Suspected Serial Killer Confesses

A suspected Chicago serial killer is behind bars, facing prosecution in a six-year killing spree in South Chicago.

Andre Crawford, 37, was arrested Friday after police received a tip about him and was charged Sunday in the slayings of 10 women, reports Correspondent Carmen Velez of CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago.

Crawford was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, 11 counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of attempted murder.

Police Commander Frank Trigg said Crawford confessed to the murders of seven women that were part of a string of murders that stretched back six years on Chicago's South Side. He also admitted to three other murders that police hadn't linked to the case, Trigg said.

Investigators have connected Crawford to the murders through DNA testing, Trigg said. Crawford also was identified in a lineup by a woman who was allegedly assaulted by him but escaped, according to the commander.

Chicago Police Superintendent Terry Hillard, standing before dozens of police and FBI agents, said, These men and women worked night and day tracking leads, knocking on doors, and on stakeouts, and searching dozens of abandoned buildings.

The first of the 10 murders Crawford is charged with occurred in September 1993 and the last was in June 1999. Throughout the investigation into the killings, police described most of the victims as women who were drug addicts and prostitutes.

All of the victims were either strangled or suffered blunt trauma to the head, Trigg said. Their bodies were left in abandoned buildings or vacant lots, he said.

Crawford's alleged crimes took place in an impoverished community that has long been plagued by violent crime. The neighborhood and its environs have been targeted before by serial killers.

Gregory Clepper was charged with the deaths of 14 women from 1991 to 1996 and is awaiting trial. Hubert Geralds Jr. was convicted of killing six women in Englewood and sentenced to death in January 1998.

Crawford has a criminal history dating back to 1985, Trigg said, but he wouldn't provide details. Crawford was scheduled to appear in court Monday.