Southside Serial Slayer : Coalition Joins Effort to End Killer’s Reign

Patricia Williams stood outside a grocery store in South-Central Los Angeles on Tuesday, trying to catch the man who murdered her niece.

Williams passed out flyers warning of the Southside Serial Killer to shoppers walking through the automatic doors. She patrolled the parking lot, tucking the circulars, complete with a police composite, under windshield wipers. And she talked to reporters, imploring people to help in the cause.

“My niece was No. 17,” she said of her namesake, Verna Patricia Williams. “We called her Patsy. . . . Some of the girls, they really weren’t out there doing the things they say in the paper.”

Most Recent Victim

Patsy Williams, 36, whose body was found by children May 26 in a stairwell at the 68th Street Elementary School, was the most recent victim in the series of slayings that police attribute to a killer who has been preying on Southside prostitutes since the fall of 1983.

Patricia Williams’ efforts Tuesday were part of a three-week campaign to increase public vigilance toward the killer. The effort is sponsored by the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, a grass-roots group formed as a reaction to what they complain are inadequate law-enforcement efforts in finding the killer. They also blame “low-profile media coverage” for lack of public awareness.

Margaret Prescod, founder of the group, said she does not doubt that individual investigators are working long, hard hours to track the suspect.

‘Something Is Wrong’

“Our complaint is that if they’re working all of those hours and still making no progress, something is wrong somewhere . . . ,” she said. “The poor guys, maybe they are overworked, but let’s get them the help and resources they need.”

Prescod contends that the Los Angeles police have not made a more intense search because the victims are mostly prostitutes and mostly black.

“We think it has a lot to do with the color of the victims, frankly,” she said.

Los Angele Police Cmdr. William Booth denies that the race or occupation of the victims has any effect on the intensity of the investigation. It is simply a very tough case, he said. “The reason we don’t have an arrest yet is not for lack of effort.”

Booth said the coalition’s public awareness campaign “could very well help” detectives make an arrest.

Williams, Prescod and a few other members of the coalition met at the ABC Market at Manchester Avenue and Hoover Street on Tuesday, then fanned out to pass out the flyers. Similar groups were working at other locations, Prescod said.

In addition to those efforts, she said, an organization of Baptist ministers is going to spread the word in their churches. And various Los Angeles-area politicians--including Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, state Sen. Bill Greene and Supervisor Deane Dana--have said they will issue special mailers.

Williams said her Wednesday night Bible study class always prays for an arrest.

There seemed to be a need for the flyers Tuesday.

‘What Is This?’

“What is this?” said Dawn Polk, 21, as she pedaled up on a 10-speed bike and took a flyer. Polk said she had never heard friends or neighbors at 108th Street and Vermont Avenue talking about the serial killer.

“I’ve just heard about it on TV,” she said.

She read the flyer and was surprised to learn that there had been 17 victims.

“I didn’t know it was this serious,” she said.

Enos Hayes of Inglewood, wearing a baseball cap and a mustache, looked at the police sketch of the killer, shown also wearing a mustache and baseball cap.

He read the description: male black, 28 to 35 years old, black curly hair, brown eyes, possible pockmarked face, medium build, straight white teeth. . . .

Hayes shook his head and gave a soft laugh.

“Except for the pockmarks,” he said, “that could be me.”