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Authorities in OC Step Up Efforts to Catch Serial Killer Targeting Homeless Men
Photo by VeryBadLady via Flickr
Authorities in Orange County are focused on identifying a suspect considered a serial killer of homeless men who has taken three lives so far. A $5,000 reward has been offered by the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs for information leading to an apprehension. Also, a special checkpoint set up in Yorba Linda tonight is part of an ongoing effort to nab the killer.Tom Dominguez, president of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, told City News Service that the reward is aimed at motivating someone with information about the killings to contact authorities.
Dominguez added: "This guy is a serial killer preying on some of the most vulnerable people in society. We have to do whatever we can to stop him from killing anyone else." He added: "If a reward can get someone to talk and help find him, it's worth every penny and more."
Tonight's checkpoint in Yorba Linda is close to the "library where 57year-old Paulus Cornelius Smit was stabbed to death on Dec. 30, officials said," reports CBS2. Smit was the killer's third victim; ten days prior, 53-year-old James McGillivray was attacked as he slept outside a shopping center in Placential. Eight days later, the body of Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found in Anaheim. All of the victims were stabbed to death.
"Friday’s checkpoint is the second one this week. The first was conducted Tuesday night in Placentia," notes CBS2.
This is "the first serial killer on the loose in Orange County in more than a quarter century," points out the OC Register in a piece exploring what the task force assembled to find and arrest the killer is facing.
So far, only grainy surveillance footage has provided any image of the suspected killer.
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