Police Seek Further Links in 5 Slayings in San Gabriel Valley : Crime: Officials give few details in women’s deaths, but say all the cases may be connected. The bodies were found in the last two months.

When the bodies of four women were found in the East San Gabriel Valley and nearby Chino last fall, authorities said the killings did not appear to be linked.

The victims were all black and in their 30s, they had been strangled and their bodies had been thrown in business parks or by roadsides. But investigators said the similarities were happenstance and not the work of a serial killer.

They said that the bodies of eight slain women had been found dumped in Los Angeles in November alone. The San Gabriel Valley murders were just part of an abnormally high monthly tally of dumped bodies, officials reasoned.

But after the body of a fifth woman was found in the San Gabriel Valley on Dec. 30, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Pomona Police Department this week said three of the deaths are considered linked. And, investigators said, they are looking into the possibility that the deaths of the two other victims also may be connected.

“We had been trying to confirm information all along, but it wasn’t until Wednesday that we met (with sheriff’s detectives) and established a definite link,” said Pomona Police Lt. Leon Sakamoto.

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Still, investigators, who have been closed-mouthed about the deaths, refused to divulge evidence linking the victims and were reluctant to label the homicides the work of a serial killer.

Family members of the victims said investigators have not kept them informed about the investigation.

“I don’t want clues, I don’t want the bloody details,” said Rea Sayers of Omaha, mother of the most recent victim, Cheryl Sayers. She said sheriff’s and Pomona authorities did not even telephone her with the news that her daughter had been killed.

The death of Sayers, 36, whose body was found in Ganesha Park in Pomona at 6 a.m. Dec. 30, is linked to those of Helen Hill, 36, of Covina, and Donna Goldsmith, 35, of Montclair, according to authorities.

Hill was found at 10 a.m. Nov. 14 in the parking lot of a business park in City of Industry. Goldsmith’s body was found at 5:15 a.m. Nov. 17, next to a trash bin in a Pomona business park.

All three women were prostitutes, police said. None owned cars.

All three also had similar histories. They dropped out of school at early ages, became unmarried mothers and had spotty work backgrounds and minor criminal records, according to family members and court records.

Hill and Goldsmith were close friends, family members said. In the days before her death, Goldsmith lived in a succession of motels and rented rooms. Hill had planned to help Goldsmith by letting her move in with her, said Goldsmith’s daughter, Toni, 18.

But Hill was killed Nov. 14 after a night of partying at the Elks Lodge in Pomona, said her sister, Alice Hill. Helen Hill was picked up outside the lodge by two men driving a yellow Oldsmobile. She told her male companion she would be right back but she never returned, Alice Hill said.

Goldsmith was killed three days later after she paid an evening visit to her daughter’s house in Pomona.

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Sayers, who had a record of arrests for prostitution in Omaha, had come to California to get her life together, said Rea Sayers. She was staying with a relative in Ontario, but Sayers said she has received no information on how her daughter ended up dead in a Pomona park.

Pomona police and sheriff’s detectives would not comment on the relationship among the victims. But one law enforcement source said that it is not unusual for prostitutes to know each other, even within the large geographical area encompassed by Los Angeles County. And the three linked victims all lived in the Pomona area, authorities said.

“They have a circuit they work. They have no cars. They do cross paths, either in the street or in jail,” said the investigator.

The other two cases being investigated for possible links are those of Betty Harris, 37, of Pomona, found dead Nov. 1 in a business park in Diamond Bar, and Roxanne Bates, 31, of Pomona, found Nov. 5 on a rural road in Chino.

Bates and Harris had similar lifestyles and minor criminal histories. Harris’ family said they doubted that she was a prostitute, but Bates was convicted four times of prostitution in Los Angeles County in 1991 and 1993.

Alice Hill said her sister, Helen, may have known both women.

“My sister knew a whole lot of people,” Hill said. “I’m almost sure she knew . . . Roxanne and Betty.”