False Rumors of Serial Killer Sweep Watts

Along 113th Street in Watts, a knot of people gathered to talk in subdued tones about the latest victim.

They knew the 37-year-old woman, a Nickerson Gardens resident, only by her first name. And word on the street was that she had been killed the night before.

By their count, she was the fourth victim of a serial killer Watts residents have dubbed the “Strawberry Strangler.” He preys on prostitutes known as strawberries, women who exchange sex for crack cocaine, they said.

As the group called up their fondest memories of the Nickerson Gardens woman, they were joined by another woman who listened in horror. She was startled to learn that her friend had been strangled. The woman clutched her hands to her chest, her face contorted in agony. She was unable to utter a sound.

She “was such a nice person,” the woman said after regaining her composure. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Despite the rumors of her death, the woman they believed to be the fourth victim was still very much alive. She showed up at her sister’s house the next day, her neck unmarked by even a scratch.

Walk through Watts, from Nickerson Gardens to Jordan Downs, and residents will tell of two, three, four or more victims. All strangled, their bodies tossed in alleys or dumpsters.

The problem is that Los Angeles police detectives say the reports are all rumors. Investigators say three young women--only one a confirmed prostitute--have been killed in the last three weeks, and that the cases are unrelated.

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But the rumors have not stopped. The Nickerson Gardens woman’s rumored death is one of as many as nine that residents attribute to a serial killer.

“This is just a rumor that has gotten way out of control,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Julie Nelson said Friday. “There is not a serial killer going around and killing strawberries or prostitutes around Nickerson Gardens or anywhere in South Los Angeles. Look, it is simply not true. I received a call last night from the Housing Authority, asking me about the same thing. I told them exactly what I just said.”

The reports of the “Strawberry Strangler” came as a surprise to homicide detectives at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Century station, which patrols near Watts.

“It’s news to me,” said Lt. Dan Dietrich, who heads a squad of homicide detectives. After checking with several other investigators, he said: “We haven’t heard of anything like that.”

Coroner’s records of every murder victim in Los Angeles County since February showed two females who had been strangled in Watts.

It appears that the death of those two women, and a third at a motel on Figueroa Street, spawned the rumor of a serial killer.

On Feb. 17, Hazell Margaret Pickett, 28, was strangled. Her body was found the next day in a trash bin in the Nickerson Gardens housing project. Detectives said Friday that Pickett was not a prostitute and was killed outside Watts and dumped there.

Two days after Pickett’s death, Patricia Perry, 34, a known prostitute, was found strangled in an alley. Within days, Velliott Keys, 29, was found slain in a motel at 84th Street and Figueroa.

The rumor was on.

In Watts, on porches of small homes and in the parking lots of Nickerson Gardens, the rumors have generated disenchantment with the police. The common complaint is that police are not doing enough about the “Strawberry Strangler” because the victims have been found in Watts.

“If one woman was killed in Beverly Hills, it would be nationwide news,” said a woman who identified herself only as Loretta. “They’d make up one of them task forces real quick. What is this? The perfect crime? They got a serial killer here, and they ain’t even making a stink.”

A homicide detective, who asked not to be identified, said such statements are “ridiculous” because there is no serial killer to search for.

Still, the spreading rumor is breeding fear.

“I’m worried,” Lashandra Johnson said as she sat on her porch. “I don’t go out on the street like them. But I have some friends in the Nickersons, and ever since this ‘Strawberry Strangler,’ I don’t go over there. It’s scary.”

As the serial killer rumor sweeps through Watts, relatives of the slain women grapple with their pain.

“When I saw her, my heart jumped down to my feet,” said Perry’s sister Vivian Cockrell. “Her neck was all raw, and she looked like she was gritting her teeth real hard. I had them change her expression. If the police brought someone over to me and said, ‘This is the person who killed your sister,’ they might as well get a jail cell ready for me.”

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On Friday afternoon, Cockrell and a friend went door to door through the neighborhood, trying to solicit funds to pay for her sister’s funeral.

“Maybe there is a ‘Strawberry Strangler’ and maybe there isn’t,” Cockrell said. “I don’t know. I hope there isn’t. I hope other families don’t have to go through this. I don’t care if they call him the ‘Strawberry Strangler’ or anything. All I know is my sister is dead, and somebody killed her.”