L.A. City Council Offers $500K Bounty for Unknown Serial Killer
Seeking to put a stop to a serial killer that authorities say has been operating in the Los Angeles area for some 23 years, the L.A. City Council today approved a $500,000 reward fund.
It will pay up to $200,000 to any individual who provides information leading to the conviction of the murderer or murderers responsible for killings of at least 10 people since 1985, according to the Los Angeles Times. The victims generally were black women, and authorities suspect many may have been working as prostitutes. A number of bodies were left along Western Avenue.
As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, authorities only last year realized, with the help of DNA tests, that the same individual was apparently responsible for a series of murders over more than two decades.
They now hope to gain the approval of the state’s top prosecutor to use a cutting-edge but controversial technique to help identify the unknown serial killer: familial DNA testing.
“LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said he is scheduled to meet Thursday with an official from California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown’s office to discuss the department’s request to search for relatives of the killer in a genetic database of about a million California felons,” the newspaper reports.
