The Hunt for a Serial Killer in Louisiana

This is a partial transcript from On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, August 1, 2002. Click here to order the entire transcript of the show.

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GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Tonight, the clock ticks for Louisiana cops on the hunt for a serial killer. DNA has linked the murders of three women, but police fear there could be more. Each victim was attacked in their home, all near Louisiana State University, with no sign of forced entry.

What's more frightening, cops are investigating a possible link between the murders and kidnapping and rape of a fourth woman. That attack happened just two days after the last victim was killed. Police released a sketch of the rapist who told the victim he was a police officer and used dashboard lights in his pick-up truck to pull her over. A pick-up truck was also seen in the area where the last victim's body was found.

Ken Pastorick from WBRZ-TV has the latest on the investigation from Baton Rouge.

KEN PASTORICK, WBRZ-TV: Greta, Colonel Mike Barnett with the East Baton Rouge sheriff's department says there are only three murders connected right now, but Barnett says there's a good possibility Baton Rouge's serial killer may have struck more than just three times.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COL. MIKE BARNETT, EBRP SHERIFF'S OFFICE: It just cannot reach a higher priority in our minds or the public's minds than we have here.

PASTORICK (voice-over): A high priority to solve the serial murders of these women: Gina Wilson Green, Charlotte Murray Pace and Pam Kinamore. Police say they were killed by the same man. And now the crimes that have gripped this city have captured the attention of police investigators outside Baton Rouge.

CHIEF PAT ENGLADE, BATON ROUGE POLICE: Obviously, it's gone out over the networks now, and there's people that are picking it up and contacting us.

PASTORICK: Detectives in Alexandria have called Baton Rouge to discuss an unsolved homicide there. St. Tammany (ph) Parish investigators are comparing notes about an unsolved rape in Slidell (ph), but that victim was not murdered. Authorities say they have even received several calls from police in cities across the South.

BARNETT: There are other cases, both here in Baton Rouge and outside of Baton Rouge, that could possibly be connected, but we cannot draw that conclusion without specific evidence.

PASTORICK: Investigators say locally operators, at the murder hotline have taken more than 900 tips on the 1996-1997 Chevrolet pick-up truck believed to have been used in the Kinamore murder.

BARNETT: In all probability, that is how this case is going to be solved, by the public seeing something and reporting it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PASTORICK: Remember, last night we told you the police and sheriff's departments were taking a lot of heat from the public and the local media for not releasing many details. Well, today law enforcement leaders and media representatives met, and authorities agreed to begin holding daily media briefings to update everyone on the status of the homicides.

Greta?

VAN SUSTEREN: Ken, stay with us for a second. We're also going to be joined now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by Melissa Moore, who's a crime reporter for the Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate.

Welcome, Melissa. And I'm curious about this rape case. Can you tell us the facts of the rape case that may be, but has not been determined at all to be connected to the other three homicides?

MELISSA MOORE, THE ADVOCATE REPORTER: Yes. A woman from Biloxi, Mississippi, was driving on Interstate 10 near Slidell on July 14th, and a man driving a white -- large white pick-up truck with red and blue flashing lights on his dash pulled her over. He got her to get into his truck on a pretense of taking her to a police station, and instead, took her to a rest area nearby, where he raped her. He ultimately did bring her back to her vehicle and let her go.

VAN SUSTEREN: Melissa, one of the -- I guess, one of the -- I shouldn't say the good things about a rape, but one of the significant things about a rape is that DNA evidence is often left behind, unless the man uses some sort of protection, in which case there wouldn't be. Is there DNA evidence in this rape case, number one? And number two, has it been tested against DNA evidence from the three homicides?

MOORE: I don't know. That's one of the questions that I tried to get answered today and wasn't able to get an answer to.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ken, the police are -- they're not saying anything about whether or not there's a connection, right?

PASTORICK: Well, they're not saying there's a connection right now. And I talked to Colonel Mike Barnett today. They were forthcoming with more information than they have been in the past few days, and he says until they have a direct connection, meaning evidence to link these crimes, he is not going to link these crimes.

VAN SUSTEREN: Melissa, there are lot of crimes that have occurred -- not a lot, but at least 30 over the last 10 years, unsolved murders in your area. Do police believe that is the work of serial killer?

