Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BRISTOL LENGTH: Medium
The slaying of Brenda Kay Hagy, whose body was found Monday along Interstate 81 in Washington County, is similar to slayings in North Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and New York, said Washington County Sheriff Joe Mitchell.
``I'll bet a million dollars this is the same guy involved in the serial killings,'' said Ross Sheets, an investigator for the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
Sheets said Thursday he intends to ask the FBI's Quantico unit on serial killers to develop a personality profile of someone who commits these kinds of murders.
The FBI already is helping a task force that was set up in Ohio in 1992 to investigate the deaths of eight women in Ohio, four in Indiana, three in Pennsylvania and several similar slayings in other states. Most of the victims were known or suspected prostitutes who frequented truck stops. All were found strangled or beaten and abandoned on or near freeways. A member of the task force, Capt. Ray Back of the Licking County, Ohio, Sheriff's Office, said Thursday that no one has been arrested in connection with the murders.
Sheets said Thursday he is comparing notes with authorities in other states, particularly Tennessee and North Carolina.
The death may be connected to that of a Tennessee woman who was found with her head crushed by a tractor-trailer's wheels on an access road off I-81 near Tri-Cities Regional Airport in 1991, Sheets said.
Two unsolved murders in North Carolina - one in Surry County in 1992 and another in Orange County in 1990 - are believed linked to the serial killer. Both victims were prostitutes last seen near truck stops, said Marie Jernigan of the State Bureau of Investigation.
``We think they're linked because of where the bodies were found, how they were positioned, the truck drivers,'' she said. ``There's definitely a good possibility it may have been committed by the same subject.''
Though local investigators were only beginning to gather information on Hagy, they say the 45-year-old Bloomington woman had been charged with trespassing at truck stops. Family members have said she often could be found at a truck stop along Interstate 65 in the Indianapolis area.
Authorities have determined that Hagy stayed at a homeless shelter in Gainesville, Fla., before setting out about 7 a.m. Sunday for a bus station.
Hagy was strangled and her body was dumped along an access road to I-81, investigators said.
Authorities determined the killer probably was driving a tractor-trailer because Hagy's left leg had been run over by tires the size of those used on such rigs.
by CNB