IL IL - 75 Women in Chicago Strangled / Who is the Chicago Strangler, Serial Killer?

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Unfortunately that just makes me think cop. Easy to move about in that area, easy to acquire the attention of victims, time available in job to plan and scope out where/when/how details. Just like a Golden State Killer all over again. Even the choice of weapon is indicative of someone who wants to limit exposure to evidence.
And complete trust. MOO
 
In Chicago people drive a lot, there's a lot of alleys and hideaways in the city. Even though public transportation is big here, as a killer you do a lot better with a car you can trap a victim in. Something about the patterns visible in the strangulations make me wonder if this is someone who does building management, works for a while in one area and then moves on to a new neighborhood.. Building managers pick up rent checks , visit the buildings and make sure they are not in violation or damaged etc. Sometimes they get to live in an apartment on the premises..


just ruminating as a life long resident.

mOO
 
just trying to think of jobs that would put you in one area for a period of years and then move you to a new area. Police work can also put you in different areas, getting assigned to a Northside detail , Albany Park ( is the northwest side but in the area these murders occurred is really near-northside and part of a small area around California Avenue and Indian Boundary park.) There are never more than 7 details on duty for the rather huge swath that makes up this area along the Chicago River. Also there is little in the way of close by public transportation.

but this would be some one at the end of a cop's career if we were to look at the dates going so far back. definitely can be more than one killer, and maybe these type of killers do tend to kill a few women in a span of time, returning to somewhere close by to kill again. Maybe a killer who does not drive a car but just kills near where he lives and moves on, maybe someone who lives on the streets or is in and out of prison, and has lived in different neighborhoods ..There are people that live a street life here and live from one temporary situation to another. They spend time on the streets and look for easy marks.

there are so many creeps out there. mOO
 
In Chicago people drive a lot, there's a lot of alleys and hideaways in the city. Even though public transportation is big here, as a killer you do a lot better with a car you can trap a victim in. Something about the patterns visible in the strangulations make me wonder if this is someone who does building management, works for a while in one area and then moves on to a new neighborhood.. Building managers pick up rent checks , visit the buildings and make sure they are not in violation or damaged etc. Sometimes they get to live in an apartment on the premises..


just ruminating as a life long resident.

mOO

I have to agree about the car and the idea that this is a rather mobile person. The area of coverage is so wide that they seem comfortable with multiple different neighborhoods, so that doesn't strike me as someone who is local to a specific neighborhood, but is familiar enough with many. By that measure I'd wonder about cable repair and installation, police, city workers of some kind, etc. Someone who would have reason to be in those areas frequently enough to know they can use an abandoned building like they have in a few cases.
 
yeah they definitely know what's available when it comes to an abandoned building..even just driving you might not know these spots or which ones you can get into and which ones not. could be the victim uses the building to bring tricks. Could be the guy works the area disabling gas lines, water, turning off electricity, managing properties making sure buildings are secured from vandals...one could imagine someone having keys, knowledge or has surveilled the area and knows good places to park and kill , or drag his victim.

a car is best..it insures a quick get away and will muffle sound. Most people won't approach a car no matter what they think is going on.

you have to know how to pick up a street girl too, in Chicago a prostitute is not going to just go with you into an abandoned building unless this is a crack situation. then all deals are off

mOO
 
yeah they definitely know what's available when it comes to an abandoned building..even just driving you might not know these spots or which ones you can get into and which ones not. could be the victim uses the building to bring tricks. Could be the guy works the area disabling gas lines, water, turning off electricity, managing properties making sure buildings are secured from vandals...one could imagine someone having keys, knowledge or has surveilled the area and knows good places to park and kill , or drag his victim.

a car is best..it insures a quick get away and will muffle sound. Most people won't approach a car no matter what they think is going on.

you have to know how to pick up a street girl too, in Chicago a prostitute is not going to just go with you into an abandoned building unless this is a crack situation. then all deals are off

mOO

That's been a struggle of mine with this situation. I wonder if this person is targeting women with the promise of drugs? Like you said, I'm not convinced these women are going into parked cars or abandoned buildings thinking it's a job. But they might go down an alley in private if they think it's a quick drug deal. And then it's not.

