U.K. Fears New 'Jack The Ripper'
English police said Wednesday they continue to "fear the worst" about two missing prostitutes from a town where three other sex workers have been killed, one of them strangled, by an apparent serial killer.
The naked corpses of two women found at the side of a busy road on Tuesday were thought to be those of Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls, two prostitutes who were recently reported missing, according to Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull.
The bodies remained at the scene until late Wednesday afternoon. Ambulances were seen leaving the scene just after the sun went down, but it was not confirmed whether the women's bodies had been removed.
They were to be taken for an autopsy and official identification at an area hospital.
The three victims who have been named were identified as Gemma Adams, 25, whose body was found Dec. 2; Tania Nicol, 19, whose body was found Friday; and 24-year-old Anneli Alderton, whose body was found Sunday. Police said Alderton — who was last seen on a train — was asphyxiated. It appeared she had been strangled and that she was not sexually assaulted, police said.
The condition of the bodies of Adams and Nicol — both of whom were found in water — has prevented investigators from determining a cause of death or whether they were sexually assaulted.
Nicholls, 29, was last seen Dec. 5; Clennell, 24, was last seen Sunday.
Their being left close to the side of the road — instead of in a more secluded area — prompted British media to ask officials whether the killer may be growing hasty in the disposal of victims' bodies.
Gull told Sky News that it could just as well mean the killer — or killers — deliberately dropped the body in a location where it would be more easily found.
"I can't anticipate what's going on inside his head, but clearly he's a dangerous man and we need to find him as quickly as we can," Gull said.
He added that the bodies were being treated with as much dignity as could be afforded by the investigation.
All five corpses were found within a few miles of each other near Ipswich, a small city about 70 miles northeast of London.
CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports that police have made no arrests, and have impounded no vehicles in their investigation.
Investigators were working their way through a list of potential suspects and investigating more than 2,000 calls made to the police hotline – a public response praised by Gull, who urged anyone else with information to call in, regardless of how trivial it may seem.
Authorities have pleaded with sex workers "to get off the streets as soon as possible," as the story grips the nation and evokes fears of a contemporary serial killer in the land of "Jack the Ripper".
MacVicar says the red-light district outside Ipswich was quiet Tuesday night but there was a palpable anxiety, and residents and the police alike are all braced for the discovery of another victim.
Town authorities have organized shuttle services to get women home from the local council offices, and the council's monthly newsletter was publishing a safety message to town's women: "Stick Together" — advising them not to walk outside alone at night.
"It's all we can think about," said Malcolm Moses, a taxi driver who used to drive prostitutes in the 1970s from the town's red light district to sailors in the port. "It doesn't matter to us if they're prostitutes. It's still somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, somebody's mother."
The victims included a trainee beautician, a mother of three daughters and an insurance worker. Some fell into prostitution to feed drug habits.
One of the victims, 24-year-old Paula Clennell, was interviewed on television last week saying she was scared but determined to get back on the street because she needed money for heroin. Days later she vanished.
"It's terrifying, people are scared. Even I have to say I felt ill at ease and I'm not a nervous type of person," said Liz Harfant, 63, leader of the Ipswich borough council. "The first thing that goes through minds is, if working girls are not out in the street anymore then who will be the next victim?"
Ipswich used to be a bustling port town in the 19th century. There were nearly 40 brothels in the red light district at the time, but these days the prostitutes ply their trade on a quiet ring road lined by red-brick houses in the shadow of the local soccer stadium.
The killings have stirred memories of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, one of Britain's worst serial killers. Peter Sutcliffe admitted to killing 13 women, mostly prostitutes, in the 1970s. He was sentenced to serve a minimum of 30 years in prison.
His reign of terror recalled Jack the Ripper, the notorious Victorian serial killer who murdered at least five East London prostitutes in 1888. He was never caught and speculation about his identity continues.
The latest deaths have drawn intense media interest, with Ipswich's afternoon newspaper labeling the prostitutes' killer "the Suffolk Strangler."
One of Britain's most widely circulated papers, "News Of The World", offered a 250,000 GBP reward (about $500,000) for any information leading to the arrest of the killer.
Police have said they suspected a serial killer, but were not ruling out multiple suspects. Police said there was also no indication women other than prostitutes were being targeted.
But criminologist Prof. David Wilson told Sky "the danger is he kills again and again until he stops, or he might move outside of the target group, which, so far, are prostitutes, into other types of women."