SAN DIEGO -- Now that transient Richard Tuite has been charged with murder for the stabbing death of Stephanie Crowe, the victim's relatives have returned to federal court to ask a judge to speed up a civil case.

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Arrest Puts Civil Case In Different Light

Crowe, 12, was found dead in her rural Escondido home the morning of Jan. 21, 1998.

Initially, her 14-year-old brother Michael and two friends -- Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser -- were charged with her murder.

But the criminal case against the three boys was dismissed in February 1999 when the victim's blood was discovered on a sweat shirt worn by Tuite, who had been seen in the Crowe neighborhood the night of the killing.

In January 1999, Stephanie's parents, Stephen and Cheryl Crowe (pictured, left), grandmother Judith Kennedy, and the families of Treadway and Houser, sued prosecutors from the San Diego County district attorney's office, the county and Escondido police, alleging civil rights violations.

Kennedy has since died from cancer, and now Cheryl Crowe has been diagnosed with the same disease, family attorney Milton Silverman said. Stephen Crowe has developed an eye problem since his daughter's death, Silverman added.

"This has been horribly stressful for them," Silverman told 10News outside the federal courthouse. "So we want to get our part of the case over with."

Silverman and attorneys for the defendants met with U.S. District Judge John S. Rhoades to discuss how the civil suit will proceed.

Escondido police turned the murder case over to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department in February 2000, saying it needed review by a "new set of eyes."

Last June, the district attorney's office handed the case off to the state attorney general's office, which charged Tuite and will prosecute him in state court.

Police stopped Tuite three times and questioned him the day Stephanie's body was discovered, but he denied any involvement and was released.

Authorities had said Tuite was too clumsy, confused and mentally unstable to kill the girl and leave the house without a trace of evidence.

Tuite has a history of drug abuse and mostly nonviolent crimes, and has spent much of the past three years in and out of custody, authorities said.

He was charged with murder last week, just days before he was to be released from state prison on an attempted burglary conviction.

Tuite is charged with one count of murder and an allegation that he used a knife in the commission of that crime. He faces a sentence of up to 27 years to life in state prison if convicted.

A judge ordered him held without bail and set a status conference for June 10. No preliminary hearing date has been set.