San Diego

A Linda Vista man who allegedly went on an eight-year crime rampage that included two killings was charged Tuesday with 20 felony counts, San Diego police reported.

The charges filed by the district attorney’s office against Jessie Ray Moffett, 30, accuse him of two murders, eight robberies, five burglaries, two assaults with a deadly weapon, a kidnaping, an attempted kidnaping and shooting a dog, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Albert Barret. The crimes occurred between April, 1979, and last December.

Moffett is in state prison on a parole violation stemming from a 1979 rape conviction, police said.

He was arrested last December as a suspect in the shooting death of Glenn Avery, a 67-year-old security guard at the Holiday Inn at Montgomery Field, but was not charged with the crime, Lt. Phil Jarvis said. Instead, he went to prison on the unrelated parole violation.

But now, after a yearlong investigation, police have uncovered new information--including new witnesses and physical evidence--linking Moffett with Avery’s slaying, Barret said.

The second murder charge accuses Moffett of the April, 1979, killing of Debra Owen, 20, of Point Loma, who was beaten and strangled in Linda Vista Park.

Moffett, who is in custody at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, will be arraigned Jan. 10 in San Diego.