back to index

Serial Crime News - April 2001

Confessed serial killer not talking as new trial approaches

April 18, 2001
Web posted at: 4:57 AM EDT (0857 GMT)
 
SPOKANE, Washington (AP) -- When Robert L. Yates Jr. confessed to killing 13 people in a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, investigators across the country zeroed in on the former military man as a possible suspect in other unsolved slayings.

It's been a year since his arrest, and Yates isn't talking.

Authorities say he may be holding what he knows as leverage for another plea bargain -- he faces trial in June in the slayings of two women near Tacoma and prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty. Yates' attorney, Mary Kay High, said she advised her client to clam up.
 
The silence is frustrating investigators who want to know what else the 48-year-old father of five may have done.

"He's got tons to tell us," said Sheriff's Sgt. Cal Walker, head of the Spokane-based task force that captured Yates. "He is the only person who knows the answers to the many things we have to assume."

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/04/18/spokaneslayings.ap/index.html
Police Fear Serial Killer Operating In Vancouver
Three More Names Added To List Of Missing Prostitutes

VANCOUVER, 11:40 a.m. PDT April 28, 2001 --The Vancouver police and the RCMP now fear a serial killer may be targeting prostitutes and drug addicts on the city's downtown east side.
 
Police have added three new names to list of women who have gone missing from the city's skid row area, bringing the total of women who have disappeared over the past five years to 31.

The RCMP and city police will be working together on the case.

In 1999, Vancouver police posted a $100,000 dollar reward for information relating to the missing women.

http://www.tvforbc.com/bc/news/stories/news-74532820010428-130442.html
Alleged Jack the Ripper Letter Has Grisly Tale to Tell

LONDON  In a scrawled, smudged letter written in Cockney English, a man claiming to be the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper described a foiled attempt to kill a woman and promised to find another victim soon.

The eerie note to a London doctor, made public by the government Thursday, is filled with spelling errors mimicking the Cockney accent and gives the gruesome details of an attempted murder.

"I was goin to hopperate agin close to your ospitle just as I was goin to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte then cusses of coppers spoilt the game,'' it said. "But I guess I wil be on the job soon and will send you another bit of innerds.''
 
The letter, dated Oct. 29, 1888, and once part of the original police file, was released Thursday by Britain's public records office under rules which require many government documents to be made public eventually.
 
It was given to the public records office about 30 years ago by Donald Rumbelow, a police officer. Rumbelow would not explain how he got the letter, but said police files were often mislaid before Scotland Yard hired its first archivist in 1951.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,12217,00.html
Swazi police fear up to 33 victims of killer
 
MBABANE, April 15 (Reuters) - Police in the tiny mountain kingdom of Swaziland said on Sunday they could be hunting one or more serial killers of between 24 and 33 people.

"The bodies were discovered near a flat area by a stream and in a forest clearing, which might have been used for rape."

Police have been cautious about linking all the deaths, saying they are waiting for the results of forensic tests being done in neighbouring South Africa.
 
Police suspect that the bodies found last week and three others found the week before could possibly be further victims of suspected serial killer Bongani Vilakati, who was shot and killed by police on March 29.
 
http://newsnet.reuters.com/news/rcom:old_general/nL15390763.html
 
Police investigate sex link in 24 murders
Police in Swaziland are hunting a serial sex killer - or killers - after discovering 24 bodies in shallow graves in the tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa.
Superintendent Jomo Mavuso, one of two senior police officers heading the investigation, said the bodies were naked and had their hands tied.

"This indicates that it may be the same person or people who are doing this thing," he told the Times of Swaziland.

It was not immediately clear when the killings took place.

The latest bodies were reported to be skeletons, but insects can strip flesh from bodies very fast in Africa.

Some of the bodies had been thrown into ditches, then covered up.


http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1897331%255E1702,00.html
Miami prostitute killer pleads guilty to murdering five

Posted at 6:58 a.m. EDT Thursday, April 5, 2001
MIAMI (AP ) -- A serial killer dubbed the ``Tamiami Strangler'' who was sentenced to death for killing a prostitute has pleaded guilty to the murder of five others as part of a plea agreement.

Rory Conde agreed to the plea agreement Tuesday and was sentenced by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jerald Bagley to five consecutive life terms without parole.

As a condition of the plea deal, if Conde manages to get his death sentence overturned, he cannot try to vacate his guilty pleas to the killings of Lazaro Comesana, Elisa ``Daphne'' Martinez, Charity Fay Nava, Wanda Cook Crawford and Necole Christina Schneider.

http://www.miami.com/herald/digdocs/028844.htm
Life sentence for Paris serial killer

Posted: Thursday, April 5, 2001
A Paris court sentenced the 38-year-old serial killer Guy Georges to life in prison for the rape and murder of seven women in the 1990s.

Georges - who was dubbed the "Beast of the Bastille" - faces a minimun 22 years in jail, but it is possible he will never be released after psychiatrists warned that he could not be cured of his desire to kill.

Following his confession last week, he consistently asked for forgiveness from the victims' families.

Before the verdict was delivered he told the court that, whatever the sentence, he was unlikely to serve it as he was considering suicide.

"You can rest assured, I know that I will never leave prison. But I can assure you that I will never serve my sentence" he said.

