Suspect arrested in attacks on San Diego homeless population

SAN DIEGO - San Diego police say they have found the man behind a string of attacks on homeless men across the city that left two of them dead and two severely injured.

Anthony Alexander Padgett, 36, was booked Thursday night on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in the attacks on mostly sleeping men, some of whom were set on fire, police said.

A tip led investigators to Padgett, who was born in the suburb of Chula Vista and was arrested there, San Diego Police Capt. David Nisleit said. He gave no further details on the man or the tip that led to him.

Nisleit said the investigation was in its "very early stages." He said authorities hadn't determined if the suspect was homeless himself but acknowledged that investigators searched homeless camps in Chula Vista.

Padgett was previously arrested in 2010 in Chula Vista on suspicion of setting fire to a friend as he slept, Chula Vista police told KGTV-TV. Both men were homeless at the time, police said. The friend was critically injured but survived the attack. It could not be clearly established how the case concluded.

The spate of early morning attacks came on men who were sleeping alone and who in two cases were set on fire. They left San Diego's homeless population on edge.

Ron Shatto normally sleeps under a tarp stretched over two shopping carts. But on Wednesday night he joined other transients in a small camp and never closed his eyes.

"I don't want to wake up on fire," said Shatto, 51, who has been living in the streets since February 2015, most recently under a freeway bridge.

The region's homeless population - an estimated 10,000 people - is banding together at night to avoid giving the suspect another opportunity.

"Strength in numbers," Shatto said as he picked through trash bins on the outskirts of downtown.

A 23-year-old man whose name has not been released was in "grave condition" Thursday, Nisleit said, one day after he was set on fire downtown. A witness pulled away a burning cloth that the attacker put on the victim before fleeing.

The spree began Sunday, when police found the badly burned remains of Angelo De Nardo between Interstate 5 and some train tracks. The 53-year-old died before his body was set on fire.

The next day, officers responding to a 911 call found Manuel Mason, 61, who suffered life-threatening injuries to his upper torso and remained in critical condition Thursday. A few hours later, police discovered the body of Shawn Longley, 41, who bled from the upper torso and died.

Many heeded the advice of homeless advocates to sleep in groups and in populated, lighted areas. Adrienne Handley, who has slept on the streets for the last three years, nudged closer to other tents after the killings began.

"We've got to watch each other's backs," Handley said Thursday at her small encampment next to a freeway ramp. "Right now it's safer that way."