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Police seek truck linked to killings
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Police appealed to the public Thursday for help in locating the driver of a "vehicle of interest" in three killings of women over the past 13 months. A caller to a tip line set up by the task force investigating the killings reported seeing something suspicious about a white GMC pickup truck on July 12, the night Pam Kinamore, the third victim, was abducted, said Baton Rouge Police Chief Pat Englade. He would not divulge what the witness saw, except that a male drive and a female passenger were in the truck. "It was a suspicious activity, but I can't go any deeper into it than that," he said. Englade said the single-cab truck bore a license plate from an undetermined state. It had a light background and the dark-colored characters JT341, though not necessarily in that order, he said. "The license plate should be considered in various configurations," he told reporters. In addition, the symbol of a fish was attached to the upper-left portion of the tailgate, he said. The decision to appeal to the public was made after fruitless days spent searching states' databases. "The task of locating or identifying this plate has proven to be a massive undertaking," Englade said. "We feel that the public will be the answer to this investigation." He added, "We're terming this as a vehicle of interest." The three slain women were: Gina Wilson Green, 41, Charlotte Murray Pace, 22, and Kinamore, 44. Green, a divorcee who lived alone, was found strangled September 24, 2001, in her apartment near the Louisiana State University campus. Pace was stabbed to death May 31 in her townhouse, also near the campus. Her roommate discovered the body. Police believe there was a loud, fierce struggle before she died. Four days after Kinamore was abducted from her home, her body was found dumped under a bridge outside Baton Rouge. Her throat had been slit. DNA tests on evidence recovered at each crime scene indicate all three killings were carried out by one person. Police have not described the DNA material. They do say they have no evidence the women knew each other, or that the killer targeted women near the campus. Because there was no forced entry in each of the cases, the suspect apparently either entered through an unlocked door or gained the trust of the woman who opened the door, police said. This week, Baton Rouge authorities asked for DNA samples from John Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, the sniper suspects in the Washington-area killings, to see whether those killings might be linked to those in Baton Rouge. Muhammad was raised in Baton Rouge, and he and Malvo were in the city over the summer. But police spokesman Don Kelly said investigators believe a link is improbable. "Nobody's expecting that he's our serial killer on those three cases. The serial killings we're investigating and the sniper deal are two completely separate, distinct things," he said. "It's a bizarre coincidence, but that's all it is."
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