Rochester Prostitutes Plying Their Trade Despite Deadly Specter of Serial Killer

Fears that a serial killer may be preying on the city’s prostitutes haven’t kept streetwalkers from working the territory once frequented by many of 13 women who have died or disappeared here since March, 1988.

They stand in the shadow of places such as Polo’s Grocery and Betty’s Crescendo Lounge, not far from Eastman Kodak’s world headquarters, hailing customers and hoping that they have the savvy to avoid a fatal encounter.

“I do it to stay alive, to pay the rent and all that,” said one 22-year-old prostitute who was working Lyell Avenue recently. “I get nervous sometimes, but I don’t go with anybody unless I know them.”

Although bodies have been turning up for more than 1 1/2 years, it was only after the discovery of a victim on Nov. 27 that police began publicly referring to the murders as serial killings. They have mounted what they call the largest investigation in the city’s history.

In all, 12 women have been found dead. Another has been missing since early November.

All of them lived at the margin of society. All but two were prostitutes, most were drug-addicted, some without homes, some suffering from mental illness.

Police believe at least four to six of the murders may have been carried out by the same killer and warn that the pattern may continue. “There is even the potential that all 12 of these are related,” said Rochester Police Chief Gordon Urlacher.

Henry Clune, a former journalist who at age 99 has lived here most of his life, says that while Rochester has experienced episodes of violence, it has never seen killings of such a persistent and seemingly calculated character.

“It’s a shocking thing,” he said. “The violence is just beyond comprehension.”

Serial murders committed against prostitutes and others who lead lives on the street are hardly uncommon in the United States.

In Miami, authorities are still seeking leads in the deaths of 19 prostitutes--all from the same section of the city--who were killed over a period of two years.

A similar spate of killings is also under investigation in New Bedford, Mass., where the bodies of nine women were found between July, 1988, and last April. Although some were prostitutes, the common denominator was drug abuse, said Jim Martin, a spokesman for the Bristol County district attorney’s office.

Perhaps the most intensive ongoing investigation involves Washington state’s so-called Green River killings, in which 41 women died and eight others disappeared between July, 1982, and March, 1984. Most had links to prostitution.

“We just passed the 100th anniversary of Jack the Ripper. Murder goes hand and hand with this profession,” King County Police Capt. Bob Evans, who heads the Green River investigation, said of prostitution. “It always has.”

In the Green River case, police recently cleared somebody they had previously described as a “viable suspect.” With no solutions in sight, they say, they are thinking of disbanding the special task force assigned to the case.

Rochester police have enlisted the help of the FBI in developing a profile of the killer or killers here and have consulted with authorities in New Bedford and Seattle. So far, police say there is no reason to believe the murders here have any connection to unsolved cases in those cities.

Evidence uncovered in the Rochester case indicates that many of the women were either strangled or suffocated, said Monroe County Medical Examiner Nicholas Forbes.

Five of the victims were found in or near the Genesee River gorge, a wooded ravine that slices through the city not far from the strip along Lyell Avenue where the majority of victims lived and plied their trade.

Others were found in parks, remote wooded areas, or behind city buildings. Many were nude. Privately, officials have said there is no obvious sexual component to the deaths and the medical examiner notes that they apparently were not the victims of uncontrolled rage.

Beyond that, investigators are getting a lot of tips, but have found little evidence at the scenes of the crimes, suggesting that the killer may have been clear-headed and methodical in his work.

“We feel this particular person we’re dealing with is very clever,” Urlacher said. “You have to work from the assumption that the guy knows how to avoid detection.” In the past, there had been, typically, two murders of prostitutes a year and the cases were solved, he said.

Beyond the dearth of evidence, efforts to solve the case could be complicated further by the life styles of the victims themselves.

“When you are dealing with street people it’s very difficult to find out who may have perpetrated a crime against them,” said Sister Eileen Conheady, a Catholic nun who, until last May, headed a program that provided counseling to prostitutes here.

Many victims turned to prostitution to support a drug habit, contributing to a perception that the murders are a predictable byproduct of their life on the street, said William Sullivan, president of the Edgerton Area Neighborhood Assn. “I find that kind of cynical, but I’d have to say that attitude is present.”

It’s a perception, said Conheady, that may have been reinforced by the emphasis both the police and the local media have placed on the victims’ backgrounds.

Typically, the victims were high school dropouts who turned to prostitution because they were unable to hold down steady jobs or needed the cash to support cocaine habits. For some, it was a gradual slide; for others, a precipitous decline brought on by traumatic events in their lives.

For 27-year-old Anna Marie Steffen, the decline seemed to date from the death in 1980 of her younger sister Tina, a paraplegic for whom Anna had cared for years.

Married for a time, and with two children, she fell into a life of regular drug use and prostitution.

“She was forced into it,” said one relative who requested anonymity. “Working as a waitress, she couldn’t afford a baby sitter and didn’t have enough welfare money. I think the drugs were a way out for her.”

When last seen in July, 1988, Anna was eight months pregnant. Anna’s skeletal remains were found in the Genesee River gorge that September.

“It seems to me we are blaming the victims--saying there is something in their life style that makes them vulnerable to being killed,” Conheady said. “It’s as if they deserved it.”

Others have made the same point, noting the murders haven’t evoked the outcry that surrounded a series of rapes on the city’s northeast side three years ago.

Urlacher, though, disagrees. “The terror isn’t there,” he said. “But I think the concern is.”

Some community activists have suggested that concern could be harnessed to focus attention on the problems of homeless and drug abuse in much the same way that riots here in 1964 led to heightened efforts to combat racism.

One church group is seeking to establish a shelter for those who want to get out of the prostitution racket. “It’s sad that it takes these murders to get people’s attention,” said Sister Mary Benjamin, who has been working with prostitutes through local churches for years and heads the group. “But all the publicity is helping my cause.”