CRIME HUNTER: Eastbound Strangler eludes cops for 15 years

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“Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty. And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.”

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— Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City

The victims were not dissimilar from the town where they plied their trade.

Atlantic City had once been America’s summer playground but eventually it went to seed. Legalized gambling put some gloss on the old boardwalk but rot was never far away.

It’s now been 15 years since the discovery of four dead sex workers behind the Golden Key Motel on the outskirts of Atlantic City on the New Jersey shore.

Cops even had a name for their still unidentified killer: The Eastbound Strangler.

On Nov. 20, 2006, the four victims were discovered face down and lined up in a row facing east. They were approximately 60 feet apart. All four were clothed aside from their shoes and socks.

They had been strangled to death.

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“Fifteen years later we have not made an arrest for these homicides, but we’re always looking, we’re always working and reexamining information about this case. We haven’t stopped. We won’t stop. And 15 years later we are still in constant communication with our law enforcement partners. We leave no stone unturned,” Chief of County Investigators Bruce DeShields said.

The lives of the victims were marinated in a familiar tangle of woe. They were discovered by two women out for a walk.

— Barbara V. Breidor, a 42-year-old sex worker who needed the money to support her cocaine addiction, disappeared in October 2006.

— Molly Jean Dilts, 20, did not have a record for prostitution but detectives determined she was working the stroll and they believe she was the first to die.

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— Kim Raffo, 35, a former waitress from Brooklyn had left her husband and children for a life of drugs and prostitution in Atlantic City. She was last seen alive on the day before the macabre body discovery. She had been strangled to death with a rope or cord.

— Tracy Ann Roberts, 23, a former stripper, also sold sex to support her drug habit. She was last seen alive in November 2006.

Police Chief Michael Hughes was a detective at the time.

“I remember that night like it was yesterday and getting the phone call about the bodies of the women that were discovered. I remember exactly where I was going in the car with my family and I dropped everything and said I have to go. I knew that I had to get there immediately,” Hughes said.

There were suspects early in the investigation but those persons of interest would eventually fade to nothingness.

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One was handyman Terry Oleson, 41, who stayed for free at the Golden Key Motel in exchange for repairs when the homicides took place. An angry girlfriend told cops he was the killer. Inside his room detectives found cameras set up and images of his girlfriend’s teenage daughter undressing.

But the DNA didn’t match and Oleson was never named as a suspect.

Eldred Raymond Burchell told another prostitute he was the killer but police queries never panned out. A slew of other low-rent habitues of Atlantic City’s seedier fringes were also questioned but to no avail.

Anyone with information about this case or any other serious crimes is asked to call the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office at 609-909-7800 or Crime Stoppers at 609-652-1234 or 1-800-658-8477 (TIPS).

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COPS NAME SUSPECT IN 1983 FLORIDA MURDER

Nearly 40 years after her short life was snuffed out, detectives in Florida have identified a suspect in Carla Lowe’s killing.

On Nov. 13, 1983, Lowe — who cops said was waiting for an Amtrak train — was beaten to death in Delray Beach. She was only 21 at the time.

Officers found her 1963 Mercury Comet in an open field east of 1135 W. Atlantic Ave. in Delray Beach on the Sunshine State’s Atlantic side.

Cold case Det. Todd Clancy was recently assigned the case and reopened the investigation.

Advances in technology, particularly a fingerprint from the 1983 crime scene, led detectives to a suspect who has been identified as Ralph Williams, 59, of Jacksonville.

Clancy told reporters there was no known connection between the victim and suspect and that a motive remains unclear. What is clear is that Williams will be charged with first-degree murder with a weapon.

“I would also like to thank the detectives who worked this case in 1983, because they deserve most if not all the recognition — Det. Mark Woods and Sgt. Robert Brand,” Clancy said. “If it wasn’t for their documentation and hard work back in 1983, we would not have all the information that we have today.”

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