The Region - News from Feb. 5, 1987

Two detectives from the Southside Serial Killer Task Force, investigating 17 Southern California deaths, flew to Washington, D.C., to confer on six killings there and an arrest in one of the deaths. “This is a routine trip. Its main purpose is to assure thoroughness. We don’t have any evidence the crimes are connected,” Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth said of the trip by Detectives John St. John and Fred Miller. Most of the women killed in the Los Angeles area have been black women, a common factor with the East Coast killings, Booth said. Alton Best, 30, has been arrested in one of the cases there, that of a woman found strangled in an alley, District of Columbia police said. Five other bodies of women were found dumped in a field at Suitland, Md., but Best has not been charged in those deaths. The Los Angeles victims, most of whom were prostitutes, were strangled or stabbed. Police have not identified any of the Washington-area victims as prostitutes.