ANAHEIM – A tribute made up of candles, ballooons, coffee cups, cookies, cigarettes and a gray-white stuffed elephant lies next to the trash enclosure where a serial killer’s fourth victim was stabbed and killed.

Locals in the area who say they knew him, calling him John, came out early Saturday to pay respects and remember the friendly, God-fearing, Santa Claus-like looking man.

Marilyn Holland and Linda Maher shared stories about the mild-mannered Vietnam vet who was known to never ask for money but always got it anyhow.

As Maher drive up in her pickup truck, she called over to Holland, “Was it John?” she asked. “This makes me so mad. I’m so sick about John. He never asked for money. when people gave him money, he always said, ‘God bless you.'”

Holland said she had warned John about the serial killer and had wanted to buy him a cell phone.

“He always liked to sit and drink coffee at Carl’s Jr., read his bible and do crossword puzzles out of the paper. It such a tragedy, he looked just like Santa Claus,” she said. “He was friends with everyone. Even the coyotes in the riverbed, he gave them all names.”

Anaheim police on Friday night arrested a Yorba Linda man identified as Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, as he ran away shedding clothes after John was stabbed to death behind the fast-food restaurant.

Louis Garcia lives in the Friendly Village Mobile Home Park, where a man had tried to climb a fence as he ran from police and witnesses following the stabbing Friday night. Garcia said more than 100 police were at the scene and a battery of fire trucks. He said he saw the man run from the fast-food restaurant toward the mobile-home park.

That’s when a security guard there pulled him down, Garcia said.

“Within minutes police had him surrounded and sat him down on La Palma Avenue,” Garcia said. “He sat there wearing a red hoodie with his amrms crossed. His face was expressionless.”

Authorities believe the Ocampo is connected to the recent slayings of three other homeless men in north Orange County.

All four victims were stabbed, and Ocampo fits the description of the serial killer captured in a grainy surveillance video of the Dec. 20 stabbing death of James McGillivray, a homeless man who was stabbed to death while sleeping outside a Placentia shopping center, authorities said.

A press conference is planned for this afternoon by the serial killer task force, authorities said.

Ocampo was arrested by Anaheim police shortly after another homeless man was stabbed to death about 8:15 p.m. Friday next to a trash enclosure at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant at the intersection of La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway. That victim, a man in his early 60s, has not been identified.

Several witnesses reported an assault in progress, and officers arrived to find the homeless man dead in the parking lot. Witnesses followed the stabber from the crime scene and pointed him out to responding officers, police said.

Ocampo shed some of his clothes as he ran, according to authorities, and was arrested a short distance from the trash enclosure. He was uninjured, but had some blood on his body,

A police bloodhound later traced the scent from Ocampo’s belongings back to the scene where the attack occurred, authorities said.

While police have not identified the homeless man stabbed Friday night, several residents say he is a transient known to frequent the shopping center, who they know only as “John.”

Krista Schegetz, a nearby resident, said she had known John for five or six years and often spoke to him and took him food.

“He was very solitary,” Schegetz said. “When I first met him, I asked him if there was anything he needed, and he said ‘I have everything.’ “

Residents said he was a self-described Vietnam veteran who kept to himself, even after the recent homeless killings.

“He was the nicest guy you can imagine,” said Kevin Christensen, who had recently spoken to the man. “I wanted to warn him there was a serial killer loose, and he said ‘Don’t worry about it.’ “

The same killer is believed to have carried out the murders of three middle-aged homeless men in the past several weeks.

McGillivray, 53, was killed Dec. 20 while sleeping outside a Placentia shopping center. The body of Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found eight days later on the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim. Two days later, Paulus Cornelius Smit, 57, was found dead behind the Yorba Linda library.

The latest victim was discovered about 8:15 p.m. Friday next to a trash enclosure at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant at the intersection of La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway, Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.

Krista Schegetz, a nearby resident, said she had known John for five or six years and often spoke to him and took him food.

Police were also looking for a white, four-door 2000 to 2003 Toyota Corolla seen on video more than an hour before McGillivray was attacked.

Friday’s killing occurred a little more than three miles from the Yorba Linda library, where police and FBI officials Friday afternoon and evening staged roadblocks asking drivers for information about Smit’s death.

The shopping center remained block late Friday night, as investigators let patrons leave after they were interviewed, and bloodhounds were brought in to go over the scene.

Court records show that a man named Itzcoatl Ocampo had three minor traffiic citations in recent years

Angelina Ortega waited for her son, who had left a voicemail message that he and his girlfriend had witnessed the killing.

“The killer was behind them walking, and then running,” Ortega said of her son’s message.

Authorities urged the homeless to stay vigilant.

“We are certainly not letting our guard down,” Hunter said.

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait congratulated police on their work in taking the man suspected in the latest death into custody.

“Our thoughts go out to the victims and the homeless community,” Tait said.