SAN DIEGO -- A transient charged with killing Stephanie Crowe more than six years ago had an "obsession" to find an ex-girlfriend and stalked and harassed other girls who looked like her, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

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Richard Tuite, 34, was seen in the area of the Crowe family home in rural Escondido the night the 12-year-old was killed, prosecutor David Druliner said in his opening statement of the murder trial.

"The defendant was on a self-imposed, obsessive, mission to find a person named Tracy," Druliner told the jury. "She's a real person. He is increasingly frustrated in not finding Tracy."

Tuite told a fellow inmate of his "anger" with Tracy and his "desire to kill Tracy," the prosecutor told the jury.

Druliner said Tuite had a weapon of choice, a knife, which was used to kill Stephanie the night of Jan. 20, 1998.

Tuite was seen in the area of the Crowe residence off Valley Center Road the night of the murder, knocking on doors, looking for "Tracy," Druliner told the jury.

An Escondido police officer who drove up to the Crowe home about 10 p.m. saw a laundry room door swinging shut, the prosecutor said.

A medical examiner will testify that Stephanie was killed between 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., Druliner said.

Escondido police initially thought the girl's murder was "an inside job" because Stephanie's father, Stephen, told them the laundry room door was locked, the prosecutor said.

"Law enforcement in this case turns the wrong way multiple times," Druliner said.

Police ignored Tuite as a suspect even after a neighbor told them he saw Tuite in the area the night of the murder, the prosecutor said.

A detective who detained Tuite the day after Stephanie was killed ordered that his clothes be taken, but didn't consider him a suspect in the killing, Druliner told the jury.

"I'm not saying Detective Sweeney was an evil guy," the prosecutor said. "Nor did Escondido Police have an evil purpose. You will question things that they did, though. And what they didn't do."

Druliner told the jury the victim's 14-year-old brother, Michael, and his friends Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser were arrested and charged with murder. But the charges were dismissed, he said, when Stephanie's blood was found on a filthy red sweat shirt Tuite was wearing the night the girl was killed.

Testing on Tuite's white undershirt revealed smears of the victim's blood near the hem line, Druliner said.

"Both shirts have Stephanie's blood on them," the prosecutor said.

Druliner told jurors they could consider the fact that Tuite escaped from custody -- and was recaptured 3 1/2 hours later -- the day jury selection began in the trial.

"You get to decide what that tells you," the prosecutor said.

Tuite was charged in May 2002 with first-degree murder and the use of a knife. He faces 27 years to life in prison if convicted.

Michael Crowe and Treadway confessed to participating in the crime in long, videotaped interrogations. But a judge ruled later that most of the statements were coerced and would be inadmissible at trial.

The Crowe, Houser and Treadway families -- in a lawsuit still pending -- sued the county, Escondido police and other agencies in federal court, claiming their civil rights were violated.

In February 2000, Escondido police turned the case over to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, saying it needed to be investigated by "fresh eyes."

In June 2001, the district attorney's office turned the case over to the state Attorney General's Office.

Superior Court Judge Frederic Link ruled last year that Tuite -- despite being diagnosed as schizophrenic -- is competent to stand trial.

Tuite's attorneys plan to put on evidence that they say points to Michael Crowe, Treadway and Houser as the girl's killers.