Rathbun Might Be a Serial Killer, Sheriff Says : Crime: Detectives fly to Ohio to see whether the photographer is connected to two slayings there. But authorities caution against jumping to conclusions.

Murder suspect Charles E. Rathbun was described by Sheriff Sherman Block for the first time Thursday as a “possible serial killer” as detectives broadened their investigation to examine the unsolved slayings or disappearances of young women in at least two other states.

Block’s comment came as two sheriff’s detectives flew to Ohio to investigate at least two unsolved homicides there and police in two Michigan cities said they also were looking at the 38-year-old free-lance photographer in connection with an unsolved homicide and the disappearance of a young woman in their jurisdictions.

Despite the suggestion that Rathbun could be linked to more crimes, investigators here and in other states made it clear that they have no concrete evidence linking the suspected killer of models Linda Sobek and Kimberly Pandelios to other slayings.

“To the best of my knowledge, these are the only two where we see definite links,” Sheriff’s Homicide Lt. Don Bear said Thursday.

Noting that even two murders would classify someone as a serial killer, Bear cautioned that the public should not jump to conclusions. “The problem is that [the phrase] ‘serial killer’ has such a dramatic impact on people that it may be somewhat misleading or sensationalistic,” Bear said.

“People may make more of it than the police would. That is why we should be cautious.”

Rathbun’s attorney, Mark J. Werksman, declined to comment Thursday on the latest developments surrounding his client. “The important thing is what’s charged and what becomes admissible as evidence,” Werksman said.

Rathbun remains in custody at the Men’s Central Jail on $1-million bail after being arraigned in the slaying of Sobek, a 27-year-old model and former Raiders cheerleader from Hermosa Beach. Her body was found a week ago in a shallow grave in Angeles National Forest. Rathbun has pleaded not guilty to that crime.

On Wednesday, authorities also named Rathbun a suspect in the unsolved 1992 slaying of Pandelios. The partial skeletal remains of the 20-year-old Northridge woman were found March 3, 1993, at a site in the forest about four miles from where Sobek’s body was recovered.

Block said Thursday that local investigators will examine two slayings in Ohio, where Rathbun was raised and his father still lives. One case Block mentioned was the March, 1994, murder of Ohio State University student Stephanie Hummer, slain the same weekend a bodybuilding and aerobics competition at the Greater Columbus Convention Center attracted photographers from around the nation. The other case was the murder of Stacy Fairchild, slain in nearby Fairfield County.

Despite the local interest in those cases, their links to Rathbun remained unclear.

Lt. Daniel Wood, homicide commander for the Columbus Police Department, reiterated Thursday that his investigators have found no reason to suspect Rathbun in the slaying of Hummer and do not consider him a possible suspect. The body of the 18-year-old, who died of a blow to the head, was found one day after she disappeared near campus en route to her dorm from a party.

“At this moment, there is nothing for me to believe that the gentleman in L.A. is connected in any way with the Hummer case,” Wood said.

Even so, two Los Angeles sheriff’s detectives flew to Columbus on Thursday to examine that homicide and others in Ohio, including the killing of Fairchild. Even if there is no link, Los Angeles authorities said, the trip will be helpful in learning more about the tall, blond photographer who grew up in Ohio.

“We are not going back to handle any other agency’s investigation. We are going to develop a profile of Mr. Rathbun and try to get some time sequences [for his visits],” Sheriff’s Deputy George Ducoulombier said. “He had family back there. He went to school there.”

The body of Fairchild, 17, was found floating face up in a tangle of branches in the icy Hocking River in Fairfield County on Feb. 5, 1989. She had disappeared after leaving work three days earlier.

Her burned-out car was found upstream from where the body was recovered.

She had a wound on the side of the head, authorities said, though they did not believe it was fatal. The cause of death was drowning.

In Michigan, where Rathbun lived for a short time in the mid-1980s, authorities in two cities were re-examining an unsolved homicide and the disappearance of a young woman for any possible connections to Rathbun. But in both cities, police refused to jump to any conclusions.

“It’s just a shot in the dark at this time because we’re at a dead end,” Lansing police spokesman Loren Glasscock said.

Nevertheless, Glasscock said police in Michigan’s capital--where Rathbun has friends in an area trailer park--were looking at the photographer in connection with the 1993 disappearance of Rose Marie Larner, a would-be model who vanished one night after a trip to a market.

Glasscock said Larner was a self-confessed “phoneaholic” who made as many as 200 calls a week. Police became suspicious when the calls stopped.

And in Romulus, on the outskirts of Detroit, detectives were awaiting a sample of Rathbun’s blood in an attempt to clear him of involvement in the 1990 killing of a Northwest Airlines flight attendant, Police Chief Daryl Poe said. Poe said they also were trying to rule out accused cross-country killer Glen Rogers in the death of Nancy Jean Ludwig, 41, who had been sexually assaulted.

It is not unusual, Los Angeles sheriff’s spokesman Brian Jones said, for other agencies to inquire about high-profile suspects--even if there is no clear evidence linking them to other crimes. “You get calls from other jurisdictions that just want to compare notes, if you will,” he said.

Since Sobek vanished Nov. 16, sheriff’s investigators said they have been deluged with calls from the public and other agencies examining similar disappearances. And the volume of those calls alone, authorities said, forced the Sheriff’s Department to assemble a 20-detective task force.

“We have had over 400 calls, and in any case when you have that volume of interest or potential leads you have to take a look at those as soon as possible,” Bear said. “And it doesn’t make sense to have two people working on it and have them take a year.”

During funeral visitation Thursday, family members and other mourners, including many who never met the model, sat silently in pews at a Long Beach mortuary in front of her oak casket, which was surrounded by towering flower bouquets. A row of black-and-white photographs of Sobek stood on an easel off to one side.

With his hands clasped in prayer, the model’s father, Robert Sobek, knelt in front of the coffin for a short while in midafternoon, shortly before his wife, Elaine Sobek, entered the chapel to pay her respects.

Soft synthesizer music was piped into the chapel, where about 200 mourners appeared throughout the afternoon to bid farewell to the former cheerleader, according to Martin Luyben, whose father owns Luyben Family Mortuary.

As Linda Sobek’s family prepared to bury her today, a conflicting portrait of her accused killer continued to emerge.

Several neighbors described Rathbun as a private man. One, Fred Wejbe, said Rathbun came and went “like a ghost” from the three-bedroom Hollywood house he shared with a roommate.

Jim Haefner, a Troy, Mich., automobile advertising photographer, hired Rathbun in June, 1985, as an assistant, and remembered him as a “smart guy” with a “good sense of humor,” but also a noticeable temper.

“If something frustrated him, he might pick [a piece of studio equipment] up and throw it across the studio,” Haefner said. “He would, from time to time, fly off. He was a little odd.”

Like several of Rathbun’s Hollywood neighbors, Haefner said Rathbun never had a girlfriend, and “didn’t have very great relationships with women.”

“There was just something a little bit different about him,” Haefner added. “It was just an anger that would come out from time to time. I don’t know what was bothering him.”

Bill Flanagan, who lives next door and said he talked regularly with Rathbun, described him as “the nicest fellow,” a handyman who built tables and shelves and fixed his own cars.

On Nov. 20, several days after Sobek disappeared and two days before Rathbun was arrested, Flanagan said he was struck by the length of time Rathbun spent cleaning his Toyota sport utility vehicle in the front yard.

“Boy, he cleaned that thing completely,” Flanagan said, spending several hours. “He cleaned that thoroughly, inside and out.”

Times staff writers Paul Dean, Jeff Leeds and Robert Lopez and correspondent Greg Sowinski contributed to this story.