Update on unsolved murders of at least 12 female hookers in Pittsburgh,PA area,likely serial killer at work,+ great info on little-known past serial predators who operated in the area
Joe1orbit
It's great to find a couple of long, detailed, and cool news articles dealing
with at-large serial killers, and also providing great background info on
obscure and little known serial predators who have operated in the same area in
the past, and who have already been caught. Let us begin with the Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania area, where every faithful reader of all my posts should be aware
that in recent weeks cops have had a special meeting, and revealed that they
have opened an investigation into 12 unsolved murders/disappearances of female
hookers in the area, over the past 8-10 years, that COULD very well be the work
of a serial killer, at least SOME of the 12+ murders.
In this update we learn that cops are still DOWNPLAYING the SK angle,
continuing to maintain that they have no SOLID evidence to link even THREE out
of the 7-12 unsolved murders, to a solo serial killer. I think the odds are
QUITE high that a serial killer was/is at work, and it's also quite possible
that the cops are LYING, withholding information about the exact modus operandi
of the killings, that would pretty much establish with certainty, that a serial
killer did harvest at least three of these prosty gals.
But the below article is much more than just a minor update on a mysterious
and unclear case, it offers a wonderful chance for us to learn about, or
recall, a few of the obscrure serial predators who had decided to claim their
vengeance in this same area, in past years. We get some details on the late
1970's couple-killer, who went on a FASCINATING 6-12 month rampage through at
least FIVE different states, breaking into houses and MASSACRES the COUPLES,
usually married, who lived in the houses. Edward Surratt, a young PA fellow,
was finally captured in Florida, inside of the house of his last victims,
having BOUND the male homeowner, and RAPED his wife & daughter. He then
STUPIDLY fell asleep inside of the house, and somebody managed to summon
police. Edward is BELIEVED to have serially killed EIGHTEEN people! Wow, what a
TRAGIC way to end such a successful serial killing career, to FALL ASLEEP while
inside of the home of your latest intended victims, even though you are
EXPERIENCED and have claimed 18 lives already. HUGE tactical mistake!
I bet MOST of you have NOT heard of Edward Surratt, despite the very high
victim count, and the UNIQUE way he carried out the killing. It didn't help
him, in terms of gaining fame, that detectives & prosecuters decided they
DIDN'T have enough evidence to charge him with MOST of the 18 murders. Real sad
when such a prolific serial killer fades into obscurity. He IS still alive &
well, serving a Life sentence in a FL prison. Maybe an enterprising true crime
author can contact him, and consider writing a book on the slaighter spree, and
on Edward himself.
As far the 12 unsolved murders of gals that the local PD is currently focused
on, we know that ALL the victims were known hookers AND drug abusers. They were
all female. They were known to frequent the city of Pittsburgh, and their
bodies were all found in remore locations OUTSIDE of the city of Pittsburgh,
but still close-by. Seems to me that a serial killer is plucking them off as
they prostitute themselves IN the red-light districts of the city, and driving
them in his car to remote outskirt areas, and dumping their bodies. He is NOT
extremely active, if in fact these are the ONLY victims he is claiming. Only
averaging about ONE harvesting every 9-12 months. Of course it's always
possible that he is killing more, perhaps in other cities or states, and no
link is being established by the impotent police departments, or perhaps the
bodies of additional victims are just not being found.
We get details on some of the victims, and police essentially ADMIT that
their PRIME interest is to: "Gget the media off their backs. The last thing we
wanted was to start a panic." An attitude like that raises SERIOUS and
LEGITIMATE concerns as to whether the police are being HONEST and truthful when
they repeatedly DENY having found any reason to LINK the unsolved murders
together.
We also learn about Willie Holmes, a mid 30's serial killer, agewise, who
also terrorized the Pittsburgh area in the late 1970's, breaking into homes and
stabbing/beating the occupants, usually middle-aged to elderly folks, both men
and women, to death. He killed at least 4, and BRUTALLY beat several others,
who managed to survive.
Another blast from the past named is Eugene Spruill, a physically HUGE fellow
convicted of only 2 murders, but STRONGLY suspected of having killed at least
6, during an 11 month time period in the early 1970's. I REALLY appreciate it
when a news writer takes the time to recount so many obscure, locally-based
serial predator cases, both for his local readership, and thanks to the
internet and my dedicated news search and post efforts, to the entire WORLD.
