ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Police are looking for links in the unsolved slayings of a dozen women between the ages of 55 and 89 over the last six years. The two most recent victims were found dead in their homes on the same day this week.
Police formed Operation Golden Years, a task force to investigate the women's deaths, after 84-year-old Mamie Verlander was found slain in her home on March 28.
Elizabeth Seibert, 69, was found slain Tuesday in the third-floor apartment where she lived alone, police said.
Jane E. Foster, 55, was found slain in her Monument Avenue home at 10:15 p.m. the same day, city police spokeswoman Brenda Hughes said Wednesday.
Foster's employer sent a security guard to her home after she failed to show up for work, Hughes said.
Police have declined to disclose the cause of death of the latest victims and others slain recently. Most of the victims lived alone. Hughes said someone lived with Foster, but Hughes didn't know the person's name.
Seibert lived several blocks from Lucille Boyd, 75, who was drowned or strangled in the bathtub in her home on Jan. 1.
The task force also is investigating the slaying of Gertrude Gardner, 77, who was found on the kitchen floor of her South Richmond home on Feb. 22. The other unsolved slayings of older city women took place from 1990 to 1993. The oldest victim was Mabel Venable, 89, who was slain July 1, 1990.
Seibert and Boyd lived in the area covered by the West of the Boulevard Civic Association, which arranged a meeting with police Wednesday night to discuss the slayings.
``We've been very active with both citizens patrol and neighborhood watch,'' said Crichton Armstrong, an association member who knew Seibert. ``It's my hope that this will allow us to redouble our efforts and get more people involved.''
Armstrong said Seibert was active in the association, which has mounted a variety of anti-crime efforts.
``She was like us all. She felt like if you don't do something, there will be a problem,'' Armstrong said.
Since 1990, 17 older Richmond women have been slain in their homes but arrests have been made in five of the cases. In addition, police in suburban Henrico County have conferred with city police about the death of Inez J. Childress, 82. Her body was found Sept. 17, 1994, in a water-filled bathtub in the home where she lived alone in Highland Springs.
Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney David M. Hicks said police were looking for patterns and connections among the slayings.
```Serial killer' is a term that I am reluctant to go to. That has a whole different connotation to what we may have,'' Hicks said. He said some of the cases look similar while others do not.
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