1987 Tape May Hold Clue to Serial Killer

From the L.A. Times:

In the more than two decades since Los Angeles police detectives began the search for a serial killer stalking young prostitutes in South L.A., they have had few breaks. One night in 1987, however, offered a tantalizing, agonizing clue.

Shortly after midnight on Jan. 10, a man called police from a pay phone to report that he had seen someone dump a woman's body out of the back of a van and leave it in an alley. He gave the address, a description of the van and its license plate number: 1PZP746.

"Is that T like Tom?" the dispatcher asked, according to several Los Angeles Police Department detectives who have heard a recording of the call.

"No, P like puppy," the man said, speaking in a raspy, deep voice.

The call lasted no more than 30 seconds. At the end, the dispatcher asked for the man's name.
He chuckled nervously at the question. "I know too many people. OK, then, bye-bye," he said, hanging up the phone.

Twenty years later, with little else to go on, detectives are hopeful that the call may still hold the key to identifying the elusive killer who has claimed at least 11 victims. Today, police plan to release a recording of the call to the public, along with details of the van and the church that owned it on the chance that someone will come forward with information.

"There has got to be something to this. There is just too much information here for there not to be something of value for us," said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who heads a task force charged with catching the killer. "We're hoping somebody out there will be able to help us make the connection between this body, the van and the caller."

The search for the serial killer has been a frustrating, uneven one. Long stretches of time between known killings and a disjointed, often dormant investigation that spanned different generations of detectives left police unclear for years that one man was behind the slayings.

Last summer, police acknowledged that they had linked the same man to the 11 killings through ballistic and DNA evidence. His last known victim was killed in May 2007.

Formed after the most recent killing, the LAPD task force has struggled to make progress. The killer's genetic profile, known from DNA evidence left on several of his victims, failed to match any of the millions stored in state felon databases. Efforts to find and tease information from relatives or others have been hamstrung by faltering memories and the dramatic demographic shifts South Los Angeles has experienced since the killings began.

Full article here.
Video of story here.