It's a SHAMe that some serial killers are "forgotten". I bet that Edward
Surratt, serial killer of 18, gets almost NO new and unsolicited mail. He's
just "forgotten". Would be NICE if he got a bunch of letters now, in the wake
of this article. I bet he would feel good to know that despite the passage of
20 years time since his last murder, his ACHIEVEMENT, his remarkable spree, is
NOT forgotten, but lives on in the media, and in the minds of THOUSANDS of
serial murder afficianados and scholars.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of the 10/24/99 online edition of The
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper:
Looking for links in a dozen deaths
Police need more than just similarities to determine if a serial killer has
been targeting city prostitutes since the '80s
Sunday, October 24, 1999
By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
People lived in terror that winter.
They bought handguns and shotguns. They changed the locks on their doors. They
installed bars on their windows.
In late 1977 and early 1978, a killer was on the loose, murdering couples in
their homes, leaving a bloody trail from Allegheny and Beaver counties to Ohio,
West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.
Edward Surratt, 36, an unemployed truck driver from Aliquippa, was and still is
suspected in at least 18 slayings.
Police captured him in Florida when he broke into a beach house, tied up the
homeowner, raped his wife and daughter and then fell asleep.
Surratt isn't mentioned with Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, but, like them, he
is a notorious serial killer.
Now local authorities have set up an investigative team to determine if another
serial killer might be out there.
In recent weeks, the media has trumpeted a possible link between the deaths of
more than a dozen Pittsburgh prostitutes since the late 1980s and, on Monday,
county, city and state police met to compare notes.
But despite media hype, police are urging a sense of perspective.
"With Surratt, there was panic. There was a task force formed. There was a huge
concentrated effort to identify who was responsible for these killings," said
Sgt. Lee Torbin of the county homicide squad, a 27-year veteran who remembers
the Surratt case. "What we're doing now doesn't come close to that and will not
come close to that."
Detectives can't establish a connection between the cases except the victims'
hard lives as drug addicts who sold themselves for a fix and ended up dead in
remote areas outside the city, some in suburban communities and others in
outlying counties.
That pattern is similar to notorious serial killings of prostitutes in other
parts of the country, including 49 who were murdered in the Seattle area
between 1982 and 1984. The suspect, dubbed the Green River Killer, has not been
caught.
In Seattle, however, a single person was obviously at work, sometimes murdering
five hookers a month.
Here, even the causes of death aren't apparent, and the time span is much
greater.
Some victims, such as Leah Hall, 32, of Oakland, who was found dead in Carnegie
in 1997, were strangled. But the coroner's office hasn't been able to establish
a cause for others, such as that of Cherida Warmley, 43, of Lawrenceville,
whose skeleton was found in North Versailles last year, or Faye Jackson, 24, of
Garfield, whose dismembered remains were found in a Monroeville creek in 1994.
Talk of a link began earlier this month with a breathless television report
after the discovery of a skeleton, later identified as Angelique Morgan, 27, in
an abandoned Shadyside house.
But the suspicion that some of the cases could be related wasn't new. Police
have been talking about the possibility for years.
In the winter of 1997, after the bodies of Hall and Dorothy Siemers, 29, turned
up in the suburbs, county police said they suspected the deaths could be
connected.
Three years ago, Torbin and Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Ron Freeman even discussed
going to the media to drum up information about some of the deaths, although
they never did.
When the WPXI-TV report aired two weeks ago, however, so many reporters were
calling police that they decided to hold a news conference to, in essence, get
the media off their backs.
"The last thing we wanted was to start a panic," Torbin said.
Now a group of investigators is poring over old cases, but details are sketchy.
Freeman is convinced that some of the deaths are related, but he won't discuss
why.
"We just need the time to work on it," he said. "So we're not going to make any
statements."
While some city and county detectives privately doubt there is a link, others
point to the improbability that so many similar deaths -- perhaps as many as 18
-- would be the work of different people.
Torbin said Freeman's instincts over the years had often proved correct.
"I have a lot of respect for Freeman," he said. "He believes that something's
out there. He has felt this way for a while. And I can tell you this: He's a
hell of a homicide cop."
If it turns out that one person has been killing prostitutes, the suspect would
join only a handful of serial killers in Western Pennsylvania history.
"It's not common in this area," Torbin said. "Most serial killers, in my
experience, are in the larger metropolitan areas, like New York or Los Angeles,
where you have a lot of anonymity."
Surratt was the most prolific, and the only local serial killer who fits the
popular image fostered by such movies as "Dirty Harry" and "Silence of the
Lambs." He is serving a life term in a Florida prison, and state police are
still trying to prove once and for all that he was the man who terrorized
Western Pennsylvania more than two decades ago.
