Police investigating the slayings of seven women whose bodies were found over the weekend have said they believe it is the work of a serial killer, and that the suspect has indicated there could be more victims going back 20 years.
Prosecutors in Lake County in the Midwestern state of Indiana yesterday charged 43-year-old Darren Vann in the strangulation death of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy. Her body was found Friday night at a Motel 6 in nearby Hammond.
Gary officials were expected to charge Vann later this week in the deaths of six more women, whose bodies were found Saturday and Sunday. Hammond Police Chief John Doughty said at a news conference that Vann confessed to Hardy's slaying and gave police information that led to the other bodies in Gary, including three on the same block.
Vann was a convicted sex offender in Texas, where he pleaded guilty to raping a woman in 2009 and was released from prison in July 2013.
The Austin Police Department issued a statement yesterday saying it would review missing persons and cold cases to determine if there could be a link to Vann, and asked anyone with information to come forward.
Doughty said police have no specific indication that any slayings have occurred in another state, and the slayings in Gary appeared to have happened recently. He said Vann is cooperating with investigators in the hope of making a deal with prosecutors.
"It could go back as far as 20 years based on some statements we have, but that has yet to be corroborated," Doughty said.
The Texas Department of Public Safety listed his risk level as "low" on its sex offender registry. He did not register in Indiana.
Court records in Travis County, Texas, show that Vann served a five-year prison sentence, with credit for the 15 months he was in jail awaiting trial, after pleading guilty in 2009 to sexually assaulting a woman at an Austin apartment two years earlier.
The woman told police that she went to Vann's apartment, where he asked if she was a police officer. After she told him no, he knocked her down and began to strangle and beat her, hitting her several times in the face and telling the woman he could kill her. He then raped her.
Vann allowed the woman to leave and she called police the next day.
