A homeless person in the Los Angeles region (photo courtesy of Creative Commons).

Police arrested Itzcoatl Ocampo Friday after bystanders chased him down following the stabbing death of a 64-year-old man outside a fast-food restaurant, the AP reported. Authorities had been searching for a serial killer responsible for the deaths of four homeless men since late December. Ocampo is from Yorba Linda.

Julia Smit-Lozano, the daughter of the third victim, told The Orange County Register that she had been given details of the murders. She said a prosecutor at the Orange County District Attorney's Office had told her each victim had been stabbed at least 43 times in the upper chest and, for some reason, the face.

Smit-Lozano told The Orange County Register that the prosecutor also told her that Ocampo stalked her father, Paulus Smit, 57, after seeing him at the library several times.

Ocampo's father, Refugio Ocampo, told the AP that his son came back a changed man after he was deployed in Iraq in 2008. He said his son struggled to adjust to being a civilian and expressed disillusionment.

Refugio Ocampo is homeless, he lost his job and lives in the cab of a broken-down truck he's repairing. He told the AP that his son visited him days before being arrested. Itzcoatl Ocampo warned his father about the murders and showed him a picture of one of the victims.

"He was very worried about me," Refugio Ocampo told the AP. "I told him, 'Don't worry. I'm a survivor. Nothing will happen to me."

Itzcoatl Ocampo lives with his mother and relatives in the suburbs. His family told the AP that he suffers from a physical condition that causes him headaches and his hands to shake.

According to the AP, both his father and a neighbor who is a Vietnam veteran tried to push Itzcoatl Ocampo to receive treatment at a veterans hospital but he refused.

The Orange County Register reported that Ocampo is being held in medical isolation at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana. He is expected to make a court appearance Wednesday.

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