But not long after he was caught, another killer turned up in the winter of
1978 and 1979, this one robbing and killing people in their homes.
The murders started with the death of Roy Warren, 68, who was found Dec. 5,
kneeling by his bed in his North Side home, stabbed in the neck. A month later,
Thelma Pettigrew, 55, also of the North Side, was also found stabbed in the
neck, her hands and feet bound with tape. On Jan. 27, Florence Sims, 59, of
Hazelwood, was found beaten to death in her home, her ankles tied with
electrical cord. Then, on Feb. 28, Philip Vaughn, 83, of Duquesne, was found
stabbed in the chest, his hands and feet tied behind his back. His wife, Naomi,
73, was also tied and beaten, but she survived.
During the same three-month period, at least six other people were robbed and
beaten, some with brass knuckles.
In March, police found their man when Naomi Vaughn identified her attacker as
Willie Holmes, 36, an unemployed remodeler from the Hill District. Robbery
seemed to be his motive, but no one could ever explain what compelled him to
kill his victims.
Eugene Spruill was another infamous multiple murderer.
A black belt in karate who stood 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 270 pounds,
he is serving two life sentences for the 1972 stabbing of a Natrona Heights man
and the 1973 strangulation of a Brushton drug dealer. At one point, he had been
accused of six murders in an 11-month period.
Two other killers with multiple victims -- Michael Travaglia and John Lesko --
are also legends in Western Pennsylvania. During a six-day "kill for thrill"
spree in December 1979 and January 1980, they killed four people, including
Apollo police Officer Leonard Miller.
Then there was Donald Brown, an unemployed bakery truck driver from New Castle
who is serving time for two killings in the 1960s and may have committed a
third. Brown, now 53, was convicted of stabbing his girlfriend, whose body was
found Jan. 21, 1967, in a strip mine.
Brown also was convicted of killing a Mercer County farmer found shot to death
three days before his girlfriend's death and is awaiting trial for another
killing in the 1960s.
Anthony Fiebiger also could turn out to be a serial killer, which the FBI
defines as anyone who kills three or more people. Sentenced to death for raping
and killing a teen-age girl in 1982 and strangling another woman in 1989,
Fiebiger, 35, of Brookline, is a diagnosed sociopath. He has a history of
violence toward women, and, Torbin said, it's possible he has had other
victims.
Just as it's possible the deaths of local prostitutes will be traced to one or
two people.
Prostitutes are the most frequent victims of serial killers, according to
criminologists, because they live on the fringe of society and are often not
reported missing.
Several high-profile serial killers have preyed on prostitutes almost
exclusively. In addition to the Green River Killer, Joel Rifkin killed 17
prostitutes in New York in the early 1990s, having sex with their corpses and
dumping their dismembered bodies.
The killings initially went unnoticed because the bodies were found in many
different police jurisdictions, and missing persons reports were not
coordinated among agencies. Police didn't realize a serial killer was at work
until 1993, when Rifkin confessed to the murders after a state trooper pulled
over his pickup for running a red light and discovered a rotting body in the
back.
Locally, many police agencies have an unsolved case or two, but determining
which ones are related will be difficult.
Trooper Ray Melder of the state police criminal investigative assessment unit,
which is still examining the Surratt murders, said the death of Mary Jean
Stevenson, 25, in Butler County might be one to look at. The skeleton of the
North Side woman was found June 4, 1988, in an abandoned strip mine off
Interstate 79 in Muddy Creek. She had been shot in the head.
At least five Allegheny County deaths fit the category of prostitutes from the
city found dead in the suburbs: Hall, Siemers, Warmley, Jackson and Jessica
Freeman, 15, whose beaten body was discovered along railroad tracks in Bethel
Park in 1992.
Two recent deaths also might be part of the police investigation.
On June 28, the skeletal remains of a young woman were found in a vacant house
in Wilkinsburg. She has yet to be identified, but an autopsy showed she was
strangled. On Oct. 6, Morgan's skeletal remains were discovered. The cause of
her death hasn't been determined, but police suspect she was slain, because she
was found under a carpet and a mattress with her sweat shirt wrapped around her
head. Police said she was a prostitute and drug addict.
In the end, all the similarities prove nothing.
Without a common suspect or some physical evidence, the cases are likely to
remain unsolved.
"We have developed suspects in most of these cases, but the evidence does not
overlap," Torbin said. "There is no common denominator."
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