Ex-Valley Man Tied to 4th Death Since Sept. 29 : Crime: Authorities suspect Glen Rogers in the killing of a young woman in suburb of Shreveport, La.

The discovery Thursday was grisly enough, even before the police of Bossier City, La., connected it to anything else: a naked woman stabbed to death in the bedroom of her apartment above a Mormon church in the Shreveport suburb.

But it was the registration of the pickup truck police found outside that sent a wave of fear and revulsion throughout the deep South.

The truck belonged to Glen Rogers, the charming, blond construction worker who police said boarded a bus from Los Angeles on Sept. 30 after allegedly strangling a Santa Monica woman he met in a bar. He has since been linked to three chillingly similar slayings in Mississippi, Florida and now Louisiana, plus a fifth death in Ohio--and perhaps half a dozen more.

After piecing together the tortuous wanderings of the man they have dubbed “the cross-country killer,” police concluded that after leaving Los Angeles, Rogers traveled between the three states by bus and car, working his charm on three young women--all red-haired--and stabbing them to death over nine days.

Los Angeles police are seeking the alleged serial killer on suspicion of the Sept. 29 murder of Sandra Gallagher, 33, a Santa Monica mother of three who was strangled after offering Rogers a ride home from a Van Nuys bar.

Los Angeles Detective Stephen Fisk told reporters this week that Rogers had boasted to friends after killing Gallagher, “This is the eighth time,” which--if true--would bring his total to 11, with the three killings committed since then.

Rogers, 33, is also wanted for questioning in connection with the 1993 death of an elderly man in his hometown of Hamilton, Ohio. Police in Ontario, Calif., said Thursday they consider him a possible suspect in an unsolved 1994 murder that bore a resemblance to the three killings in the South.

The most recent victim, 37-year-old Andy Sutton, was found by her roommate Thursday morning, said Bossier City Police Officer William Grantham.

According to police reports, Rogers met Sutton in a bar shortly after leaving behind a victim in Jackson, Miss. Falling for his seductive personality, Sutton allowed Rogers to move in with her.

But before killing her, he rode a bus to Tampa, Fla., where he met a woman in a bar in nearby Gibsonton, killed her on Sunday and drove the dead Florida woman’s truck back to Bossier City, where he then killed Sutton, according to police in Florida and Mississippi.

Grantham said Rogers fled Louisiana after killing Sutton on Wednesday.

“You kind of feel helpless back here, hearing about all this,” said a shaken LAPD Detective Angel Lopez on Thursday afternoon on hearing of the two killings within three days of each other in the South.

Rogers, who had lived in Van Nuys off and on since the 1980s, allegedly began his killing spree when he strangled Gallagher and then set her body afire outside his apartment early Sept. 29.

Taking a Greyhound bus to Jackson, he soon met Linda Price at a county fair and moved in with her.

“He was the most gorgeous man,” said Price’s mother, Carolyn Wingate, who found her daughter’s naked body in a bathtub Nov. 3, four days after she was stabbed to death in the house Price shared with Rogers.

Authorities believe Rogers had already moved on to Bossier City.

He met Sutton at a bar called A Touch of Class, which Bossier Police Sgt. Glenn Sproles described as a bar “out on what we call The Strip.”

He moved in with Sutton, who drove him to the New Orleans bus depot for his trip to Florida. There he met 34-year-old Tina Marie Cribbs and killed her, Tampa police said.

A woman at the desk of the Tampa 8 Inn said Rogers arrived by cab late Saturday with no luggage, claiming to be a trucker. He left Monday morning in Cribbs’ Ford Festiva, said the woman, who would not give her name.

When police arrived at Sutton’s apartment, they found a Datsun pickup truck--which papers showed Rogers had bought last month in Jackson, Miss.--parked outside the building, Grantham said.

Police said they have learned that Sutton and Rogers had a disagreement the night she was killed, but that it did not seem to be a major fight.

As police officials swarmed the Port au Prince apartment building in Bossier City, where Sutton was slain in apartment No. 93, resident Becky Trimble said she was stunned.

Trimble, 50, said she often had brief conversations with Sutton’s unidentified roommate. She said the woman usually kept to herself.

The mounting number of killings attributed to Rogers has caused a stir in his hometown of Hamilton, Ohio.

“People are locking their doors and peeping out their windows,” said Dema Lunsford, a 56-year resident on Hunt Avenue, where she rents the house next door to Rogers’ mother, Edna.

Edna Rogers “called me about Glen and told me not to worry,” Lunsford said. “She said, ‘He’s my son--I can’t help what he’s doing.’

“Whoever’s after him, catch him soon,” Lunsford said in a worried tone.

