1985 SLAYING SOLVED; DNA POINTS TO RETIRED DEPUTY IN SHOOTING OF FELLOW L.A. OFFICER.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Staff Writer

Fourteen years after Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. George Arthur was shot to death, police said Tuesday that they have solved the crime: DNA matches prove a fellow deputy was the killer.

A nationwide manhunt was under way for Ted Eugene Kirby, a deputy who retired to Spokane, Wash., and disappeared after the DNA test.

Police said he was in the van with Arthur when the June 1, 1985, slaying occurred. Kirby was employed as a deputy at the same jail at the time of the shooting.

Arthur was leaving the jail and getting on the freeway when he was shot, causing the van to crash. Witnesses at the time said they saw a man crawl from the wreckage and flee, but the investigation was plagued by missteps, according to the first detectives on the case.

In April, Los Angeles police and sheriff's deputies reopened the case, reinterviewed witnesses and took DNA samples from several people including the 54-year-old Kirby, authorities said.

``The DNA sample obtained from Ted Kirby was found to match the DNA sample left near the crime scene by the murderer,'' Los Angeles police Capt. Jim Tatreau said in a statement.

On July 7, Los Angeles police detectives went to Kirby's home in Spokane, where he had moved in 1996, but his wife said he left on foot June 30 without explanation and hadn't returned.

``Kirby was described as being depressed, emotional and possibly armed with a handgun,'' Tatreau said.

Los Angeles police declined to provide details about the investigation until a news conference scheduled for today.

Unanswered questions include:

The motive for the slaying.

Why Kirby would shoot his co-worker in a moving vehicle.

Whether Kirby was a suspect at the time of the killing.

And why police obtained his DNA sample.

Arthur, 37, had been with the department for 14 years and received its highest award for bravery in 1977. On June 1, 1985, he left his job at the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles and was driving his Chevrolet van to his home in Rancho Cucamonga.

Tatreau said they believe Kirby was inside the victim's van when he left the jail at 9:50 p.m.

Minutes later, Arthur was shot in the head several times before the van hit a concrete divider on the Mission Road on-ramp to the eastbound San Bernardino Freeway in Boyle Heights. He was pronounced dead later at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center.

Officers initially thought Arthur had died from injuries in the traffic crash, but 27 hours later, the Coroner's Office found Arthur had been fatally shot.

Other problems with the case, according to detectives who first investigated it 14 years ago, occurred because Arthur was shot in the van, but officers at the scene - unaware that a shooting took place - allowed the vehicle to be towed away and cleaned out.

Also witnesses told police they saw a man limp away from the crashed van after being thrown through the windshield. But a search was not done for at least a day, when detectives determined the death was the result of foul play.

Detectives recovered a ``variety of evidence, including biological evidence left by the murderer, from which DNA results were ultimately obtained,'' Tatreau said.

Still, after hundreds of interviews, the murder appeared to be unsolvable until new technology allowed the use of DNA in crime investigations, Tatreau said.

At the LAPD's request, Spokane County sheriff's investigators and the city's police contacted Kirby at his home near 16th Avenue and Carnahan Road the last week of June.

``We continued the inquiry locally to recover additional evidence,'' Deputy David Reagan, a spokesman for the Spokane County Sheriff's Office, said Tuesday.

This led police to issue an arrest warrant for Kirby on Monday. He was charged with capital murder, with no bail, Reagan said.

Kirby is described as white, 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 220 pounds, with gray hair and hazel eyes. Police said he is considered armed and dangerous.

Authorities asked that anyone with information on Kirby's whereabouts contact the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division at [phone], or Detective Headquarters' after-hours number, [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1) ARTHUR

(2 -- color) KIRBY