More victims feared after Indiana man is linked to deaths of 7 women

A convicted sex offender has been linked to the deaths of seven women whose bodies were found in northwestern Indiana over the weekend, and more victims are feared, officials said Monday.

Darren Deon Vann, 43, has been cooperating with investigators after his arrest following the fatal strangling of a woman in a Motel 6 in Hammond, Ind., on Friday, officials said.

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FOR THE RECORD:
Indiana killings: In the Oct. 21 Section A, an article about the arrest of a convicted sex offender in the killings of seven women in Indiana misspelled the first name of one of the slain women. Her name is Afrikka Hardy, not Afrika. —
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Vann told police “that he had messed up by committing the crime in Hammond” and was surprised that he had been caught so fast, Hammond Police Chief John Doughty told reporters.

Vann has led police to bodies in Gary, Ind., and has indicated some of his crimes may go back 20 years, though that claim has not yet been confirmed, said Doughty, who said the seven bodies appeared to be “more recent.”

Dan Sorbello, an investigator in the Lake County Coroner’s Office, said the bodies “were all in decomposed states and had been dead for some time.”

Vann appeared to have met at least one of his victims through an online personal ad on Backpage.com, officials said.

He spent five years in prison in Texas for a 2007 sexual assault of a 25-year-old woman in Travis County, according to court records and officials.

Vann was in custody from June 2008 until July 2013, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clarke told the Los Angeles Times. During that time, he unsuccessfully tried to sue prison officials for $100 million to argue against a disciplinary infraction over a minor incident with a female guard, according to federal court records.

Since his release, Vann moved to Indiana, where he split time living with his sister and a single-story ranch home in Gary. Texas’ sex-offender registry classified him as a “low”-risk offender.

Vann’s brother, Reginald Beard, 30, stood in the front doorway of his Gary home Monday morning and apologized to the victims’ families, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“To the victims, I’m sorry for their loss,” Beard said. “I’m a father of two daughters myself. This comes as a shock to us and our household. I just wish all the best. This is a painful moment for us too. I just wish [them] all the best and I’m sorry for their loss. I just wanted to say something, man, they deserve at least that.”

Beard said he found out about his brother’s arrest on Saturday, “before I went to work. They came to my sister’s house. Apparently all this went down at my sister’s house. Like I said, he flops around a lot since he’s been in and out.”

The Hammond chief, Doughty, said the department is seeking murder charges against Vann.

Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said there’s evidence to suggest the man believed to be in police custody had traveled to Texas and “all over the United States.”

“So I would like to let them [the police] complete the investigation, and I don’t want to taint it with the prospects of calling this person a serial killer,” Freeman-Wilson said.

Times staff writer Kurtis Lee and the Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.

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