Reporter Slain Protecting His Wife

SAN DIEGO — Police pressed their search Saturday for a man sought in the stabbing death of a newspaper reporter who came to his wife’s rescue when she was being assaulted by an intruder.

Police said Steve Petix, a 31-year-old reporter for The Californian, was stabbed in the chest Friday afternoon in the couple’s El Cajon apartment.

His wife, Vickie, 23, told police that a man posing as a repairman came to her apartment. When she let him in, she said, the man pulled out a knife and attempted to rape her. Police said Steve Petix, who had come home for lunch, began pulling the man off his wife. She escaped and ran to another apartment to summon police.