And he added: "The sentence that you are going to impose me is nothing, I will inflict a sentence upon myself".


http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1262000/1262806.stm
DNA Links North Californian Rapes to Southland Killings

Investigations: Officials hope discovery will lead to a suspect in string of crimes committed in the 1970s and '80s, including the 'Original Nightstalker' slayings.
By: DAVID HALDANE TIMES STAFF WRITER  April 4, 2001

A serial killer believed to be responsible for as many as 10 unsolved murders in Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties from 1979 to 1986 apparently got his start a few years earlier as the notorious "East Area rapist" of Northern California, officials said Tuesday.
New DNA evidence revealed Tuesday links the murderer--dubbed the "Original Nightstalker" by local detectives--to at least 44 rapes committed from Sacramento to San Ramon during a three-year period in the 1970s.
"Unfortunately it's still a faceless person," said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

http://www.latimes.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli?DBLIST=lt01&DOCNUM=26781&DBPUB=200
10404WZRiKKBO&QDesc=DNA%20Links%20N.%20Calif.%20Rapes%20to%20Southl
and%20Killings
Sailor sentenced for killing prostitute
April 4, 2001 Web posted at: 10:25 AM EDT (1425 GMT)

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- A former Navy sailor convicted of killing a prostitute has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
When given the chance to apologize to the family of victim Wendy Jordan, John E. Armstrong stood with his back to the family and said, "No."
The victim's sister told Armstrong she hopes he suffers.
Investigators say Armstrong admitted killing Jordan and four other area prostitutes, as well as 11 other women worldwide. The FBI is investigating the killings outside Michigan. Armstrong has only been charged with the five Michigan slayings.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/04/04/sailor.slayings.ap/index.html
Serial killer's art sale upsets families of victims
Associated Press Tuesday, April 3, 2001

Albany, N.Y. --- A portrait of Britain's late Princess Diana is among 10 paintings and sketches by convicted serial killer Arthur Shawcross for sale at a state-sponsored inmates' art show.

Relatives of Shawcross' victims say they are outraged that his art, and the work of several other New York state inmates, is on display as part of the 35th Annual Corrections on Canvas art show.

Shawcross, serving a 250-year sentence for killing 11 Rochester-area women a decade ago, is selling his paintings of winged horses and butterflies for up to $540.
Bernardo: I still love Karla

By HEATHER BIRD-- The Toronto Sun
 
He believes that love is forever. Even when your names are Karla and Paul. That's right, schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo still harbours hopes that he will one day be reunited with his partner in crime, Karla Homolka.

"He believes that love is forever and, I don't know, he still thinks they'll have contact later in life," says the man. "To this day, he doesn't badmouth her."

That said, true love only goes so far. Bernardo continues to claim that it was Karla, not he, who ended the lives of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. In his twisted mind, he believes he protected Karla by testifying that Leslie died mysteriously and that Kristen strangled herself with an electrical cord. His protective urges, however, didn't extend to his lawyers, who worked furiously to pin the blame on Bernardo's petite blonde co-conspirator.

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSLaw0103/30_bernardo-sun.html
Bernardo going 'stir crazy'

Isolation, 24-hour cameras and tiny room take toll on killer

By ALAN CAIRNS-- Toronto Sun,  March 27,2001

TORONTO -- Sex killer Paul Bernardo is going "stir crazy" in prison, sources say. After more than five years of isolation in Kingston Penitentiary, Bernardo is whining about his situation to guards and other convicts within earshot of his tiny segregation cell.

In the past few months, sources say, Bernardo has ranted about being confined to his cell for 23 hours daily, the incessant security and the video cameras that watch his every move.

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSLaw0103/27_bernardo-sun.html
 
Homolka denied early release, officials fear she may kill again

OTTAWA (CP) - Karla Homolka, convicted in the sex-slayings of two Ontario teenage girls, has been denied early statutory release because of fears she may kill again.

The National Parole Board released its ruling on a review of the case Thursday, ordering that Homolka remain detained past her July release eligibility date. "The board is satisfied that, if released, you are likely to commit an offence causing the death of or serious harm to another person before the expiration of the sentence you are now serving," said the order.

The families of her schoolgirl victims are "delighted Karla Homolka will be behind bars until the last day of her sentence . . . in July 2005," Tim Danson, their lawyer, said Thursday.

Homolka's mandatory release date had been set for July 6, 2001, the two-thirds point in a sentence at which many offenders are allowed to leave prison.

She did not ask for the review, but it is mandatory.
source
Serial Killer Stalking Prostitutes

GUATEMALA CITY- The killer uses plastic sheeting to strangle his victims and is fond of scrawling angry, moralistic messages on their backs in blood-red marker.

He is Guatemala's Jack the Ripper, and police say he has strangled five prostitutes here in the last three months and that he may have killed streetwalkers in El Salvador and even Los Angeles.

In an effort to find the serial killer, police officers are hitting the streets at all hours, searching for prostitutes and passing out computer-generated composites of the man they say is behind the killings.

The pictures, compiled from witnesses who say they saw the suspect enter various hotels with prostitutes later found dead, depict the killer as a short, tan-skinned, 35-year-old with closely cut black hair and sunken brown eyes.
 
Police say he goes by the last name Blanco and speaks with a Salvadoran accent.

The killings began Jan. 27 when police discovered the body of an unidentified prostitute who had been strangled in a dingy, pay-by-the-hour hotel in downtown Guatemala City.

In a note to police written on his victim's back, the killer said he "didn't like it, but couldn't help killing" and that his murderous spree had included the slaying of two prostitutes in Los Angeles. Authorities in California say they have no record of those killings.

Two weeks after the first victim was discovered, police found the strangled body of Roxana Jamileth Molina in a drab hotel room on the Guatemalan capital's western outskirts. And on March 6, the owner of a nearby hotel, led police to the remains of another strangled unidentified prostitute.

The killer's fourth victim was discovered four days later, also near downtown Guatemala City. The woman's body had "death to all the dogs. Seven down, three to go" etched in flowery handwriting on her back.
On March 29, the body of a fifth strangled prostitute was discovered in Huehuetenango, 180 miles northwest of Guatemala City.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-sa/2001/apr/06/040605825.html

10 April 2001
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1