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Between 1992 and 1994, nine young black women in Charlotte, North Carolina, were raped and strangled to death, the murders increasing in ferocity and rapidity. For almost two years the killer remained at large, causing what led to an angry hysteria in the city — especially within the predominantly minority community where the murders were occurring. Observed was a lack of adequate police patrolling in that area of town. However, the real reason that the murderer continued to run rampant was because the police were, simply, stumped.Understaffed and overworked — there were only seven fulltime investigators on roll call at the time there are now 25 — the force was not ready to face a serial killer who crept up out of nowhere. Though eager, determined, tough and professional, the police were not used to a psychopath whose motive could not be labeled and whose modus operandi was too sloppy to categorize. Each of the murders was treated separately, with a different investigator assigned to each one. Notes were not compared and the cases went, for a long time, unlinked. The city cops finally sought help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.But, even at that, the contact provided little information at first, proclaims Charisse Coston, Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of North Carolina. The killer at large in the CharlotteMecklenburg area did not fit the usual profile of a serial murderer. For one, he slew close friends and acquaintances, even coworkers, an exceedingly rare trait of this brand of killers.However, Henry Louis Wallace, the eventual suspect, did share one common thread with all serial killers: He was able to hide his inner vehemence from the world. Says Coston, The very people he killed trusted him. They had no forewarning of their death, even seconds before he struck at them.A 1994 Time magazine article on serial killings, called Dances With Werewolves, attests to this. Author Anastasia Toufexis says of Wallace, Women, taken with his sweet smile, solicitous attitude and pleasant looks, trusted him...They invited him to their homes for dinner, watched while he cradled their babies in his arms, accepted his invitations to date.

 

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