assaults attributed to the suspect have occurred.

“I thought it would be tiring but it isn’t, and I have five children,” said Campbell, a housewife who splits a two-hour nightly Night Watch shift with her husband, Deryl. The Campbells are part of a neighborhood unit that rotates shifts so that at least one observer is on duty between 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

“It’s easier than it was when I was getting up with babies. Maybe that is because I have a bunch of neighbors counting on me,” Shanna Campbell said. “The hardest part is staring out the window, but I can do other things while I am watching. Last night, I hemmed a pair of pants.”

Campbell is typical of hundreds of other Monterey Park residents who have rallied behind the Police Department’s effort to catch the Night Stalker.

“While staying up at night could be a hardship on people who work during the day,” said Lt. Joe Santoro of the Monterey Park Police Department, “the truth is that a lot of people are up anyway because they are so nervous and upset they can’t sleep, and this gives them the opportunity to do something.

“This gives us at least 200 more sets of eyes on the community during the time the suspect tends to strike.”

Under the program--an extension of the city’s Neighborhood Watch program, which covers an estimated 25% of the city’s 20,000 households--residents take turns observing their immediate neighborhoods, poised to alert police to suspicious activity.

Santoro, the department’s community relations officer, said he has not heard of any other city that has mobilized residents in the middle of the night. He and another lieutenant formulated the idea after Police Chief Jon Elder asked for suggestions as to what else, beyond normal operations, the department might do to catch the Stalker, Santoro said.

Although none of the Operation Night Watch volunteers has spotted the Night Stalker, the two-week-old program has begun to pay off in other ways.

Increase Night Shift

As part of the program, the department has more than tripled the number of officers on the overnight shift, and police response time has consequently been cut to an average of 45 seconds per call. Over the last two months, the number of residential burglaries has dropped by 30% to 35%, officials said.

And more suspects are being caught, Santoro said. On one recent night, for example, a homeowner reported a prowler in the backyard. The police responded quickly and caught three juveniles, who were booked for trespassing, prowling and resisting arrest.

In addition to the extra officers, the Police Department has activated its Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, a group of reserve officers who sit in marked cars and radio in suspicious activities and vehicles.

Observers have been provided with composite drawings and a description of the Night Stalker, a white or Latino man, age 30 to 35, with brown curly hair, brown eyes, and about 6 feet tall, weighing 150 pounds. He is noted for having badly stained, gapped teeth.

“I have set up a unit system, dividing my territory into five units,” said Tom Yamate, a block captain responsible for 34 households.

“In my unit there are four households, and I am trying to establish two-hour shifts,” Yamate said. “I don’t want people watching longer (because of the fatigue factor).

Shares With Sister

Another observer, Evelyn Odachi, shares her two-hour shift with her sister so that each observes every other night.

“Even though I work all day, I don’t get too tired,” said Odachi, who works in an office downtown. “I’m doing it because it is important. I hope someday one of us calls (the police) and they catch the right person. In this instance it is worth it.”

At a recent gathering, Kathi Iacono, a uniformed police community service officer, told residents that the Police Department had received several calls from homeowners reporting the presence of unusual people and cars in the area. They turned out to be plainclothesmen in unmarked cars.

“There are still people who don’t want to get involved,” Iacono said. “But here there are no more nosy neighbors, just concerned citizens.”

“When he is caught we will disband Operation Night Watch,” Santoro said. “But we hope people will have learned on a permanent basis to be more observant and to be more willing to phone the police when they notice anything suspicious.”