Someone suggested cops are trusted. But not in those neighborhoods. Especially if they're White. Given the racial makeup, it's likely a Black male since killers tend to only target their own skin color. If a Black male has a car and offers drugs to women on the street who agree to go with this person, there's likely more trust in that transient relationship than any exchange with a cop ever in Chicago. But that's a problem because this person is using their trust against them, and the cops are the ones who need to solve this.

CPD is full of deadbeats. Friend of a friend joined the force and left after a year because he wasn't sure which was scarier, his colleagues or doing rounds on the South Side. All CPD officers really want is to get assigned to sporting even duty. They just need to stand around. It's their favorite. (Terrible generalization, I'm sure there are good police officers in Chicago, but good lord the stories I heard about standard street cops...)
 
unfortunately it's true and I have stories. but there seems to be a new breed of corrupt cop here..something beyond the usual graft, shakedown and payoff cop. but thats another movie.

a few ways to meet a street girl/drug girl/prostitute in chicago

Out on the corner in the city
Cops keep a watch on corner girls and tend to bust up hot spots. But there still are areas in Chicago where you can find street walkers. usually they prefer a John in a car and have places they recommend for parking .

Bars/taverns
There are a lot of bars in Chicago, Lots of Dive Bars... in the worst of them you can find vulnerable women who will go just about anywhere and do anything for the promise of drugs and money for drugs or booze.

Parks
There are many homeless in Chicago's parks , some of the parks are places to find drugs and sex.

Underground

Chicago has an underground. find the underground, find the pimps. Old school cab drivers
know the ropes.

mOO
 
Hello,

The names of these women and locations found can be found here at a link I had previously posted from the Murder Accountability Project. Tableau Public

I can play with the data and provide some key findings. So far from last year I’m seeing:

2018 - 4 deaths.

Valerie Marie Jackson, Black female, age 49, found strangled in a yard on 3/17/2018.

Lora Harwin Darbin, White female, age 44, found strangled in the grassy lot of an abandoned resident on 5/25/2018.

Nicole Lynell Ride, White female, age 47, strangled, found in an abandoned building on 6/12/2018.

Reo Renee Holyfield, Black female, age 34, manner of death uncertain - strangulation can be possible, found in a garbage can in an alley, on 9/10/2018.

One in March. One in May. One in June. One in September.


The women span races in 2018, black and white. They are all over 30. The oldest death from 2018 is is 49 year old woman. All surely strangled. All found in abandoned areas or a garbage can.

I’ll be looking through the other year’s data as well, as well as to see if anything has occurred suspiciously this year.




Tableau Public
Any way to constrain the data by MO? For instance, those victims found in garbage cans?

EDIT: never mind
 
Last edited:
May be nothing, but the murders where the victims were found in garbage cans occurred

9/10/2018 Monday

11/13/2007 Tuesday

11/14/2007 Wednesday

7/15/2004 Thursday

7/14/2006 Friday

8/16/2003 Saturday


The outlier is 3/3/2017 Friday
 
May be nothing, but the murders where the victims were found in garbage cans occurred

9/10/2018 Monday

11/13/2007 Tuesday

11/14/2007 Wednesday

7/15/2004 Thursday

7/14/2006 Friday

8/16/2003 Saturday


The outlier is 3/3/2017 Friday

Were these all burning garbage cans or just garbage cans, no fire specified? I always thought it suspect that there was a string of burning bodies and then there were bodies left in unattended buildings. That, to me, said two different people. Burning bodies seemed like an attempt to remove evidence, unlike just leaving them somewhere. Or, it's someone very aware of how to change a pattern on purpose.
 
