It sounds like something from a Law and Order episode. As you gather the facts and hear about the evidence you expect to hear the familiar sounds of the opening sequence of the popular television series. Multiple bodies, a suspect, a search warrant executed, and a possible arrest. It is the stuff a good story on the long running television series, or one of a hundred other cop procedural episodes, are composed of for maximum entertainment. Unfortunately, this is not fiction. It is not the product of a writer’s imagination. In what has become all too frequent in the news in recent years, reality is more devastating and tragic than any fictional depiction in the movies or on television.
Over the past few days, the local police in Indiana have discovered the bodies of seven dead women. It began with the discovery of a single woman found in a motel in Hammond, Indiana. After taking a 43 year old man from Gary Indiana into custody, the police located three more women’s bodies, and the next day located three more women. There has been no official confirmation or arrests for the killings of the seven women, but local media has speculated on the possibility of a serial killer operating in Indiana.
On Friday evening, Hammond Police were called to a Motel 6 off of Interstate 80, where they located a 19 year old women. They were called because she was unresponsive and thought to be dead. Police arrived on the scene and confirmed the women had been strangled. Working on evidence and theories, Detectives followed leads which pointed them to Gary, Indiana where they executed search warrants on a house and car leading to taking an individual into custody. According to the police, the searches were not conducted on the suspect’s property but at a nearby location in Gary. Based on the evidence and the facts, the police thought they were investigating a single homicide. However, they were mistaken.
After being taken into custody on Saturday, the suspect made a confession to the detectives, and directed them to locations where the bodies of three females were found who may have been the victims of homicide. The bodies were located in three abandoned homes in Gary. The next day, Sunday, the police found three more female bodies of potential homicide victims. According to a neighbor in a home near the location of where one of the bodies was found, the homicides must have happened recently. The witness told news outlets that public utility companies, including the water company, had been at the abandoned homes to turn of the power, gas, and water, and no one was living at the locations anymore.
Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson was hesitant in comments made to a news organization to call this person a serial killer. The Mayor revealed the police had evidence that the man was in Texas, but wanted to allow the detectives time to complete their investigation before making any conclusions. There have been reports that the man in custody is a convicted sex offender from Austin, Texas. Based on the collected evidence, several police departments are currently investigating the crimes, and more could become involved. The Mayor says the investigation could expand into at least one other state, and depending on the information gathered, expand in scope beyond the perimeters of Indiana.
As of early Monday morning, none of the seven bodies found have been identified. The police continue to investigate the possibility of locating more victims beyond those found at the Motel 6 and the six undisclosed locations believed to be abandoned homes. In a statement, the police department acknowledged a man is in custody and is a suspect in the killing of one of the females. However, no explanation was given as to why the man has not be connected to the other bodies located, especially since it has been alleged he confessed to those murders. It is possible the man confessed to knowing the locations of the bodies but has failed to implicate himself in the murders of these women. The man in custody is cooperating so far with the investigation, but the extent of the cooperation is unknown.
The tag line for the Law and Order series was “ripped from the headlines.” In this sad case, fiction and reality become blurred, and tragedy is real, making the headlines a little less entertaining.
