Police in Rogers Case Converge on Kentucky : Crime: Authorities from six states, including LAPD officials, discuss scenarios for prosecution of the accused murderer.

Police officers from across the country gathered in Kentucky on Wednesday, jockeying for a chance to prosecute Glen Rogers, suspected in the slayings of women he romanced in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Van Nuys.

Authorities from six states compared notes Wednesday about Rogers, 33, who is suspected of strangling or stabbing at least four women in the past two months. He also is a suspect in other slayings, including one in Kentucky.

Rogers was arrested Monday after a chase by highway patrol troopers in rural eastern Kentucky, where he had relatives.

The investigators from Florida, Louisiana, California, Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio met for about five hours at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.

“My goal is to sit down and see if there’s any common link we don’t know about,” said Detective Chuck Lee of Jackson, Miss. “Maybe by all the agencies being here, maybe there is a common link we haven’t discovered yet.

“I would love to have Glen Rogers first, but if another agency gets him first, we’ll wait our turn.”

“I think there was an obligation of all jurisdictions to coordinate and see what we have,” said Mike Coblentz, an investigator with the Los Angeles Police Department.

The detectives declined to reveal details of their conversations.

“The most important thing is getting the cooperation of everybody involved to determine who has the strongest case so we can get the strongest conviction on him,” said Detective Julie Massucci of the Tampa Police Department in Florida.

Several jurisdictions have good cases against Rogers, but “we didn’t judge who had best or worst case,” said Skip Benton of the Kentucky State Police.

Madison County Commonwealth’s attorney Tom Smith said a decision on whether to pursue the Kentucky charges against Rogers will be made by Monday. Rogers was charged with two counts of wanton endangerment and receiving stolen property after leading authorities on a 15-mile chase before his capture. The charges could be dropped to speed up Rogers’ extradition to a state where he faces a more serious charge, Smith said.

Smith added that a decision would be made in about 60 days on where to extradite Rogers first. The final decision rests with the Kentucky governor’s office, Smith said.

A judge on Tuesday set preliminary and extradition hearings for Nov. 21.

Rogers’ first alleged victim was Sandra Gallagher, a 33-year-old Santa Monica mother of three he met in a Van Nuys bar. Los Angeles police say that early on Sept. 29, Gallagher gave Rogers a ride to his nearby apartment building, where he strangled her and set her body afire.

Kentucky authorities want to talk to Rogers about the death of a 73-year-old Ohio man, Mark Peters, a former roommate whose decomposed body was found last year in an abandoned cabin that Rogers’ family owns near Beattyville.

Peters’ son, Paul, told the Kentucky Post on Wednesday that he doubts Rogers will confess to his father’s slaying.

“He may not be convicted for this one, but he’ll go down for the rest of them. So I’m not that concerned about it,” Peters said.

Paul Peters, who lives in Corinth, said his dad disappeared in August, 1993, a month or two after the elder Peters took Rogers in as a favor to Rogers’ mother, a friend of his.

“Dad was trying to help him out and find him a job,” Paul Peters said. “He didn’t realize the guy was like that.”

Rogers never got a job, but he did help himself to Mark Peters’ beer and cigarettes, Paul Peters said. Peters said his father never said much about Rogers, but Peters believes his father had become fed up with his housemate and was about to say so shortly before he disappeared. Peters said his dad had called him.

“He told me he wanted me to come home for some reason or another. He wouldn’t tell me why. I never saw him again,” Peters said.

Mark Peters’ body was too decomposed for authorities to determine how he died. And Paul Peters doesn’t expect Rogers to provide any answers.

“He’ll never speak up,” he said.