SAN DIEGO -- A woman a transient was looking for the night Stephanie Crowe was killed testified Tuesday that she asked Richard Tuite if he was the perpetrator during a phone call after the murder -- then the line went dead.

Tracy Nelson, (pictured, right), testified that she "hung out" with Tuite, who is charged in the child's slaying, in 1987 and 1988 when she was about 17. She said they drank and used methamphetamine.

The witness said she saw the defendant again around 1994 when he showed up at a house where she was living, across Valley Center Road from the Crowe residence in rural Escondido.

At some point, Nelson said her cousin told her about Crowe's murder on Jan. 20, 1998, and later her grandfather also told her about the killing.

Nelson said she called an Escondido police detective and told him she might be the "Tracy" whom Tuite said he was looking for the night of the killing.

The witness said she confronted Tuite when he called her grandfather's home.

"I said, 'Richard, did you do it?'" Nelson testified.

When asked by prosecutor David Druliner what happened next, Nelson said the line went dead.

Nelson testified that she was one of Tuite's only friends -- maybe his only friend -- but was never his girlfriend. She said she had known him about 10 years at the time of the murder.

Tuite, 34, was charged two years ago with the 12-year-old's murder.

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Authorities said the defendant had an "obsession" to find "Tracy," and also stalked and harassed other girls who looked like her.

Druliner said Tuite had a "weapon of choice," a knife, and carried knives with him as far back as 1990.

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," according to court testimony.

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

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.

Former San Diego County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Cripe testified that he found several knives in Tuite's backpack after he came into contact with him in Valley Center in April 1990.

Janet Bowles said she saw Tuite in possession of a steak knife at a park in Oceanside where homeless people hung out in August 1993.

Carlsbad police Officer George Hart testified that he took a knife from Tuite in January 1996 that had its handle taped to make it look like a dirk, or dagger.