The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the suspect, a 49-year-old Milwaukee man, was arrested Saturday and booked on a temporary felony warrant.

Police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz would not confirm an arrest Monday, telling The Associated Press only that police were talking with a “person of interest” in connection with a number of cold-case homicides.

The police department scheduled a news conference for Monday evening.

Police Chief Edward Flynn and Milwaukee County district attorney John Chisholm announced a new investigation four months ago after DNA evidence linked the women’s deaths to one person. Police said then that they never stopped investigating the cases, but scored a major breakthrough when DNA technology suggested the same person killed six of the women and had sex with the seventh.

The victims were six black women between the ages of 19 and 41 and a white 16-year-old runaway. Their bodies were found within a 3-square-mile area of Milwaukee’s north side between 1986 and 2007.

The investigation produced breaks in other cases. Detectives resubmitted more than 20 other DNA samples taken from prostitutes in unsolved homicide cases to the state crime laboratory to check for possible links to the killer. That work led to progress in at least 10 unrelated killings, authorities said.

Two people were charged in a pair cases from 1990 and charges were being considered against a third suspect, Chisholm said late last month.

Five other suspects have been identified in other cold cases, four of whom are currently serving life terms or extended terms, Flynn said. Police were continuing to gather more evidence in those cases, he said.

source: foxnews.com

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Glynn County police in a statement identified the dead as: 44-year-old Russell D. Toler Sr.; 29-year-old Russell D. Toler Jr.; 22-year-old Chrissy Toler; 15-year-old Michelle Toler; 19-year-old Michael Toler; 40-year-old Brenda Gail Falagan; 46-year-old Guy Heinze Sr.; and 31-year-old Joseph West.

Police did not explain the relationship between the victims.

The victims were described as family by Guy Heinze Jr. in a frantic 911 call shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday reporting the killings. Police later arrested Heinze on drug and other charges, including lying to police. His first court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.

Police said the ninth victim, whose identity has not been released, remains in critical condition.

Michael Toler had been previously identified by police. He survived the initial attack but died later at a hospital.

Autopsies on the eight victims were completed Monday but police did not release the cause of death for any of the victims.

Police have been tight-lipped about the investigation but have said they have not arrested any suspects.

Police had scheduled a news conference for 3 p.m. Tuesday, where they had planned to release the identities of the victims. That news conference was called off when the names were released in a statement Tuesday morning.

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Two people survived the attack with brutal injuries. Georgia police are investigating the killings as a murder-suicide involving multiple members of the same family, a law enforcement source told the Florida Times-Union.

Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering called the grisly murder scene “horrific,” the paper reported, but police have not detailed what they found at the mobile home nestled among centuries-old, moss-draped oak trees in coastal southeast Georgia.

“It’s not a scene that I would want anybody to see,” Doerring said, describing it as the worst mass murder he’s seen in 25 years of police work.

Guy Heinze Jr., 22, a relative of those found killed, was arrested late Saturday and charged with illegal possession of prescription drugs and marijuana, tampering with evidence and making false statements to police, Doering said. Doering did not know whether he had an attorney.

Autopsies were scheduled Sunday on the bodies of the seven victims, most of whom were related to Rusty Toler, a poor resident of the trailer park in Brunswick, Ga., a law enforcement source told the Times-Union.

Toler and three of his four children are among the dead, the paper reported. A fourth child is hospitalized in critical condition, a source with intimate ties to the family said.

Investigators were talking to neighbors about whether they saw or heard anything unusual at the dingy mobile home shaded by large, moss-draped oaks with an old boat in the front yard. Police had not interviewed the survivors, who remained in critical condition Saturday night and may be the only witnesses.

“I assume they know something, but we have not been able to speak to them,” the chief said.

All seven bodies were tentatively identified by Saturday evening. Doering said families of the victims had been notified, but he would not release any names or ages before receiving the autopsy results.

“I really don’t know the ages,” Doering said. “There were some older-aged victims and we believe there were some in their teens.”

Located a few miles north of the port city of Brunswick, the mobile home park consists of about 100 spaces and is nestled among centuries-old live oak trees near the center of New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation’s Web site.

The 1,100 acre tract is all that remains of a Crown grant made in 1763 to Henry Laurens, who later succeeded John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress in 1777.

Laurens obtained control of the South Altamaha river lands and named it New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation’s Web site.

Lisa Vizcaino, who has lived at New Hope for three years, said the management works hard to keep troublemakers out of the mobile home park and that it tends to be quiet.

“New Hope isn’t rundown or trashy at all,” Vizcaino said. “It’s the kind of place where you can actually leave your keys in the car and not worry about anything.”

Vizcaino said she didn’t know the victims and heard nothing unusual when she woke up at 7 a.m. Saturday morning. After word of the slayings spread, she said, the park was quieter than usual.

“Everybody had pretty much stayed in their houses,” Vizcaino said. “Normally you would see kids outside, but everybody’s been pretty much on lockdown.”

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Early Saturday investigators found the nine victims at a mobile home near the center of the New Hope Plantation trailer park. Police have yet to release many details in the case, including how the victims died or if any suspects are being questioned in the case.

“It’s not a scene that I would want anybody to see,” Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering told reporters. “There has not been such a number of victims, that I know of, in the history of this county.”

Doering said the victims ranged from a young age to “a very old age” and that no arrests have been made in the case.

When he was asked whether there was a killer on the loose, the police chief said only that area residents should be “vigiliant.”

“Always remain vigilant, always be mindful and if you hear something, you see something that’s obviously not conjecture, that somewhat direct that would be helpful, please call us,” Doering said.

Jimmy Durben, a director at the Glynn County Coroner’s Office, who was at the crime scene, told ABC News affiliate WJXX-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations crime lab will determine the cause of death of the seven people, because it was not immediately apparent.

He described the crime as brutal and called it “the worst crime scene I have ever witnessed in my 17-year history in the coroner’s office.”

“It’s normally pretty quiet around here,” a resident of the trailer park told WJXX-TV. “Everybody gets along … it’s a little disturbing.”

Another resident of New Hope, Lisa Vizcaino, told The Associated Press that the mobile home park and that it tends to be quiet.

“New Hope isn’t rundown or trashy at all,” Vizcaino said. “It’s the kind of place where you can actually leave your keys in the car and not worry about anything.”

She said that once news of the slayings spread around the trailer park, everybody was “pretty much on lockdown.”

“Everybody had pretty much stayed in their houses,” Vizcaino said. “Normally you would see kids outside.”

Police were working on leads to identify a suspects, the chief said. The two injured victims were listed in critical condition at a Savannah hospital, according to investigators.

About 20 detectives have been assigned to the case and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the investigation, Doering said.

source: abcnews.go.com

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