Slain Woman Is Believed Serial Killer’s 19th Victim

The body of a woman who authorities believe is the 19th victim of a serial killer preying on prostitutes and drug users was found Monday in an orange grove.

Riverside County officials had not identified the woman late Monday, but one detective at the scene tentatively identified her as a local prostitute.

“We are in the very preliminary stages of the investigation, but there are some similarities between this and the other cases,” said Detective Henry Sawicki, a spokesman for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which is in charge of a task force investigating the slayings.

“We’re pretty confident she is the 19th victim.”

The woman, found about half a mile from a Riverside police station, apparently had been killed a short time before her body was discovered.

The body was found about 1 p.m. by workers, who called police.

The killing occurred less than a month after the county Sheriff’s Department offered an $11,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the deaths.

Authorities believe the killer has been operating in the area at least since Oct. 29, 1986, when the body of the first victim was found.

The remains of the 18th victim, 35-year-old Delliah Zamora, were discovered on a road near Riverside on Oct. 30. She had a history of prostitution and drug use, as did the other 18 women.

Details of the investigation, being handled by a 14-member sheriff’s task force, are closely guarded and investigators no longer say how the victims died. Some of the earlier victims were found naked and were stabbed or strangled.

Seven of the bodies were found in Lake Elsinore, a city of 15,000 where some of the victims walked Main Street. The body found Monday is the fourth victim found in Riverside.