St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 3

ST. LOUIS FCS7-DISPATCH ST. LOUISFRIDAY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1991 3A Area Prostitutes Frightened By Series Of Deaths By Bill Bryan 01 the Post-Dispatch Staff The aunt of the latest victim of what may be a serial killer who preys on prostitutes had a message Thursday for the women who walk the tough streets of the "South Side Stroll." Kansas City Police Solved Serial Killings Case Last Year "The girls on the street better watch out," said Diane Little, 39. "Whoever killed Sandy, killed some of those other women, too." Little is the aunt of Sandy Little, whose decomposed body was found in a wooden box early Sunday by a motorist on Interstate 70 in O'Fallon, Mo. The body was identified Wednesday through X-rays.

Sandy Little, 21, had been reported missing by a friend on Sept. 4. She was a prostitute. But she was a beloved niece, too, said her By Thorn Gross Of the Post-Dispatch Staff In Kansas City last year, police were faced with a string of unsolved murders of women, that bore some similarities to the cases now occupying detectives here. In the space of seven months, the bodies of six women were found near the same midtown park; they had been strangled.

All had been prostitutes, some of them trading sex for drugs. The break in the case came in April when a passer-by interrupted a man as he choked a woman in the park. The suspect ran, and the woman regained consciousness. Based on their descriptions, police were able to make a composite sketch of the suspect "The obvious thought was that the geographic area linked our suspect he either lived there or frequented the area," said Kansas City police Sgt. Gregory Miller.

"With the sketch, we had the first tangible evidence to begin canvassing the neighborhood. Two people immediately identified a suspect, who turned out to be Ray Shawn Jackson." Police arrested Jackson, then 22, and he confessed to six murders, Miller said. It was only after Jackson's arrest that police called the case a serial killing. Disposition of the case is pending. "It was getting very frustrating," Miller said.

"We were doing everything we could think of to do. We were looking at people involved in any kind of similar crime in past. We were doing surveillances in the area. We were spending an enormous amount of time backtracking our victims' activities prior to their deaths and their associations, trying to find any link at all." Meanwhile, the police felt they were catching flak from the news media, which kept pressing police to say they were looking for a serial killer. "We, felt we had to approach these cases from a couple of different angles," Miller said.

"We had to look at, recognize and chisel away at the similarities that existed among all of them. But we also felt like we had a responsibility to treat them as individual cases because all the victims had individual backgrounds and lifestyles and associations. "If we lump them all together, we stand the chance of missing some crucial piece of information in one of the victim's backgrounds that might lead us somewhere," he said. Confusing things was the murder of one woman near the park in the middle of the string of strangulations that turned out Jo be unrelated to the others. Miller said the press continued to refer to seven serial deaths.

"I don't know what we could have done differently," Miller said. "They kept wanting us to give details about the condition of the bodies and any similarities. We wanted to hold back some key details so that if we arrest somebody and he starts talking about it, we know we've got the right guy." S. Little 'J Itf1 AP Ray Shawn Jackson after his arrest in April in the killing of six Kansas City prostitutes. Jackson lived near the scene of the killings.

aunt. "She was a sweet girl," Diane Little said. "We still love her. "My whole family hopes the police catch the killer before we do. "Prostitution was the way she made her living and supported her baby.

She was trying to support her baby the best way she "If she had stuck to prostitution and stayed away from the hard drugs, shooting dope, she could have continued living with us," said Diane Little, who has a husband and children of her own. Diane Little had custody of Sandy for about a year when she was 15 or 16. "We gave her everything she 'wanted, but she fell in with bad friends, I guess," Diane Little said. "She ran up a $400 phone bill I almost lost my job her, because I was out every night looking for her. "I went through all the foster-parenting stuff for so long until I couldn't handle her any more." When Sandy Little disappeared, she had a 9-month-old son.

They lived above an antique shop in the 2800 block of -Cherokee Street in the area where she worked. "She was a 'pretty nice girl," said Robert Graves, who operates the killer theory, but many concede there are strong links between the killings and suspicious deaths of five Women, including Little, over the last 1 1 months. Those similarities include: All the victims werewhite. Four of the five were prostitutes from south St. Louis.

Police have not been able to identify the fifth victim. The bodies of four victims had been left on a roadside. Two had been placed in trash cans, and Little had been stuffed in the wooden box. "This latest case shows you how bold the killer is," said a veteran homicide investigator. "Not only did the killer antique shop.