MOORE:  The police have acknowledged that some of the crimes are apparently related. We had a group of killings a couple of summers ago of primarily black prostitutes, and police acknowledged at that time that some of those killings were likely to be related. But we just don't know about the other unsolved homicides, which of them, if any, might be related to either of these groups.

VAN SUSTEREN: Are there any -- Melissa, in the sort of high -- you know, a lot of similarity in a home, that at least are high on your radar screen to make you be suspicious that there's another one connected to this?

MOORE: There are a lot of questions, and it's just really hard to say. There was a murder victim who lived near the home where Gina Green lived, but the crime in which she was killed was very different. I wouldn't have guessed that -- I would haven't have guessed that these three killings were connected until someone had told me about the DNA link. So it's really, really hard to say.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ken, Charlotte Murray Pace and Gina Green apparently were neighbors at one time. Is there any information to suggest that they -- I mean, is there anything in common besides the fact that they're neighbors?

PASTORICK: Well, they were three doors -- living three doors down from each other. And that was when Charlotte Murray Pace moved away 10 days before she was murdered, and that was back in late May. Now, as far as the other murder victim, Gina Wilson Green, she lived on the corner of that street, Stanford Avenue, and she was strangled and raped.

So that's what -- as Melissa was saying a second ago, these crimes don't look like they're linked because Gina Wilson Green was strangled and raped. Charlotte Murray Pace was -- she fought and she was stabbed to death. So they don't look the same. But when they look at the DNA, they find there is a common denominator.

And I don't -- I haven't confirmed that these two folks knew each other before this. But in talking with some of the friends of Charlotte Murray Pace when this crime happened, they had said that they had thought that Gina Wilson Green had lived down the street, and that was kind of an interesting aspect.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, Ken, have they combed -- have they knocked on doors to find out if there were any sort of strange people, strange men in the neighborhood that might be familiar to those two?

PASTORICK: Well, police have done a lot around here, as far as knocking on doors, talking with people. The people they're not talking with is the media. They're not giving a whole lot of information, a lot of details, keeping a lot of information close to the vest, they say, which is to keep it from compromising the case.

VAN SUSTEREN: Melissa, what's the area like where Gina and Charlotte Murray were killed?

MOORE: It's one of Baton Rouge's older neighborhoods. It's very near LSU, very near a place called the LSU Lakes, where is a lot of people walk and run and rollerblade. It's the kind of place where you would feel safe enough to leave your door unlocked before this.

VAN SUSTEREN: And would you leave -- you wouldn't leave your door unlocked at night, though, would you?

MOORE: No, no. I don't think anybody in Baton Rouge does that.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Pam Kinamore, who is the most recent of the three -- how far is her home from the other two?

MOORE: It's a considerable distance. It's on the -- it's actually outside the city limits, moving towards New Orleans from here.

VAN SUSTEREN: And where her body was dumped -- where is that in relationship to her home and in relationship to the homes of the other two murder victims?

MOORE: It's about 30 miles away, in a very secluded area where there's, as far as I know, just an interstate exit and a boat launch.

VAN SUSTEREN: How was her body found?

MOORE: A state survey crew was working in the area and found it.

VAN SUSTEREN:  Ken, obviously, you know, a terrible case. I'm sure the women are concerned. I mean, are you feeling in the community that the women are very nervous that this is a serial killer and not just, you know, three single murders? Obviously, they're tied by DNA, but whether the person will strike again?

PASTORICK: Well, there are a lot of folks in this community that are concerned.  Not just women, the men as well. There are a lot of women that are taking self-defense classes, taking gun classes. They're buying mace. My wife, in particular, locks the door and turns on the alarm when I'm not there. And a lot of people are taking those precautions. This is a community in fear. They're doing a lot of things to take precautions to make sure that they don't become the next victim.

VAN SUSTEREN: Ken, when can we expect that press conference from the police, when they will give more information?

PASTORICK: They're not telling us when they're going to give that first media briefing. It's supposed on a daily basis. I understand it may start Monday. But they're supposed to give us a briefing sometime in either the early morning hours or the early afternoon hours and let us know exactly what they can tell us.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Well, I'm sure the community wants to hear that as soon as possible. Ken, Melissa, thank you both for joining us.

PASTORICK: Thank you.

VAN SUSTEREN: More on the serial killer when we come back. We'll be joined by the mother of one of the victims.

Click here to order the entire transcript of the August 1 edition of On the Record.

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