Every day, we’re confronted with stories of violence and death. Some mornings, Polimom’s mind reels from the onslaught: drugs, gangs, and revenge, young people and old — entire pages devoted to the mindless madness all around us.
Some stories, though, are different:
Houston police said this afternoon they are looking into whether a serial killer is responsible for the deaths of six women and the sexual assaults of six others in north Houston this year.
“We clearly believe that these cases are related,” said Capt. Dale Brown of the Houston Police Department’s homicide division.
“We are very concerned about this series of deaths that have occurred, and we have assigned a lot of resources to this investigation,” added Police Chief Harold Hurtt.
The slayings occurred primarily in and around the Acres Homes area. Police said some of the victims had a history of being involved in prostitution.
Six in six months? Does that mean some lunatic is acting out his insanity once a month? Or is it more like three a month and then he skips a couple? Are there more victims still to be linked, or did this only start in 2006?
In addition to the slaying victims, at least six women have been sexually assaulted, and one was robbed by a man with a large knife, King said.
“There could be additional victims who have not come forward, who may have been sexually assaulted, threatened or robbed by a man bearing this likeness,” King said. She urged those women to come forward.
Is it a neighbor? Someone’s childhood friend? Does he live next door or down the street? Or does he come to this part of town just to fulfill his fantasies…
“It’s scary,” LaQuita Hudson said Thursday. “You can’t walk anywhere. You can’t catch the bus.”
With a killer on the loose, Hudson intends to remain behind locked doors with a hatchet always within easy reach. “I think he’s sick. He’s a maniac,” Hudson said of the killer. “He doesn’t care about anybody.”
Community activist Quanell X said he plans to blanket the area with fliers to spread the word about the suspect. “Somebody had to see something. The police department is not going to catch this killer without the help of the citizens and the community.”
There’s something particularly unnerving about the thought of a serial killer. The knowledge that someone is out there, deliberately targeting the unknowing and uninvolved.
What an insane world this is. The residents there must be terrified.
There may be more victims. It’s harder than we realize for police to draw the links between cases, and sometimes they just don’t – when I lived in DC, it took a bunch of Washington Post stories and public outcry for police to admit that the deaths of six women over the course of a year in the Petworth neighborhood were connected, and I’m not sure if they ever did catch the killer. Creepy stuff.
It’s a scary world out there, and it can be particularly scary for women. The first time I lived in Houston, Coral Eurgene Watts (I htink that was the name) was fixing to go on trial for a sexual assault when he decided to plead to the assault in return for a sort of amnesty from prosecution on some other things he wanted to get off his chest. Turns out he killed a few other women… 13, was it? in Texas and Michigan.
The scary thing is that these killers are often not ‘bad guys.’ They don’t scowl all day, scare people on the street, run around with guns in public, bark at passers-by. They are just regular people with regular jobs, families, normal lives and a rather scary ‘hobby.’
Who knows what evil lurks…