Officers Seek Similarities in Bay Area, L.A. Killings

Los Angeles Police Department detectives investigating the serial murders of 10 Los Angeles prostitutes will compare notes this week with police in the Bay Area, where three black women have been found slain since Sept. 22.

“We’re looking at the cases in Oakland to see if there are any similarities,” Detective Fred Miller of LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division, said Monday.

Since Jan. 1, 1984, 10 prostitutes who were picked up in South-Central Los Angeles have been found strangled or fatally stabbed and their nude or partly nude bodies dumped.

Two of the women’s bodies were found in Inglewood parks, one was found near a Gardena apartment complex and the others were found throughout South Los Angeles. The last victim was found Aug. 15. All of the women except two were black.

Object of Probe

Los Angeles police are trying to determine whether the killer of those women is the same one who has killed three women in the Bay Area recently, the last just a week ago.

Sgt. Dan Murray, the lead investigator on the cases for the Oakland police, said he believes that all three Oakland murders were committed by the same person, but that he does not believe they are related to the cases in Los Angeles.

Unlike the murders in Los Angeles, he said, the bodies of the Oakland women--only one of whom was a prostitute--were fully clothed when found. Also, none had been strangled, he said. All except two of the Los Angeles victims had been strangled.

The body of the first victim, Betty Lynn Stuart, 22, a prostitute, was found Sept. 22 in the Aquatic Park in Berkeley, police said. Stuart, of Oakland, was found three hours after friends saw her leave home, police said. Her throat had been slashed.

Body Found in Field

A week later, the body of Diane Renee Stone, 17, of Oakland, was found in an athletic field less than a half mile east of Knowland Park, police said. She died of multiple stab wounds.

The body of Talita Dixon, 13, of Oakland, was found on a jogging trail in Redwood Regional Park on Oct. 8, three days after her mother had reported her as a runaway. A junior high school student, Dixon also had been slashed and stabbed repeatedly.

Lt. Al Perrodin of the Oakland Police Department Homicide Division said there were no visual signs of sexual assault on the women.

Most of the women in Los Angeles had been picked up in an area bordered on the north by 51st Street, on the south by 57th Street, Main street on the east and Western Avenue on the west, police said.

Los Angeles police have released a composite drawing of the suspect and have asked the public’s help in identifying the killer.

He is described as black, with a dark complexion, 30 to 35 years old and 5 feet, 10 inches to 6 feet tall. He is said to have black hair, brown eyes, smooth skin, a medium build, muscular arms and chest and a small mustache.

In at least one assault, the attacker was wearing a baseball cap bearing the name FILA, a clothing manufacturer, police said. He was driving a 1984 or 1985 dark-colored Buick Regal with a baby seat on the rear seat.

Vehicle Described

On another occasion, he was driving a vehicle described as a 1960 to 1969 Ford pickup truck with gray primer paint, police said.

Police said they have received about 600 calls in response to their request for help. Miller said he, Det. John St. John and six other detectives have spent much of their time following up on information received in those calls, but so far with little success. Inglewood and Gardena police are also working on the case.

A 26-year-old prostitute whom an assailant stabbed and left for dead has regained consciousness after being in a coma for several months, Miller said.

Police have talked with her and they believe she was attacked by the man responsible for the 10 murders, Miller said, but he declined to give further details.

Police have also talked with two prostitutes who said they were attacked by a man they thought was the killer, “but right now it’s inconclusive,” Miller said.