I think solving crimes like this in a big city is so hard. so many different kinds of people, sub sets and possibilities, so many different communities to hide in.

which subset of women is most at risk?
which communities?
what is the catalyst?
do the women have a common denominator?
is it drugs?
is it prostitution?
is it clubbing?
were they just taking out the garbage ?

the suspect.

is he mobile?
are there suspects?
is there a profile?
is there any rumor or speculation ?
is there dna?
are there matching signatures with the fires or strangulations?
has he communicated with the police?

feel free to add on mOO
 
I like to list thing's too..maybe you can just say most victims were in a high risk category. But even that does not give a 100 percent surety of how the victim arrived at the actual murder. I mean it's likely a prostitute is chosen because many can end up as Jane Does, they go unreported etc. Likely they have criminal records and in many cases no one comes forward because they can't afford to bury the victim. Some leave children behind, elderly parents...it's so sad.

with drug addicts, well they go missing all the time.

some of the victims don't fit the high risk victim category... this is where I feel we have a more picky killer among us here. This one is out hunting women alone. He's a different killer...this one with the dumpster fires, he is one. I think he grabs women off the street or
maybe even watches them for awhile to make sure there are no men and gets them out in the
alley somewhere while they are taking garbage out etc..or maybe a parking lot.

I think there are several killers here, historically there have always been these killers operating here. 2 or 3 , some are never caught obviously. You can disappear easily here.
It's not like the old days where cops knew their neighborhoods and the people in them.

the thing is , there are enough strangulation murders in Chicago to go around and that's no joke. mOO
 
I like to list thing's too..maybe you can just say most victims were in a high risk category. But even that does not give a 100 percent surety of how the victim arrived at the actual murder. I mean it's likely a prostitute is chosen because many can end up as Jane Does, they go unreported etc. Likely they have criminal records and in many cases no one comes forward because they can't afford to bury the victim. Some leave children behind, elderly parents...it's so sad.

with drug addicts, well they go missing all the time.

some of the victims don't fit the high risk victim category... this is where I feel we have a more picky killer among us here. This one is out hunting women alone. He's a different killer...this one with the dumpster fires, he is one. I think he grabs women off the street or
maybe even watches them for awhile to make sure there are no men and gets them out in the
alley somewhere while they are taking garbage out etc..or maybe a parking lot.

I think there are several killers here, historically there have always been these killers operating here. 2 or 3 , some are never caught obviously. You can disappear easily here.
It's not like the old days where cops knew their neighborhoods and the people in them.

the thing is , there are enough strangulation murders in Chicago to go around and that's no joke. mOO

This is definitely indicated by the summer 2009 homicide of an older woman in Hyde Park (down the street from Obama's house in very student-centric area). She was strangled in her home. Unsolved. Not far from where other victims are in South Shore/Woodlawn/Back of the Yards, etc.
 
I would look at a connection to areas where crack is sold. A lot of homeless men ride the train all day. There's a chance the killer is homeless.
 
New to the forum. Issue was brought up by a patient of mine. I live in the city of Chicago and serve on the south side.

sounds likely to be more than 1 person responsible, not just 1 perpetrator. But Certainly not 51 different perpetrators.

my patient brought up a good point that many of these victims could be human trafficked as it is at large in Chicago and despite popular belief, not always children/teenagers but adults as well.

Darren Deon Van from Gary, Indiana area (very close proximity to Chicago) who was arrested in 10/2014 for similar MO could be accountable for some of these prior to 2009?

It is hard to make sense of the meaningfulness of the 21 DNA samples that do not match each other. I guess I would not rely heavily on the collection thoroughness given these are Chicago’s invisible persons and crime rate is high w/ limited staffing/resources.

Finally, it’s hard to find any background on any of these women. Especially in the early 2000s. Anyone have any information they can share?
 
New to the forum. Issue was brought up by a patient of mine. I live in the city of Chicago and serve on the south side.

sounds likely to be more than 1 person responsible, not just 1 perpetrator. But Certainly not 51 different perpetrators.

my patient brought up a good point that many of these victims could be human trafficked as it is at large in Chicago and despite popular belief, not always children/teenagers but adults as well.

Darren Deon Van from Gary, Indiana area (very close proximity to Chicago) who was arrested in 10/2014 for similar MO could be accountable for some of these prior to 2009?

It is hard to make sense of the meaningfulness of the 21 DNA samples that do not match each other. I guess I would not rely heavily on the collection thoroughness given these are Chicago’s invisible persons and crime rate is high w/ limited staffing/resources.

Finally, it’s hard to find any background on any of these women. Especially in the early 2000s. Anyone have any information they can share?

Welcome with your first post.:):):)
Hoping to hear more from you.
Hope with later testing, more info will surface, linking cases, with theories to examine.
 

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