Port Hueneme Police Turn to FBI to Help Solve 3 Slayings

Struggling to solve the killings of three women in three months, the tiny Port Hueneme police force has asked for help from a high-tech FBI unit that specializes in solving violent crimes.

The FBI’s Behavioral Science Investigative Services Unit in Quantico, Va., is perhaps best known for drawing profiles of serial killers, as portrayed in the movie “Silence of the Lambs.” But Sgt. Fernando Estrella of the Port Hueneme Police Department said there is nothing to indicate the three recent slayings are connected.

“That’s not the reason we’re going to them,” he said. “We’re going to them in an effort to possibly give us information on who the perpetrators might be.

“We are grasping at everything and anything we can find in order to help us try to solve these cases.”

The FBI agreed to review the cases after detectives met with an FBI agent from Los Angeles on Saturday in Port Hueneme. Port Hueneme’s detectives handed over police reports, photographs and other information about the case. At the agent’s request, Port Hueneme detectives agreed to find out more about the background of each victim.

The killings began June 1 when Norma Rodriguez, a 32-year-old mother of two young boys, was found strangled to death in the living room of her small home on East B Street.

Three weeks later, Beatrice Bellis, an 87-year-old deaf woman, was stabbed to death inside her home in a senior citizens’ apartment building on East Scott Street. Neighbors suspect that Bellis may have forgotten to lock her door the night she was killed.

And on Aug. 5, the strangled body of Cindy Burger, 44, was found in her bathtub as flames engulfed her two-story condo. Police suspect the fire was set to cover the killing.

Investigating all three homicides has been an overwhelming task for the small department of 19 officers--including the police chief, who collects evidence at crime scenes.

Since the killing streak began, detectives have interviewed more than 200 people and put in hundreds of hours of overtime, often working seven days a week.

They have followed countless leads and tracked possible witnesses as far as Corpus Christi, Tex. Yet, investigators say they are no closer to making an arrest than when the killings occurred.

The lack of arrests has added to the pain of the victims’ relatives.

“Each time we contact them, it stirs it up again,” Estrella said.

Turning to the FBI is the latest of several steps the department has taken to obtain outside help. In recent weeks, detectives also have sought assistance from the community, the district attorney’s office, the state fire marshal’s office and county fire investigators.

An investigator from the state fire marshal’s office recently toured Burger’s condo on Outlook Cove, looking for clues in the charred interior.

The official concurred with county arson investigators who determined the blaze was deliberately set and started at the foot of Burger’s bed on the upper floor.

Estrella said he contacted FBI agents several weeks ago after learning about the work done by the agency’s behavioral sciences unit.

“We’re hoping that it will help provide the break we’re looking for,” he said.

The unit includes FBI agents who are trained as psychologists, criminalists and behavioral scientists. The experts analyze violent crimes, looking for similarities with other unsolved crimes in the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, a nationwide database that may contain anywhere from 35 to 150 unsolved homicides at one time.

If there is enough information in a case, or if similarities are found between cases, the experts then try to draw profiles of the most likely suspects. Those profiles include everything from hair color to likely occupations and behavioral patterns, said Supervisory Special Agent Les Davis, a spokesman at the FBI’s training academy.

Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” killer, were both identified after being profiled by the Behavioral Science Investigative Services Unit, he said.

The unit boasts an 80% success rate in helping local authorities identify an actual suspect based on their profiles, Davis said. Agencies typically turn to the unit when they have exhausted all other avenues, he said.

In trying to determine whether several homicides were committed by the same person, the FBI’s experts look for what they call a signature.

“A person might take an article of clothing, do something particular to a crime scene, or they might do something to a body over and over again,” Davis said.

Requests for the unit’s services flood in from local and state law enforcement agencies daily, he said. Most requests come from larger departments, simply because they have bigger caseloads.

“They utilize this service when they have exhausted their investigative efforts or when they have suspicion that it could possibly be linked to other crimes which they know have occurred,” he said.