SUSPECT IN CALIFORNIA SLAYINGS CAPTURED AFTER RAPE ON BOAT

Prison officials had not been informed that Mr. Cooper was wanted in Pennsylvania for an October 1982 rape- kidnapping, four burglaries and escaping from a state mental hospital. Deckhand on Sailboat

Sheriff Floyd Tidwell of San Bernardino County said Mr. Cooper had eluded the search by staying aboard a 32-foot sailboat owned by Owen and Angelica Handy of Humboldt County in northern California.

The Handys hired Mr. Cooper as a deckhand June 10, five days after the Chino Hills killings, upon meeting him in Ensenada, a resort town in Baja California. Mr. Tidwell said the Handys told the authorities they did not know about the slayings.

The Handys and Mr. Cooper had been anchored for a month off Santa Cruz Island, about 25 miles south of Santa Barbara. The couple apparently avoided docking their boat, the sheriff said, because Mrs. Handy, a Costa Rican national, is not a United States citizen.

The rape occurred on a 26-foot sailboat anchored nearby. Its owners were identified only as a couple from North Hollywood who had invited the Handys and Mr. Cooper to a fish fry on their boat Friday night. Sheriff Tidwell said Mr. Cooper returned about 4:30 A.M., raped the woman at knifepoint, threatened to kill her husband and then went back to the Handys' boat. 'That Is the Man!'