Two held in L.A. strangler hunt

Press, 28 December 1977, Page 6

Two held in L.A. strangler hunt

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles

A 21-year-old woman and a teen-ager who was turned out of a troubled girls home which had closed for Christmas were strangled by someone apparently imitating the so-called hillside strangler, the police have said in Los Angeles. Two men have been arrested and booked for investigation of murder. Police Lieutenant Don Foster said Stephen Devezin, aged 40, had been arrested on Monday morning and charged. A man who the police say is a friend of Devezin, Thomas Davis, aged 24, had been ar-

rested and booked earlier. Lieutenant Dan Cooke, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said the deaths of the two young women, whose bodies were found early on Saturday, probably were not related to the deaths of 11 young women killed by the hillside strangler since midOctober. He said Davis had been traced through a car registration number provided by a motel employee who had seen a man place what he thought was an “unconscious woman,” wrapped in a blanket, in a car. Davis was booked for investigation of murdering Carolyn Williams, aged 21,

of Los Angeles, whose par-tially-clothed body was found dumped in a Car park before dawn on Saturday. Miss Williams and Paula Gwen Ward, aged 18, whose semi-nude body was discovered on Saturday in nearby Pasadena, had been seen together on Friday, Lieutenant Cooke said. “Based on evidence of the way the murders were committed, it is altogether possible that whoever did it tried to make a similar type of killing (to the hillside stranger murders), Lieutenant Cooke said.

“Copycat killings are not unusual when there is this type of publicity in the case,” he said.