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Los Angeles raises reward offer in the hunt for serial killer

Los Angeles authorities hope a new US$500,000 reward will help them catch a serial killer who has claimed the lives of at least 10 women and a man in a two-part string of violence spanning more than two decades.

All the victims were black and were found in or near South Los Angeles. Police believe some of the women were prostitutes.

Seven women and a man were killed by the same handgun in a three-year period starting August 1985. The women had been sexually assaulted and their bodies were often dumped in the same alley in South Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved the reward first proposed by City Councilman Bernard Parks, who as police chief in 2001 ordered the department to look into a backlog of unsolved cases.

Alicia Monique Alexander was the last known victim in the first round of killings. A 13-year hiatus followed Alexander’s 1988 death, police said.

The hiatus ended in March 2002, when 14-year-old Princess Berthomieux was found beaten and strangled in an alley in the city of Inglewood. Another killing came in 2003, and the most recent homicide was in January last year when Janecia Peters was killed.
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