Brought to you by WBIW News and Network Indiana
Last updated on Tuesday, October 21, 2014
(GARY) - The mayor of Gary, Indiana says that a man who confessed to killing one woman and led police to the bodies of six others in northwestern Indiana had been convicted of sex crimes in Texas.
Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson tells The Associated Press that the 43-year-old man in custody directed investigators to sites where bodies were found Saturday and Sunday.
Police haven't released the name of the man taken into custody after a 19-year-old woman was found fatally strangled Friday night at a Motel 6 in the neighboring city of Hammond.
Freeman-Wilson says authorities aren't certain how long the man has been in northwestern Indiana, although he does have a conviction for residential entry in the area. The mayor says she doesn't know whether more bodies might be found.
The mystery began to unfold at a Motel 6 off I-80 in Hammond, Indiana. That's where the body of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy was found strangled on Friday night.
Sources say Hardy may have met her killer on the web site Backpage.com, perhaps as an escort. Evidence at the scene led Hammond Police to a man in Gary, Indiana.
The man, taken into custody for Hardy's murder, then began to confess to other killings. With his information, police found bodies - some badly decomposed - inside three abandoned homes on Gary late Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
Sources are telling WGN the suspect acted alone and may have killed several others over many years - both in Indiana and Illinois.
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