All crime, even serial murder, is not equal. That's how it came to pass that as many as 100 women, most of them poor and black, were murdered with seemingly impunity from 1984 to 1993. The Los Angeles Times today reports on the story that few outside South LA have heard-- that at least 7 serial killers roamed South Central's streets (5 have been arrested for their crimes) and killed almost at will for the better part of a decade. An excerpt below:
During the years in which they were active, the South Los Angeles killers never earned the noir nicknames of the region's other infamous killers — the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler.
Those other crimes were notorious sagas that gained national attention and had parts of the metropolis in a state of panic. By contrast, few people in South L.A., including parents of victims, were even aware of a serial killer operating in their neighborhood — much less five or more. While the more publicized cases had distinctive hallmarks, in South L.A. there were so many people being killed, almost all of them from the margins of society, that it was difficult for neighbors or police to pinpoint any patterns.
The rapes and murders of dozens of young women were, effectively, lost in the crime wave.
"Could you imagine — more than 100 women killed and nobody notices?" said Margaret Prescod, who founded an organization 24 years ago to press for a more aggressive response to the killings and now hosts a radio show. "Could you imagine it in Beverly Hills? Palos Verdes?"
Link to the complete LA Times Story.
