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Tired of posting articles on baby rapers, I felt that we should at least have an entry on the Black Horse Pike Marsh murders in Atlantic City. Four prostitutes were killed last year, all found in a drainage ditch behind a stretch of cut-rate hotels on the Black Horse Pike just outside the city. Three were blond and one had dark hair that was dyed – and all of them were laid face down with their heads pointed east, their feet were bare. The discovery of the bodies started when two women walking along the access road that is in between Black Horse Pike and the drainage system found the body of Kim Raffo. After authorities were notified, the then found three other bodies.

KIM RAFFO, 35. BornBorn reviews in Brooklyn, lived in Florida with her husband and two kids in 1990s, volunteering with the Girl Scouts and PTA. Enrolled in a cooking class at a technical school, and met a drug user who introduced her to cocaine and heroin. Her husband took the kids and left; Raffo and her boyfriend settled in Atlantic City, where she worked as a waitress before turning to prostitution. She was clad in a Hard Rock Cafe tank top when her body was found after a few days in the ditch. She had been strangled with either a rope or a cord.

TRACY ANN ROBERTS, 23. Grew up in New Castle, Del. She lived in PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia reviews before working in strip clubs in and around Atlantic City until she began hooking on the streets, where co-workers called her “the young one” or “the pretty one.” She lived in the same run-down area of seedy rooming houses as Raffo, whom she had befriended on the streets. Wearing a red hooded sweat shirt and a black bra, her body had been in the ditch anywhere from a couple of days to a week.

BARBARA V. BREIDOR, 42. Raised in Pennsylvania, rented a house in Ventnor, just outside Atlantic City. She ran her family’s Boardwalk jewelry store and worked as a cocktail waitress before a longtime drug problem worsened and pushed her into prostitution. Prosecutors said she had a “lethal” level of heroin in her system at the time of her death. Authorities were unable to determine how she died. Wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeve zippered shirt, she had been in the ditch at least two weeks.

MOLLY JEAN DILTS, 20. Grew up in Blairsville, Pa. Left behind a young son with his father in Pennsylvania to head to Atlantic City after a series of drug arrests. A former fast-food cook, she had never been arrested for prostitution in Atlantic City, although numerous streetwalkers said they saw her working in the sex trade as well in the short time between her arrival here and her death. Her body showed no traces of drugs, but she had been drinking just before her death. Clad in a denim miniskirt, a bra and mesh blouse, Dilts was believed to have been in the ditch the longest _ up to a month.

Investigators did have one prime suspect, although they never outright said so, and that was Terry Oleson. He had been staying at the Golden Key Motel in Egg Harbor Township just before the bodies were discovered behind it on Nov. 20, 2006. While authorities were searching his home, which was rigged with hidden video cameras, they discovered nude images of his then-girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter. Oleson pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy charges last month and is due to be sentenced next week.

Prosecutors asked Oleson for DNA samples to compare with evidence taken from the bodies, and he complied. Authorities still won’t say what the June tests revealed, but defense attorney James Leonard Jr said the fact that his client was allowed to plead guilty on the videotaping charge and was released on a drastically lowered bail shows that prosecutors are no longer interested in him in the four homicide cases.

“I have nothing to hide; I never have,” Terry Oleson has stated. “I was not involved in it. There’s no way my DNA was anywhere near them. I never met them. I wish I had some information for everybody. I hope they find whoever did this.”

Pam Covelli, a jailed prostitute, stated that she saw a man with the three women before they were found dead, this man turned out to be Bill Schlue who later called The Press to say he was the man she talked about but that he never hurt the women – or even had sex with them. Schlue said investigators have interviewed him in the past – and even took a cheek swab for DNA – but that he has been told he is not a suspect.

“They told me I was a witness,” he said. “I asked, ‘A witness to what?’ I didn’t witness anything.”

The case is not cold, the Atlantic County prosecutor insists even though it has now been months without word, Ted Housel says the investigation into the deaths of four prostitutes is still active. Understandably, investigating the deaths of prostitutes is made difficult as DNA found on them may lead you to someone, but it could simply be a client. Also making things difficult are relying on the word of people who live on the street whose stories are not consistent and memories of events considered questionable as wella s the fact that these people are involved in illegal activities and may not be to comfortable with dialog with law enforcement.

So, it has been a year, and the four deaths are still unsolved. Do you think this is a case of prostitutes being perfect victims, making the investigation harder with more obstacles, or is it that these were not four college students so the public eye is not watching and no one is out actively wanting justice for these women? Curious as to what you guys think.