Six cases of missing or killed women in Chillicothe, Ohio, south of Columbus, are causing residents to speculate that a serial killer is in their midst, reports the Chillicothe Gazette. Two of the women remain missing and four have turned up dead. While local law enforcement officials, who have asked the FBI for help, haven’t ruled out the possibility of a serial killer, it isn’t the only avenue they are pursuing,
The troubling trend of missing women in the town of 22,000 began a little more than a year ago. Officials have said the women are connected through a common history of drug use, possible prostitution and connections to the same social circle. Although a coroner determined one of the women likely died from a multiple drug overdose, her manner of death was the result of “undetermined circumstances.” On May 29, a woman found a body in some weeds a few hundred yards from U.S. 23, a highway known as a primary route for drug trafficking. The body was Timberly Claytor, a woman not yet reported missing. She had been shot three times in the head.