PHOENIX — Forensic evidence has definitively linked one of two serial predators in the Phoenix area to the killings of two women in February, police said Friday.
Sometime in the early morning of Feb. 20, 38-year-old Romelia Vargas and 24-year-old Mirna Palma-Roman were shot to death in their catering truck, which was parked at 91st Avenue and Buckeye Road near construction sites in southwest Phoenix.
The deaths bring to eight the number of killings connected to the "Baseline Killer," said Sgt. Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department.
"We developed, through the analysis of some of the forensic evidence, a connection between that double homicide and the Baseline Killer cases," Hill said. "Another horrible tragedy."
The Baseline Killer has been definitively linked through forensic evidence to the eight killings and three robberies, but he also is believed to have committed 11 sexual assaults and several more robberies. Hill declined to disclose what type of forensic evidence links the incidents.
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Since the investigation into the Baseline Killer began, police have been combing through past cases to see if any are connected. Just last month, they linked the Sept. 8 killing of a 19-year-old woman in Tempe to the killer.
Investigators had been looking into the killings of Vargas and Palma-Roman as being possibly connected to the Baseline Killer for some time, but were only able to "definitively" link them Thursday night, Hill said.
The Maricopa County medical examiner declined to release the autopsy information of Vargas and Palma-Roman, saying they had been sealed at the request of investigators.
According to previous autopsy reports in five of the six murders attributed to the Baseline Killer, five of the victims were shot in the head. The five reports also have been sealed.
A second serial criminal also is operating in the Phoenix area. The "Serial Shooter" is believed responsible for five killings and 17 nonfatal shootings since May of 2005. The shooter usually attacks late at night or in the early morning, and shoots from a vehicle, mostly at pedestrians and bicyclists.
The Silent Witness program is offering $100,000 for information leading to the capture of the serial criminals.