"When she disappeared, I was sure something bad had happened to her, because she wouldn't have left her baby like that." The mother of Sandy Little's boyfriend is watching Little's son, who is about 14 months old. The streets of the Stroll appeared void of street walkers Thursday despite the beautiful spring-like weather. "They're staying off the streets," Graves said. "They're still out there, in gangways and hallways, but they're scared." Police investigators will not publicly adhere to the serial- want her body found, he's almost tweaking our nose by placing it right out in the open like that" Some two dozen members of the St. Louis Major Case Squad spent much of Thursday pouring over reports of the five cases, looking for additional links and re-examining old similarities.

"We're just trying to develop some ideas, to come up with some leads," said Des Peres Lt. Paul Banta, who is heading the Major Case investigation. "We're hoping to get a break." St. Louis Considered For Girl Scouts' Home Transportation is important, because the staff travels a lot, Mason said. The task group has hired relocation consultants Moran, Stahl and Boyer to evaluate cities outside of New York.

Mason said she did not know why St. Louis had made the final list or how the task force and consultants would proceed with their field investigation. But she indicated that the process would be speedy. "June is not that far away," she said. The Girl Scouts of the United States of America have 2,480,270 girls and 788,360 adults as members; 99 percent of the adults are volunteers.

The organization is affiliated with similar groups in 117 other countries. The Girl Scout Council of Greater St. Louis spans 12 Missouri counties, serves 38,724 girls and has 11,600 adult members, most of them volunteers. Linda Thornton, public relations manager for the St. Louis Council, said no executives were available Thursday afternoon to say what part, if any, the council might be taking in the national organization's search or any St.

Louis effort to bring the headquarters here. By Susan C. Thomson Of the Post-Dispatch Staff St. Louis is on a short list of cities being studied by the Girl Scouts of the United States of America in its search for a new home. Also competing for the national headquarters and its 500 jobs are Atlanta, Cleveland, Baltimore and New York, the Girl Scouts' home for about the last 75 years.

The Girl Scouts board will make its decision in June, said Deborah Mason, the Scouts' national director of media relations. Mason said the board appointed a group in May to analyze alternatives to the organization's headquarters in Manhattan. The Girl Scouts have occupied the building since it was built in the mid-1950s, and it needs major repairs, Mason said. Renovating the building was rejected as uneconomical, according to a Girl Scouts document obtained by the Post-Dispatch. A short-distance move within Manhattan also has been ruled out, the document says.

According to the task group's requirements, any new location must offer a diverse and skilled work force, financial advantages, the possibility of maximum retention of the national staff and accessible air transportation. Mi. imn riliiiiiMI'li'iiH Hi nmr rr- Robert LaRouchePost-Dispatch Grandmothers' Day Alexandria Cray, 2V2, swinging Thursday at January-Wabash park in Ferguson with three of her grandmothers. They are (from left) grandmother Barbara Sellini, great-grandmother Dolores Wichman and grandmother Dorothy Cray, all of North County. Police Board Member Miffed Over Election Metro Link Plan Called 'Mistake' Riders Would Skip Fare Under Honor System, Council Chairman Says M-State plans to forgo fCrA By Kim Bell Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Odell McGowan says he is angry about not getting the vice-chairman's position on the St.

Louis County Board of Police Commissioners. McGowan, a businessman and former police detective who was appointed to the board in May, said he had more seniority than Gene A. War-mann, who won the office Wednesday at his first board meeting. McGowan is the first, and only, black member of the board. Warmann, president of Warmann Oil was elected in a 3-1 vote after he was nominated by another newcomer, Patrick A.

Twardowski of Town and Country. They are "two people coming in, being here less than an hour, and there I am, the spook sitting by the door," McGowan said in an interview after the vote. "And that's not going to be my role." McGowan asked board chairman Robert W. Flagg if the nomination and vote had come at the direction of the county executive's office. Warmann and Twardowski were both nominated last month by County Executive George R.

"Buzz" Westfall. Flagg said politics had played no role in the vote. He said nominations were not based on seniority. He added: "These people are all good managers, and they're successful." McGowan said Thursday still disappointed by the way it turned out. It appeared to me that someone was saying Odell McGowan was not qualified.

I don't want to call lt racism. But in my opinion, the election was pre-orchestrated prior to the actual nomination. I've never seen anything like that happen before." McGowan, of Florissant, was appointed to the Police Board by former County Executive H.C. Milford. The board sets policy and makes budget decisions for the department.