Detective Dan Pratt of the Hamilton Police Department said he wants to question Rogers about the death of his former housemate, Mark Peters, 71. Rogers moved in with Peters in September, 1993, and a month later, both men disappeared. Peters’ body was found in an abandoned Kentucky house owned by the Rogers family in January, 1993.

Although a coroner’s investigation could not determine that the death was a homicide, police wanted to question Rogers, Pratt said, but he had already left for Los Angeles.

The blue-collar town about 25 miles north of Cincinnati was once a thriving industrial city with paper mills and other manufacturers but has since lost its industrial base leaving high unemployment and a bleak atmosphere where many seek solace in bars.

Rogers, his four brothers and one sister grew up in such a neighborhood. His mother, Edna, still lives in a run-down section of Hamilton, on the wrong side of the Great Miami River. His father, Claude, died several years ago, a neighbor said.

Edna Rogers declined to speak to a Times reporter Thursday.

Friends had divergent views of Rogers, who struck some as a sweetheart and others, such as his ex-wife, Deborah, as trouble.

She divorced him in 1983, alleging in court papers that he “has threatened to do her great bodily harm.”

“He was a wild person, fighting wild,” said Jimmy Brown, 29, a mechanic who sometimes ate lunch with Rogers.

Police records show a string of arrests dating back to 1986 on suspicion of public intoxication, forgery, petty theft, receipt of stolen property, trespassing and assault. Twice, Rogers took off with one of the cabs at Ohio Taxi, where he worked, to go drinking, but he returned them both times no worse for wear, co-workers said.

Dewey Morris, 35, formerly a mechanic with Ohio Taxi who would often go out drinking with Rogers, said Rogers hung around with prostitutes at the bars.

Morris said Rogers often tried to get the women jobs and, like other cabbies, gave them free rides when they needed them.

“He was the type of person who might try to con you or do something petty. That would be about his speed,” Morris said. “But I couldn’t see [murder].”

“We always expected a little excitement from Glen. But this is way beyond what we expected,” said Ohio Taxi owner Doug Courtney.

“He’d leave and go away to Alabama or California or wherever, then drop by here to say hi to his buddies,” Courtney said.

Taxi driver Mark Crouch, 59, who had Rogers over for lasagna with him and his family on occasion, said: “When he was here, you’d think he was the greatest guy--one of the best friends you had. Clean-cut, nicely dressed. He’d always volunteer to fetch meals for the guys when they were hungry. . . .”

Rogers left Ohio Taxi permanently after he came back from a hiatus and found out the firm had begun testing its employees for drugs and alcohol.

“We’re all sitting here holding our breath, hoping he doesn’t come back,” said Courtney.

In Van Nuys, Rogers built a reputation as a denizen of bars who was constantly trying to pick up women. LAPD Detective Mike Coblentz said that Rogers was often rejected by women.

Detectives say Rogers’ acquaintances said he was charming until he downed a few glasses of beer, when he would turn ugly. They also recounted that Rogers boasted that he was in the Mafia, and was dangerous to cross, LAPD Detective Stephen Fisk said, adding that police have no evidence that Rogers is linked to organized crime.

He would often enter McRed’s in Van Nuys dressed neatly, “cowboy style,” bartender Rein Kenner recalled--jeans, tucked-in collared shirt, matching belt and boots. She said he had tattoos on his fingers, which gave her pause when he tried to pick her up the night Gallagher was killed.

“There are a lot of lucky ladies in the San Fernando Valley” who resisted his advances, Coblentz said. “They don’t know how lucky they are.”

Times staff writers Henry Chu and Doug Smith contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Manhunt Moves South

Glen Rogers, 33, is being sought for a fifth killing, which occurred in Louisiana most likely on Wednesday night. Shown below is the chain of events that several police departments say took place after Rogers left Los Angeles.

Sept. 30: Rogers takes a Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to Jackson, Miss., hours after allegedly strangling Sandra Gallagher in Van Nuys.

First week of October: He meets Linda Price, 34, at a county fair and moves in with her days later.

Nov. 3: Police find Price’s body in her bathtub--stabbed to death. Meanwhile, Rogers meets Andy Sutton in a Bossier, La., bar. She drives him to a New Orleans bus station, where he leaves for Tampa, Fla.

Nov. 5: He meets Tina Marie Cribbs, 34, at a bar in Gibsonton, Fla. She returns to his motel room and is killed.

Nov. 7: Police find Cribbs’ body in the bathtub, apparently stabbed to death. Rogers returns to Bossier City in Cribbs’ white Ford Festiva.

Thursday: Police find 37-year-old Andy Sutton’s body in the bedroom the two shared. Police say she was stabbed to death.

Source: Staff reports