“Our investigators thoroughly looked into it and as of right now, we cannot find anything that links Mr. Falls with incidents in Ross County. We can’t find any ties whatsoever even in the state,” Preston said. Nevertheless, investigators have already sorted through 500 tips so far and more come in daily. Behavioral experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are also assisting with the investigation.
Falls showed up at the apartment of a Charleston, W.Va., escort, known as Heather. Police said Falls responded to an online ad posted on Backpage.com to meet with the woman.
When Falls entered her residence, he pointed a gun at her and asked her, “Live or die?” and then began to choke her, she said.
Heather said she grabbed a rake, and when he put his gun down to get the rake, she grabbed it and shot him dead. Heather ran from her home and called police, who found the tools of a serial killer in his car: a machete, axes, knives, a shovel, sledgehammer, bleach, plastic bags, bulletproof vests, and four sets of handcuffs.
Police also found a list of 10 other women, all of whom are still living, in Falls’ possession.
Tracing his past, Falls may be linked to the disappearance and presumed murders of at least nine women in Illinois and Nevada, police said. All the missing women were escorts and most of them advertised online.
“It’s likely that Mr. Falls is a serial killer,” said Lt. Steve Cooper, Charleston police chief of detectives. “I believe (Heather) saved lives by shooting Mr. Falls, based on what he did to her and based on the items found in his car.”
Heather was not charged in connection with the shooting.
Chillicothe is only a two-hour drive from Charleston. Police have said Falls kept a pillow and blankets in his car, apparently sleeping in the vehicle at times.
Meanwhile, a grand jury in Chillicothe days ago indicted Jason McCrary in the shooting death of Timberly Claytor, 38, who died earlier this year. Claytor’s death is the only one in the Chillicothe group to be determined as definitely a homicide by the coroner. On Tuesday, McCrary, who has a history as a violent offender, pleaded not guilty.
But authorities remain alarmed because the women, all missing or found dead in the past year, ran in the same circles in Chillicothe, with histories as heroin abusers and prostitutes.
The dead women include Tameka Lynch, 30, found dead in Paint Creek in Highland County by a kayaker, whose death has been declared a drug overdose; Shasta Himelrick, 20, found in January in the Scioto River outside Chillicothe, whose death was ruled a suicide and Tiffany D. Sayre, 26, whose body was found near Cave Road not far from where Lynch was found in a remote part of Highland County.
Missing are Charlotte E. Trego, 28 and Wanda Lemons, 38. Lemons occasionally visited Dayton, where it is believed she worked as a prostitute.
The Associated Press is reporting that so far, no history of major crimes is showing up in Falls’ record, but authorities in 20 other states or more — from Arizona to Kentucky to Virginia — had some kind of interaction with Falls such as stopping him, running his license plate or checking his Social Security number.
“We are sharing this information with law enforcement across the country in hopes that we may be able to help solve cold cases or bring closure to some families if Mr. Falls has been involved in anything like this before,” Cooper said.
Police have said Falls rented a room in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson during a time when four prostitutes went missing, the AP said.
Henderson police spokeswoman Michelle French told the AP Monday that they are checking into a Falls connection to the May 2005 disappearance of 21-year-old Lindsay Harris. She was the subject of massive search, and her family from central New York helped comb the desert area where her rental car was last seen some 30 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip.
The case appeared on an episode of “America’s Most Wanted.” Leg parts identified as hers through DNA testing were found three years later off Interstate 55 near Springfield, Illinois, more than 1,600 miles away.
“Any leads that will come to us, we’re going to follow up on,” French said, declining to discuss details.
“He had no cash, no credit cards,” Cooper said. “It’s a mystery how he had traveled across the country to us right now. There’s something that we haven’t discovered yet.”
An Oregon television station, KATU-2, interviewed a Eugene landlord who rented a room to Falls in 2010 and later evicted him.
“The first thing that he did that was a little odd was that he immediately changed the deadbolt to his own room so that only he had a key,” said Pauline, who asked to not be identified by her last name. “He said he had guns and weapons and that he was a security guard.”
Pauline said Falls worked the graveyard shift and slept during the day.
“Little creepy, very tightly lipped and not a chummy guy, definitely not a chummy guy,” she told the station. “Somebody who doesn’t like to be exposed.”
The Associated Press and Cox Media Group contributed to this report.
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