I hope they catch this guy soon... 2 Clues Add Up to Expensive Search for Louisiana Serial Killer By DAVID M. HALBFINGER BATON ROUGE, La., Jan. 1 — Fourteen months have gone by now since a serial killer began stalking women in the cities and suburbs along Interstate 10 from here to Lafayette. Four have turned up dead, at least three of them victims of sexual assault, their deaths linked days, weeks or months afterward by two threads of evidence. One is as solid as solid gets: the killer's DNA, recovered from all four crime scenes. The other is much less so: multiple witness reports, in the most recent two killings and a potential fifth case on Christmas Eve, of a suspicious man in a white pickup truck. But for all the thousands of tips that have been called into a hot line, the federal, state and local law investigators on the case are essentially looking for a needle in a haystack. To match the killer to his DNA, investigators must first find him. And no fewer than 27,000 white pickup trucks are registered to Louisiana drivers, the authorities say. All of this has not deterred investigators from plunging into the haystack. Based almost entirely on tips to the task force, the authorities have swabbed the mouths of 800 men to obtain DNA. Many of those 800 own or have access to such a pickup, investigators say. So far at least 600 samples have been tested, at $900 each, and none have matched the killer's DNA, said Cpl. Mary Ann Godowa of the Baton Rouge Police Department, the spokeswoman for the task force. The latest confirmed serial killing occurred on Nov. 21, and was publicly tied to the killer on Dec. 24. That night, Mari Ann Fowler, 65, was abducted from a strip mall parking lot across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge in what many investigators suspect was the killer's fifth attack, though no body has been found. Again, a white pickup was seen racing from the scene. Chief Deputy Mike Cazes, spokesman for the West Baton Rouge sheriff's office, said that more than 200 white pickups were pulled over on Christmas Eve and added that pickup drivers might have to endure such encounters with the police for some time to come. "You are subject to being stopped, especially if it is a Chevrolet," Chief Deputy Cazes said. The police say they are far from certain that the tips on pickup trucks will pan out, particularly since sightings of a white van during the multistate rash of sniper attacks last fall proved to be a costly red herring. In that case, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo have been charged in 13 deaths, including that of Hong Im Ballenger, 45, of Baton Rouge in September. The police checked the DNA of Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo in the Baton Rouge serial killings, too, but found no match. As aggressive, wide-ranging and costly as the investigation has grown, its progress has been visible to the public only intermittently. The first victim, Gina Wilson Green, 41, a nurse, was found strangled in her Baton Rouge apartment on Sept. 24, 2001. The next, Charlotte Murray Pace, 22, who had just received her business degree from Louisiana State University, was found stabbed to death in her new town house on May 31. The two women's deaths were first linked in July. In early July, Pamela Kinamore, 44, was abducted from her home in Denham Springs, just east of here, as she was getting into or out of the bathtub. Her body was found July 16, her throat cut, beneath an I-10 bridge in Iberville Parish, between here and Lafayette. A witness reported seeing a man in a white pickup exit the interstate there, a naked woman slumped in his passenger seat. Under hypnosis, the witness gave more details: it was a Chevy with a Louisiana plate. As Baton Rouge residents reacted in fear last summer, lining up at gun shops and pistol ranges and stocking up on pepper spray, the authorities released little new information. In September, an F.B.I. profile was released, along with the killer's shoe size — 10 or 11 — obtained from footprints of a Rawlings sneaker found at least at one crime scene. Only after the television program "America's Most Wanted" highlighted the case on Sept. 21 did the police reveal that Ms. Kinamore had left her keys in her back door and that investigators had obtained a partial fingerprint of the killer. Whenever investigators have shaken the tree for new leads, new information has emerged. In October, the Baton Rouge police revealed that a caller had given more details on the pickup truck, including a tailgate emblem shaped like a fish and a partial license plate number that included J, T, 3, 4 and 1. Neither the partial fingerprint nor the plate number have brought any solid leads. The trickle of new evidence did not spare Trineisha Dene Colomb, 23, a Lafayette resident and former Army soldier who was last heard from on Nov. 21. Later that day her Mazda MX-6 was spotted parked on a dead-end street in rural Grand Coteau, about 12 miles north of the city; her relatives said they believed she might have gone to visit her mother's grave nearby. Ms. Colomb's body was found 20 miles away on Nov. 24 by a rabbit hunter in a field in Scott, just west of Lafayette and a half-mile north of I-10. On Christmas Eve, the police announced that Ms. Colomb, who was beaten to death, was also a victim of Baton Rouge's serial killer. About 5:30 that afternoon, Ms. Fowler, the wife of a former Louisiana elections commissioner, was abducted from a Subway shop in Port Allen, just across the river from the capital. Her shoes, purse and keys were found next to her Mazda 626, its door ajar, her sandwich on the ground. As the New Year approached, the authorities made another flurry of announcements. On Monday, they released a new F.B.I. profile: the killer knew the crime scenes well; he took great risks to move Ms. Colomb from Grand Coteau to Scott; he was impulsive; and had made "mistakes which he cannot go back and fix." On Tuesday, the task force, now expanded to Lafayette, released a sketch of a man being sought for questioning in Ms. Colomb's death. The suspect was seen at midday on Nov. 21, near where her body was found, officials said. He was in a white 1990's pickup truck with chrome trim. He was said to have "an intense and intimidating stare." Corporal Godowa said the sketch produced another 100 tips on New Year's Eve alone and said the task force continued to make progress. "I think we are closer than we were four months ago," she said. "We have a lot of manpower, and now the Lafayette department in this. We have a lot more witnesses, and that expands the scope of the investigation." But from Baton Rouge to Lafayette, women who have gotten used to living with fear have also become used to hopeful assurances from the police, and long waits, and awful new crimes. On a quiet New Year's Day, within the secure brick walls of her apartment complex here, Ruby Dorroh, 27, relaxed today by reading a murder mystery, but laid the book aside to discuss the real mystery that has unfolded around her hometown for more than a year. She said she believed that officials were doing the best they could to catch the killer but questioned how good their best could be. She worried aloud that the police were relying on high-technology methods that could take far too long to bear fruit. "You can't help but think about it every single day, it's on the news and in the papers," said Ms. Dorroh, a Louisiana State University student who works at a flower shop. "I think they are relying more on science than good old-fashioned footwork because they think it can be trusted more. But I feel you can't do one without the other. You can't just pick up DNA off napkins in McDonald's and hope it is a match without somebody saying, `Yes, I saw that person.' You are just grasping at straws." The New York Times
