GARY, Indiana — Police in Northwest Indiana are questioning a possible serial killer.
Law enforcement sources told WGN a man in his 40s was taken into custody for the murder of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy. Her body was found Friday at a Motel 6 in Hammond, Indiana. The suspect, described as a 43-year-old Indiana man who is also a convicted sex offender in Austin, Texas, may have met the victim through the website backpage.com, according to sources.
When police arrested the man at his home in nearby Gary, Indiana, he began to confess to multiple murders and told police where to find the bodies of three other women. Those bodies were found inside three abandoned homes in Gary.
Throughout Saturday night into early Sunday morning, the bodies were recovered in the 2200 block of Massachusetts, 400 block of E. 43rd Avenue and 1800 block of E. 19th Avenue in Gary.
The Lake County, Indiana Coroner is now conducting autopsies on all of the bodies.
“At least one of them is decomposed,” Gary Police Cpl. Gabrielle King said.
Most disturbing is the possibility of even more bodies being recovered in the coming days, as the suspect begins to talk with investigators.
As news of the discoveries gets out, officials in Lake County tell WGN they are being overrun with calls from family members of missing persons asking if those found so far are their loved ones. Sources told WGN the man may have wanted to get caught, based on what police found at one of the crime scenes.
This is a developing story.
