Too Often, Women Target of Predators
by Thom Marshall
Two descasnos, or small roadside crosses, mark the spot where the bodies were found -- the cross on the left for Maria Moreno Rangel and the one on the right for Roxana Capulin.
A worker at the upholstery shop said she still can see a dark stain on the pavement left by blood that leaked from the car. Sometime during the night of May 31 the killer had left it parked on Joyner Street, at the corner, right beside the shop that opens onto Hogue.
The upholsterer said police already were there when she got to work on June 1, a Saturday. Someone told her two women had been shot to death and a fellow from another shop down the street discovered them on his way to work.
I was drawn to this place because I wanted to think about what happened to these women and about how it happens to so many others. I also visited El Mirador, the East End restaurant where Rangel, 38, and Capulin, 24, worked as waitresses. They were abducted as they were leaving and locking up for the night, bound with tape, sexually assaulted and killed by gunshots to the head.
DNA reveals another victim
According to DNA testing, the same man -- possibly not acting alone -- abducted and sexually assaulted Esmeralda Alvarado, 15. Her body was found Jan. 22, four days after she disappeared. She also was killed by a shot in the head.
Why can't we do a better job of protecting women from the predators that move among us? Consider some of the recent stories you may have read:
· Coral Eugene Watts, who confessed two decades ago to killling 13 women, and who is suspected of killing more than six times as many, could be released from prison in four years. Michigan police suspected him in several attacks on women in 1979 and 1980 and had him under 24-hour surveillance. Michigan authorities alerted Houston police when Watts moved to Texas in 1981. But there was little or no surveillance here, and in less than a year Watts had killed nine women in Houston, one in Galveston, one in Brookshire and one in Austin.
· In Baton Rouge, some five hours' drive east of Houston on I-10, police say DNA evidence links a serial killer to the deaths of three women in the past 11 months. Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster reminded women that they can get permits to carry guns.
· The Inter-American Human Rights Commission reported earlier this year that at least 268 women have been abducted and murdered since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez. Some crime experts believe the killings may involve suspects living in Texas or New Mexico.
And keep in mind the slayings of four women whose bodies were dumped between 1983 and 1991 in an area of League City that became known as the "killing field" (near Calder Road west of I-45). They remain unsolved, as do others.
The development of DNA technology has made it possible for investigators to determine when one man is wanted for multiple slayings and helps them to rule out innocent suspects.
Genetics may offer a key
Our congressman John Culberson decided to push legislation to broaden access to military DNA samples in criminal investigations after a Fort Hood infantryman was charged with raping a Houston-area soldier. The victim said use of DNA evidence could have caught her attacker quicker and possibly prevented other violent crimes. He is charged with a murder that occurred three months after the rape.
Perhaps one day we will find a way to prevent killings. Researchers reported a few days ago in the journal Science that a recently discovered gene is linked to violence, which leads one to wonder whether genetic screening and medications eventually may reduce violent crime statistics.
But for the present, solving the cases and stopping the killers remains difficult and too often is met with failure.
At a Wednesday news conference, Houston's police chief asked citizens to help stop the East End killer by reporting anything they've seen or heard that might be connected to the crimes.
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle