GUILTY PA - Deanna Null, 36, found dismembered, Monroe County, 18 Jan 2008

[OkieGranny]

http://wnep.com/2014/11/14/hicks-found-guilty-in-gruesome-murder-trial/

A jury found Charles Hicks guilty on all counts in the murder and dismemberment of a woman in the Poconos...

Hicks faces possible life in prison or the death penalty. The penalty phase begins Monday.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/2014/11/19/man-to-be-executed-for-dismembering-homeless-woman

A jury on Tuesday sentenced a Pennsylvania man to death for the first-degree murder of a homeless woman whose body parts were found stuffed in garbage bags strewn along two highways.

The convicted murderer, Charles Hicks, 40, showed no emotion as the decision was read out in the Monroe County courtroom. A jury reached the sentence after deliberating six-and-a-half hours.

 

[OkieGranny]

Is Hicks a serial killer?

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Fo...for-Killing-Pennsylvania-Woman-283169291.html

A Fort Worth man sentenced to death for dismembering a woman in Pennsylvania claims he did the same thing to at least five women in Texas, authorities said...

"As I understand it, yesterday he made certain admissions that he killed some women down there," Pennsylvania Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso said. "And that's going to also be investigated and may result in charges."

Hicks, originally from Fort Worth, lived in Burleson for several years. Burleson Police Department spokesman Jae Berg said department officials first heard about Hicks' connection to Burleson on NBC 5 Wednesday morning.

 

[PricklyPear]

Sure sounds like LE in Pennsylvania and Texas think he is, and tried to cut a deal to get information about suspected victims:

Pennsylvania State Police say they have been working with Texas Rangers since 2008. They say that's when Charles Hicks moved from the Lone Star State to Coolbaugh Township in Monroe County.

They say he was here less than a month before he killed Null. And form the start, authorities suspected it was not his first murder.

"I don't think you just start at this level. What he did to Deanna Null I think was indicative of someone who has done similar things in the past," Mancuso said.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/11/poconos_killer_charles_hicks_g.html

I think he probably is a serial killer. There's a chance he lied to try and get out of the death penalty, but the article says police thought from the beginning it wasn't his first murder. From everything I've heard and read, police don't like to believe they're dealing with a serial killer until it becomes impossible to ignore. When they think that right off the bat, there's probably a good reason. Besides, I can't see the Texas Rangers traveling up to Pennsylvania without something more solid than a gut feeling, especially when they have plenty of cases to deal with in Texas. They had to have had good reason to believe this guy was behind some of their unsolved cases to travel back and forth and to communicate with PA for six years on this case.

EDIT: Looking at unsolved cases at Texas Rangers' site, there are a lot of women victims where the cause of death is blunt force trauma and airway obstruction. I would guess they are trying to figure out if he's connected to those cases. Found a few in B and several in Lubbock County in C, including two linked cases. The ones in C seem pretty far from Tarrant County if that's where they are focusing, though. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/TexasRangers/UnsolvedHomicides/RegionMap.aspx

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/tex...an-claims-to-have-killed-in-Texas-5906831.php

Hicks lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area prior to moving to Pennsylvania in late 2007 for a job with a defense contractor, according to Wendy Serfass, a detective with the Monroe County, Pennsylvania, district attorney's office. Texas Rangers have known since at least 2009 about Hicks' claims to have killed in Texas, she said. Hicks declined to speak with investigators until Monday, when prosecutors offered to remove the death penalty as a punishment if he provided information about crimes in Texas, but the information wasn't satisfactory to investigators, Serfass said.

She declined to say how many killings Hicks claimed to have committed, but she said investigators are reviewing multiple unsolved homicides in North Texas.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationwor...r-dismemberment-case-0106-20150106-story.html

Charles Ray Hicks Jr. has officially joined 186 other prisoners on Pennsylvania's death row.

Monroe County President Judge Margherita Patti Worthington on Tuesday sentenced Hicks to death for the 2008 murder and dismemberment of Deanna Null, formally imposing the punishment handed down by a jury seven weeks ago.