Infamous serial killers that targeted the Daytona Beach area

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Daytona Beach has a reputation, fairly or unfairly, for being a destination for society's undesirables.

Prostitution is prevalent in Daytona Beach. It's where outlaw motorcycle gangs assemble. It's where rowdy college students let off steam.

Even worse, serial killers - time and again - have roamed here, lived here or left bodies here.

Last week, Daytona Beach police announced a break in the infamous Daytona serial killings of 2005 and 2006, in which three prostitutes were targeted. Robert Hayes, 37, who at the time of the slayings was a criminal justice major at Bethune-Cookman University, has been linked to the murders through DNA evidence, police said.

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All three victims - Laquetta Gunther, 45; Julie Green, 34; and Iwanna Patton, 35 - were shot execution-style with a .40-caliber handgun.

"If you're a serial killer, the playing field is ripe for people on the fringes of society," said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who served as Daytona's police chief for 10 years before being elected sheriff in 2016. "Those who have been discarded by society find their way here. Who better for a serial killer to prey upon than someone who isn't going to be missed after they're gone?"

The Daytona Beach area has been a favorite spot for several killers who have had, at the very least, fleeting moments of national notoriety.

Aileen Wuornos was captured in Port Orange, which also was where Oba Chandler lived when he was arrested. Gary Ray Bowles murdered his first victim on Daytona Beach's beachside. Ottis Toole did roofing work in Deltona.

When the news broke about a particular serial killer on the lam, local police would half-jokingly suggest he would wind up on Interstate 95 heading for Daytona.

"We used to always have a saying, 'Sooner or later, the son of a bitch will come here,' " said former Daytona Beach police chief Paul Crow, who investigated serial killer Gerald Stano.

Crow, now 75, still lives in Daytona. The city remains a frequently visited place that hosts various events throughout the year, but during the 1980s, there were weeks when it felt like pandemonium.

"You could get lost in a crowd, basically," Crow said.

Read: 9 facts about serial killers

Chitwood said while he was police chief, one out of every five or so suspects arrested was from out of town. It's almost like people come to Daytona for the purpose of misbehaving.

Daytona Beach police Chief Craig Capri said he has "no idea" why the area has been such a magnet for mayhem.

"We're connected by I-95 and (Interstate) 4," Capri said. "It's a tourist area. It's a transient area, but really, I don't have the answers to that question."

Stano, Wuornos and Bowles

The first in a line of infamous killers to terrorize Daytona was Gerald Stano. He was arrested in 1980 after one of his victims, a local prostitute, escaped from a hotel room after he had beat her and doused her with acid.

Stano was linked to 33 murders. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the slaying of 17-year-old Susan Bickrest, an aspiring cosmetologist who had just moved to Daytona Beach from Ohio. Crow, who interviewed the killer numerous times for more than a year, suspects Stano killed as many as 88 people.

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The women he was known to have killed ranged in age from 12 to 34. Stano moved to the Daytona area with his parents when he was a young adult. The fledgling predator didn't have to search far to find victims.

"It's a place where there are a lot of young kids, young girls," Crow said, referring to scads of college and high school students who visit Daytona each year "It's easy stomping grounds for people like that."

Stano was executed in March 1998.

Wuornos, a known prostitute, was convicted in the 1989 murder of Richard Mallory, 51, of Clearwater. Mallory was murdered in Daytona.

Wuornos admitted to six other slayings in Marion, Citrus, Pasco and Dixie counties. She contended that she killed her seven victims in self-defense. She was arrested in January 1991 at The Last Resort in Port Orange and was executed in October 2002, becoming the second woman executed in Florida after the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976.

Gary Ray Bowles murdered six men from Daytona Beach to Montgomery County, Maryland. His first victim, John Hardy Roberts, 59, was killed in March 1994 in his home on Vermont Avenue in Daytona. Bowles struck Roberts in the back of his head with a lamp, choked him and stuffed a towel down his throat. Bowles killed his other victims in similar fashion during the next eight months.

Known as the "I-95 killer," Bowles was arrested in Jacksonville Beach after being profiled on "America's Most Wanted" at least five times that year.

Bowles was executed Aug. 22.

Daytona Serial Killer

Hayes, who was arrested Sept. 15 in South Florida in connection with a 2016 prostitute slaying in Palm Beach County, had eluded local authorities for nearly 14 years. Few details have been released about how Hayes was linked to the murders of Gunther, Green and Patton, but DNA taken from the Palm Beach victim matched DNA taken from two of the Daytona victims, Chitwood told the media last week.

As for Patton's killing, authorities said investigators made a ballistics match. Hayes had purchased a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson from a local shop prior to the killings and detectives are saying that was the murder weapon. Hayes was even interviewed twice as part of the investigation in 2006 because he had bought that weapon, but detectives didn't see any connection at the time.

Another prostitute, Stacey Gage, 30, was murdered in January 2008 in Daytona in similar fashion as the others. Opinions differ on whether she was murdered by the same killer. Authorities are still looking into whether Hayes is responsible for Gage's slaying.

During the months and years after the homicides, the investigation elicited many false leads and inaccurate profiles of the killer. Some of the theories were that he had been a police officer, had a military background or was a member of a motorcycle gang.

Hayes was a student at Bethune-Cookman from 2000 until his graduation in 2006. In addition to being a criminal justice student, he also was a cheerleader for the school.

Hayes has not yet been charged in any of the Daytona murders because more steps are needed in the investigation, State Attorney R.J. Larizza told the media. Additionally, no decision has been made on whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty if and when he is indicted, he said.

"It's such a relief that this guy was caught," Capri said. "It's huge."

He said he received word a "couple months ago" that the case was "starting to pick up," but didn't inquire further because the investigation was still in its delicate stages and he didn't want anything leaked or mismanaged.

Hayes has been charged in Palm Beach for the March 2016 killing of Rachel Bey, 32, who was strangled and then dumped on the side of a highway near Jupiter.

Hayes doesn't fit the profile of a typical serial killer - an uneducated, aimless white male.

Crow, however, wasn't surprised to learn that the man suspected of killing four prostitutes was a large-sized man. Hayes is 6-foot-4 and weighs 220 pounds.

"You knew whoever did those murders was big and strong," Crow said. "Every hooker will fight you to the death."

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Associated Press