Serial Murders

The Zodiac, the hooded serial killer who menaced the Bay Area 40 years ago, has so fascinated the public that major motion pictures, books and blogs have been devoted to sifting through clues for his identity. Just when you thought every angle had been covered, along comes Deborah Perez, who announced at a raucous sidewalk news conference in San Francisco that the Zodiac was her dad and she rode in his car when he went out to kill.

By the time homicide Det. Dennis Kilcoyne met with Diane Webb last fall to discuss the maddening search for a serial killer who has stalked South L.A. for decades, he was wide open to suggestions. Despite more than a year of chasing leads, Kilcoyne and his team of detectives were no closer to catching the man suspected of sexually assaulting and murdering at least 10 young black women.

One of two men charged in a series of random slayings that terrorized the Phoenix area in 2005 and 2006 pleaded guilty Friday to first-degree murder. The move does not guarantee that Samuel Dieteman, 32, will be spared a death sentence, which prosecutors said they still intend to pursue. However, Dieteman's agreement to testify against his alleged partner, Dale Hausner, will be taken into account when a jury considers his penalty.

Los Angeles County prosecutors filed murder charges Friday against a 51-year-old prison inmate, alleging that he raped and killed four area women between 1986 and 1993. The charges mark the latest effort by police to close dozens of cases of women slain in South Los Angeles and the vicinity during the 1980s and 1990s, killings that went unsolved for years.

The Los Angeles Police Department's hunt for an elusive serial killer who has stalked women in South L.A. for more than two decades was dealt a setback Tuesday when a controversial search of DNA databases for the killer's family members came up empty. "We were hoping," said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck, who is overseeing a task force of detectives working to solve the case. "Police work is very much about exploring every avenue. We went down this one and it didn't turn out to be fruitful."

A jury Tuesday ordered the death penalty for serial killer Ivan J. Hill, who was convicted of murdering six San Gabriel Valley women a dozen years ago in the "60 Freeway Slayer" case. Hill, 45, killed Betty Sue Harris, Roxanne Brooks Bates, Helen Hill, Donna Goldsmith, Cheryl Sayers and Debra Denise Brown between November 1993 and January 1994, strangling them by various means, then dumping their bodies on roadsides.

A month after police unearthed 17 skulls and other bones in the backyard of a home in this New Delhi suburb, the horror hasn't faded. Two weeks ago, more than 40 plastic bags were fished out of a drainage ditch near the house, stuffed full of human remains. The grisly find was the latest evidence of one of the worst suspected cases of serial killing in Indian history, a string of brutal crimes that authorities fear may have included dozens of victims.

A man accused of brutally killing a number of drug addicts and prostitutes said he eventually wanted to kill as many as 75 women, an undercover Canadian police officer testified. Robert Pickton is alleged to have made the comments in a jail cell conversation with the undercover agent shortly after his arrest in 2002. The officer cannot be named by court order. Pickton has been charged with 26 murders, although the current trial deals with only six.

Frank Pakenham, the Earl of Longford, enjoyed a reputation as one of the most vigorous British social reformers of the 20th century -- that is, until he befriended a convicted serial killer who helped her domineering lover sadistically kill their young prey. The HBO drama "Longford," which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and airs Saturday, incisively depicts the complex friendship that developed between the earl and Myra Hindley, considered "the most reviled woman in Britain."

Rodney Alcala, an alleged serial killer facing murder charges for the 1970s slayings of an Orange County girl and four Los Angeles County women, will have two trials, the state's 4th District Court of Appeal decided Wednesday. The prosecution had hoped to try Alcala for all five murders at once in Orange County; his defense team had argued for five separate trials.