A College Town Asks: 'Where Are They?'

By JOHN M. GLIONNA

March 22, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN LUIS OBISPO — Over these last few difficult days, college freshman Anzimee Thomas has caught herself time and again: She looks into the mirror and, squinting her eyes, sees the faces of the three young women who have mysteriously vanished from this university town.

“They all look just like me,” she says tentatively. “They all basically weigh what I do. We all wear our hair the same. I look in the mirror and pray to God my face doesn’t end up on a missing person’s poster. But I have to admit, I fit the profile.”

Ten days ago, green-eyed Aundria Crawford became the third college student to turn up missing in less than three years from this Central Coast community 200 miles north of Los Angeles, sending fear, dread and even anger through young women like Thomas.

Crawford, reported missing by her mother, is a 20-year-old Cuesta Community College student who police believe was abducted from the duplex where she lived alone near downtown San Luis Obispo. Now her photograph has joined those of the two missing students from nearby Cal Poly San Luis Obispo whose youthful, innocent faces have come to haunt this community--peering out from posters that bear the heading “Where Are They?”

Kristin Smart, 19, the first woman to vanish, was reported missing May 25, 1996--last seen outside her Cal Poly dormitory, escorted by a male student after an off-campus party.

On Nov. 12, 1998, Irvine native Rachel Newhouse disappeared. The 20-year-old was last seen leaving a fraternity party at a downtown bar and apparently decided to walk home alone. Police found blood matching her type on a nearby bridge railing.

Crawford’s disappearance follows the well-publicized case of a 42-year-old Eureka woman, her 15-year-old daughter and a young family friend who vanished in February while on a trip to Yosemite National Park. On Friday, police found two bodies in the trunk of the trio’s charred rental car, located in dense woods not far from where the three were last seen.

San Luis Obispo authorities, responding to hundreds of media inquiries, have repeatedly stressed that they have no evidence to suggest that their three cases are related to each other or to the Yosemite case.

Nonetheless, local residents--especially the community’s 13,000 young female college students--live in fear that they may have a serial killer in their midst.

Last week, more than 250 students, most of them female, took a break from midterm exams to attend a hastily called safety seminar at Cuesta, where one woman stood to ask police the question that seemed to be on everybody’s mind: “How do we know it’s not the same person? You’re all telling us not to be afraid. But we’re more than just afraid. We’re hysterical. Women are disappearing and there’s no bodies being found. Only blood.”

Police Sgt. James English told students the disappearances are a reminder that San Luis Obispo is no longer a throwback to the 1950s, a time when people didn’t need to lock their doors and when young women could walk the streets at night in safety.

“Norman Rockwell doesn’t live here anymore,” he said.

Indeed, the city has a split personality--a law-abiding burg of 43,000 at the crossroads of small town and large community status. It is near a major mental hospital, a men’s medium-security prison and a youth detention home.

“The fact is, there are a lot of very bad people here,” English said. “There are sex registrants and worse, people who have done or who are capable of doing some very terrible things. We’ve all got to wake up to that fact.”

The disappearances have turned the community’s attention to several larger issues, including student drinking on and off campus. San Luis Obispo police say they spend a majority of their time responding to alcohol-related calls--fights and mishaps resulting from overindulgent partying along the downtown drag known to students as the Miracle Mile, which features more than 20 bars and clubs.

Although Cal Poly students say the frequency of drinking and related incidents is no worse than at other schools, police point out that both Smart and Newhouse had been drinking at parties just before they were reported missing.

Said police Capt. Bart Topham: “In the first two cases, these young women may have lowered their guard or not used the best judgment because of alcohol use. And that concerns us.”

Community leaders also say the disappearances have raised a more subtle issue that has long lingered just beneath the surface: Are undergraduates full-fledged adults or do they require greater supervision in their lives?

Some say university officials should play a greater role in the security of students, suggesting the in loco parentis concept of educators as stand-in parents.

“The disappearance of these women suggests universities in this state need to assume more authority over kids, because they are just kids,” Topham said.

“Education codes elsewhere provide colleges with authority over students. But in California the attitude seems to be ‘If it didn’t happen on campus, there’s nothing we can do.’ ”

Eighteen-year-old student Thomas agrees. “I’m still young, and I don’t always make the most clearheaded decisions,” she said. “So there are some situations where I wouldn’t mind some school official looking over my shoulder.”

But Juan Gonzalez, Cal Poly vice president for student affairs, says that although the university takes great pains to educate students about personal safety both on campus and off, officials do not feel comfortable in the role of parent.

“The courts have defined students as emancipated adults, and so our primary role is to respect their rights and privacy,” he said. “We do whatever we can to provide services and point them in the right direction, but students have a responsibility for their own safety.”

Business as Usual

Although many women are taking the advice of university officials--buying Mace canisters, keeping better tabs on friends and roommates, and resisting solitary late-night walks--not all have apparently taken the disappearances seriously.

Many took cursory precautions after each of the first two students vanished but soon returned to old habits. Said Cuesta student Sarah Farmer: “People forgot about it.”

Kim Kaney, managing editor of the Mustang Daily--the Cal Poly student newspaper that has established a Web site for information about the disappearances--is shocked to see women on campus refusing to take the slightest safety precaution.

“I still see a lot of girls running alone at night wearing sports bras and tight pants and headphones, totally tuned out to what’s going on,” she said. “How safe is that?”

Others, she said, aren’t even aware that fellow students have disappeared. “Believe it or not, some students don’t even know this is all going on,” Kaney said. “They don’t read the papers and don’t watch the news and don’t even realize two of their classmates are missing.”

Students say that once-cozy streets in town and even those on campus are a little less friendly now. “I don’t make eye contact with people anymore, especially men,” said one Cal Poly student. “It’s more impersonal, like I was back living in Los Angeles again.”

Police say blood found inside Aundria Crawford’s rental duplex and signs of forced entry lead them to believe she was abducted.

Meanwhile, Smart’s father drives to campus every month from Stockton to keep searching for his daughter. And Newhouse’s family says the latest case reopens old wounds.

“Over time, you begin to deal with the pain, but now that a third innocent girl has vanished, that brings all the horror right back to the surface,” said Stephanie Morreale of Irvine, Newhouse’s aunt. “But we try to think positively. If it was the same guy who did all three crimes, maybe he made a mistake this time.”

And like so many others, Morreale hopes that good news will eventually come.

“My best hope is that we’ll find them all safe,” she said. “They’ll be all together, worse for wear, battered and bruised, but alive.”

Concerned parent Marika Zoll, left, attended a recent safety seminar at Cuesta College with her daughter, Dazjal (wearing the bandanna), where Zoll asked police: “What can we do to keep ourselves and our kids safe?” The seminar was scheduled after earlier this month Aundria Crawford, a Cuesta College student, became the third San Luis Obispo college student to turn up missing in less than three years.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Where are they?

Snapshots of the three college students who’ve been reported missing from San Luis Obispo over the past three years:

Kristin Smart

Cal Poly student

reported missing on May 25, 1996

last seen outside her Cal Poly dorm following an off-campus party

Age when reported missing: 19

Description:

6-feet, 1 inch

145 pounds

long blond or possibly dyed brunette hair