By Rick Jervis and Crystal Yednak, Chicago Tribune
PEORIA, Ill. - The eight police officers gave a clear message to the women who gathered in the chapel at the South Side Mission last fall: We don’t care about your past or profession, we need your help.
Working with tips from the street and the help of outreach centers such as the mission, investigators looking for a killer targeting women in the Peoria area since March 2001 penetrated the shadowy world of prostitutes and drug addicts.
They emerged with Larry D. Bright, who was charged Thursday with the first-degree murder of Linda Neal, one of 10 women slain or missing in the Peoria area since March 2001. Prosecutors said Bright, 38, will soon be charged in the murders of seven other women. Investigators Friday continued to unearth human remains in the yard of his home in the 3400 block of West Starr Court, authorities said.
As investigators questioned prostitutes, strikingly similar stories surfaced of a customer who lured prostitutes to his home with promises of cocaine, then turned abruptly violent, sometimes pulling a knife on them before raping them--all of the descriptions pointing to Bright’s home, police said.
The unlikely partnership between police and prostitutes was key in the investigation, which galvanized in October with the creation of a multijurisdictional task force and included 1,000 tips and more than 800 interviews, said Peoria County Sheriff Michael D. McCoy.
“One of the first things investigators did was go down and get right in with the people,” McCoy said. “They started interviewing every prostitute, every person that had some connection to them.”
Investigators fanned out through the neighborhoods, handing out blank pads and pens to prostitutes and asking them to jot down plate numbers of any suspicious customers, McCoy said. Police also recruited the help of other outreach centers, such as the City of Refuge Worship Center, calling activists every 48 hours, he said.
But good leads were tough coming-many of the women they were looking for were drifters, wandering from one crack-cocaine high to the next, he said.
The big break came on Nov. 8, when investigators located Vickie Bomar, a woman with a history of prostitution arrests who had had a recent run-in with Bright, authorities said. The Tribune does not typically publish names of rape victims. But Bomar, interviewed Saturday, said she wanted her name published and her story recounted.
Bomar, 35, told investigators how Bright picked her up in July in the area of Harrison Homes, a housing project on Peoria’s far south side. She alleged that Bright drove her to his home with promises of an eighth-of-an-ounce of cocaine for sex. Bomar described the inside of his room and picked Bright out of a photo lineup, according to a police document.
Bright threatened her with a 4-inch blade before raping her, she told police. Afterward, she locked herself in Bright’s bathroom and refused to come out until he promised to let her go, police said. He agreed and as the two walked out of his home, she ran to a nearby house, where the resident drove her home, she told police.
Three days after her interview with investigators, police arrested Bright for “aggravated unlawful restraint,” records show. Drug charges were added in December after a search of his home and car found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, police said.
Prostitutes come forward
More prostitutes came forward to tell about encounters with Bright, describing how he would lure them back to his home with cocaine promises, sometimes posing as a police officer, then threatened them into sex, according to the police document.
In November, one of the women told police Bright picked her up in June 2003 near the John C. Proctor Recreation Center in Peoria and took her to his previous residence, in the 500 block of West McClure Avenue, with promises of an ounce of cocaine for sex. There, he led her to the carpeted basement that was littered with used condoms, clothes and pornographic books, according to the document. Bright told her he was a police officer and she was under arrest, then threatened her with a knife, she alleged. He stuffed socks in her mouth and raped her before returning her home, she told police.
Another woman alleged Bright picked her up on Sept. 6 and took her to his home, then grabbed her from behind and beat and choked her before raping her. She managed to leave the home later, she said.
Some women fought back, police said. One woman alleged that Bright drove her to his new residence on Starr Court last summer with similar promises of cocaine. When he pulled a knife and threatened her, she lashed back, telling Bright he “didn’t need the knife for sex,” and cursed at him, according to the document. Bright drove her back to the area where he had picked her up, she said.
A fifth woman told investigators Bright took her to the Starr Court home last fall with promises of a quarter-ounce of cocaine. When he threatened her with a knife, she punched him in the face, she said. Bright then offered to take her home, but she walked to her sister’s house, she said.
None of the women knew Bright by name and most couldn’t remember the exact day of the attack, police said. But they were able to describe the inside of his home, and all but one picked his photo out of a lineup, police said.
This month, investigators discovered a handful of human bones-a part of a tibia and some vertebrae-next to the home where Bright’s mother lived, authorities said. After authorities obtained a search warrant to dig up the yard, Bright started confessing, prosecutors said.
The task force that found Bright was formed in October after community activists and clergy complained that too little attention was being paid to the murders because the victims were mostly drug addicts and prostitutes.
Trust and fear
Once the task force was formed, police had to work hard to gain the trust and cooperation of prostitutes who had violent encounters with customers, McCoy said. But as women in the area disappeared and bodies turned up, fear among the area’s prostitutes and street drug users escalated.
Rumors circulated among social service circles that the killer had contracted HIV from a prostitute and was determined to take out as many prostitutes as he could, activists said.
When more women were reported missing, South Side Mission director Phil Newton called police in October and asked them to talk to the women of his shelter. Within two hours, task force officers held an impromptu meeting with the women, passing out business cards and interviewing some.
“It was a good partnership,” Newton said. “I’m convinced that our ladies gave police good information.”
Though Bright is behind bars, the fear has not evaporated from the streets. Two other slayings remain unsolved, a reminder of the danger that women working the streets continue to face, activists said.
“There’s a sense of relief, but not a feeling of complete safety,” Newton said.
Betty Menson, director of emergency services at Friendship House, clearly remembers the young faces of some of the victims. She hopes talk of their deaths also will include talk of the lives they led before getting into drugs and prostitution.
“They were still someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s sister,” she said.