Serial Killer Task Force on Hunt in La.

AP ^ | March 8, 2003 | MELINDA DESLATTE

[Indy Pendance]

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Before four southern Louisiana women were murdered by a serial killer, the disappearance of an LSU student during Mardi Gras probably would have drawn little attention.

But the case of Carrie Lynn Yoder, 26, has brought in federal, state and local law enforcement officers and raised fears that the serial killer may have struck again.

Police stressed that the search is simply a missing-person investigation and that Yoder's disappearance has not been linked to the killings of four women, two of them near Louisiana State University.

However, the case has renewed worries among some women who thought the murderer may have moved on. The killer's last known victim was from Lafayette, about 55 miles west of Baton Rouge. Her body was found Nov. 24.

"I got comfortable and I thought that it was over, and now it just makes you realize it's not. It just makes you nervous," said Ashley Alexander, an 18-year-old LSU freshman.

The task force hunting the serial killer joined the investigation immediately after Yoder was reported missing, but authorities emphasized they were helping out of "an abundance of caution." Baton Rouge police Cpl. Mary Ann Godawa, a spokeswoman for the task force, said it had tremendous resources and expertise to help with the case.

Yoder, a doctoral student in plant biology from Tampa, Fla., was reported missing Wednesday morning by her boyfriend. He last heard from her Monday, before she went to a neighborhood grocery store, according to police.

Police said she returned from the store and was home for more than two hours before she vanished. Investigators said there was no sign of a struggle and no sign of forced entry.

The area, on a small street about a block south of LSU, is a few miles from the homes where Gina Wilson Green and Charlotte Murray Pace were murdered by the serial killer. Police said DNA evidence left at the two scenes matched.

"Everybody thinks it's the serial killer," said Ashley Miller, 19, a sophomore at LSU, sitting near the campus bowling alley Friday. "This morning in my theater class, we were all discussing it. A guy in class asked all the girls if we were scared. We all said yes."

But 19-year-old Rebecca Barras, a freshman at the university, said she has not really let Yoder's disappearance frighten her.

The first news of the serial killer prompted Barras to ask her father to put peepholes in her doors, but she said the worry lessened even though the fourth victim - from Barras' hometown of Lafayette - was linked to the serial killer in December.

"After something starts happening so much, you just sort of get used to it," she said.

The serial killer's four known victims over the past year and a half are Green, Pace, Pam Kinamore and Trineisha Dene Colomb. Green was found strangled in her home. Pace was stabbed to death. Kinamore was abducted from her home. Her throat was slit and her body dumped about 30 miles away from Baton Rouge. Colomb was beaten to death and her body found in rural Lafayette Parish.

The serial killer task force has been contacted in dozens of other investigations that involved missing or murdered women.

State and local police and the FBI scoured the area near Yoder's house. They took photographs, dusted for fingerprints and searched the area with a tracking dog. Police took Yoder's car and computer as evidence, along with the front door of her house.

Investigators canvassed the neighborhood, talked to friends and family members and handed out questionnaires at the grocery store, asking if anyone had seen anything. Three helicopters searched the area Friday.

The FBI's behavioral analysis unit is also working on the case.