Patricia Conigan of the Post-Dispatch staff contributed information for this story. said. In other action Thursday: The council gave $25,000 to the Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, the agency overseeing construction of a stadium and convention center expansion downtown. The money will be used for legal expenses and operating costs. Tim Fischesser, executive director of the St.

Louis County Municipal League, said that as many as 40 members of the league would attend a hearing Wednesday in Jefferson City on state funding for the stadium. The council approved a property-tax exemption for the Birthright Counseling office at 215 Clarkson Executive Parkway. Birthright is a counseling service that opposes abortion; Rothman-Serot said abortion-rights groups had no objections to the exemption. The council heard a recommendation from Engelbert G. Knaus, the departing county auditor, to establish an audit committee that would insu- By Virgil Tipton Of the Post-Dispatch Staff The St.

Louis County Council chairman says he thinks that transit officials may be putting too much trust in humanity by putting the honor system into effect at light-rail stations. Chairman George M. "Jerry" Corcoran of St. Ann, D-2nd District, told the council Thursday that he thought too many riders would skip paying the fare. "I think anybody that feels like they can get away with it will," Corcoran said.

"A buck's a buck." At Corcoran's request, the council agreed to ask officials at the Bi-State Development Agency to rethink their plan. At issue is a plan by Bi-State, the area's transit agency, to forgo ticket-takers and turnstiles at stations along the 18-mile Metro Link line, which is scheduled to open in 1993. Instead, Bi-State plans to have fare inspectors randomly check passengers for tickets. Bi-State officials say the plan would ticket-takers and turnstiles at stations along the 18-mile Metro Link line. be cheaper than hiring people to collect fares or building barriers and turnstiles.

Officials say the honor system has worked in other cities in the United States and Europe. But Corcoran called the plan "a horrendous mistake." And Councilwoman Geri Rothman-Serot of Frontenac, D-3rd District, said she thought the plan was "silly." But Councilman Kurt S. Odenwald of Shrewsbury, R-5th District, said he had lived for a lived in cities in Germany, where the system worked efficiently. "I think we should be open to what they're suggesting," Odenwald George M. "Jerry" Corcoran "A buck's a buck" late the auditor's office from the politics it sometimes encounters in dealing directly with the County Council.

Knaus, who was hired eight years earlier by Republicans, lost his job earlier this year after Democrats regained control of the council. Shelters Decry Federal Budget Cuts That Afflict Area Homeless 1 An The situation also means longer stays for families in transitional housing programs, they said. "I have been involved in providing services five years, and the same people are coming through the shelters," said Lisa West of United Metro Methodist Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. also addressed the meeting.

He asked that his comments not be reported, but be spoke openly after a reporter objected. Schoemehl said that he' appreciated the network's efforts and empathized with their frustration over constant criticism. House, the city's transitional housing program. "We entered the program thinking six months would be enough time. Now, we have extended it to a year." Substance abuse and mental illness are the major factors contributing to the problem, said Rosemary Terranova, director of Catholic Charities Housing Re abuse prevention efforts are critical to reducing homelessness," she said.

West, Noah and Terran- ova voiced their concerns in a report on the "State of Homelessness in St. Louis" at the monthly meeting of the Homeless Services Network. The network is a coalition of government and private service providers established by the city to coordinate resources homeless. efforts to establish a shelter system, saying the city needs to focus on providing affordable permanent housing. Terranova reported that more than 4,200 families had called the center seeking housing since April, when the city shifted its major focus toward homeless prevention and away from simply providing shelter.

Terranova said the change had made it difficult to compare the tally to prior years. She said she believed the number of homeless had not increased drastically. By Cynthia Todd 'Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Efforts by city shelters to reduce 'chronic homelessness in St. Louis have been hampered by federal budget cuts to state and local social ser-' vice programs, shelter providers said Thursday. Cuts in funds to programs that deal with alcoholism, mental illness and Ueen-age pregnancy and other prob-; lems make it more difficult to prepare the homeless for the responsibility of independent living, housing specialists say.

Terranova Schoemehl Ministries. "Families are so fragmented, thfey need more time for the The Rev. Larry Rice, director of the New Life Evangelistic Center, has often criticized the city's source Center. "More' community-based mental health- services and more substance to get Hope started," said Herman Noah of.