Serial Killer Confesses in 7 Murders

21 Oct, 2014

Investigators in two states were reviewing unsolved murders and missing person reports after the arrest of an Indiana man who confessed to strangling one woman, told police where to find six more bodies and hinted at a serial killing spree over two decades.

But determining whether others have fallen prey to Darren Vann, 43, a former Marine convicted of sexual assault in Texas in 2009, could take years, a former high-ranking agent at the FBI’s Chicago office said. That some of his alleged victims may have been prostitutes or had fallen through society’s cracks could also complicate the investigation.

“It does make it difficult. It indicates he preyed on individuals that might be less likely to be reported missing,” said Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.

Vann was charged Monday in the strangulation death of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy, whose body was found Friday in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond, 20 miles southeast of Chicago. He also was charged with murder in commission of a robbery and robbery causing great bodily injury. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Wednesday.

A probable cause affidavit said police identified Vann from surveillance video outside the motel.

Hammond Police Chief John Doughty said Vann confessed to Hardy’s slaying and directed police to six bodies in abandoned homes in nearby Gary. Charges in those cases are expected this week.

Police in Gary and Austin, Texas, said they are reviewing missing person reports and unsolved cases to determine whether any might be connected to Vann after he indicated during interviews that he had killed before.

Police took Vann into custody Saturday afternoon, and during interviews the suspect confessed to Hardy’s killing, told investigators where the Gary bodies could be found and hinted at other victims since the 1990s.

The body of one victim, 35-year-old Anith Jones of Merrillville, Indiana, was found Saturday night in an abandoned home. She had been missing since Oct. 8.

Five more bodies were found Sunday in other homes. Doughty identified two of the women as Gary residents Teaira Batey, 28, and Christine Williams, 36. Autopsies are scheduled to be completed Tuesday on three of the women who have not yet been identified, the Lake County coroner’s office said.

Austin police on Monday said they would review potential related cases based on information provided by Indiana police.

Vann is registered as a sex offender in Texas, where the Department of Public Safety listed his risk of attacking someone again as “low.”

Court records in Travis County, Texas, show Vann served a five-year prison sentence, with credit for the 15 months he was in jail awaiting trial, after pleading guilty in 2009 to sexually assaulting a woman at an Austin apartment two years earlier.

The woman told police that she went to Vann’s apartment, where he asked if she was a police officer. After she told him no, he knocked her down, strangled her, hit her several times in the face and told her he could kill her. He then raped her.

Vann allowed the woman to leave and she called police the next day.

AP

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