DETROIT _ A person of interest has been taken into custody by Detroit police in the serial killer case.
DeAngelo Kenneth Martin, a 34-year-old black male who is known to be homeless and frequents the east side of the city, was taken into custody Friday evening.
Martin, who is 5-foot-9 and approximately 160 pounds, was found at a bus stop in the area of 7 Mile Road and Gratiot, police said.
The news of a possible serial killer in Detroit was announced Wednesday after police said three cases involving the murders of three women may be linked.
Police said the killer appears to be targeting sex workers in their 50s.
On Friday afternoon, Detroit Police Chief James Craig gave a description of the third victim. The woman is described as African American, around 55 years old, 5-foot-1 and 100 pounds. He believes the woman may have been dead three or four days before she was discovered by police. Officers were in the process of talking to the woman's family.
Craig said the Police Department decided to go public with the case after the third woman's body was found naked Wednesday in a vacant home on Mack Avenue near Mount Elliott.
The first woman's body was found March 19 on the 2000 block of Coventry, and the second one was discovered May 24 on the 13000 block of Linnhurst.
All three locations were vacant homes in highly narcotic areas, said police, and the victims were unclothed.
Meanwhile, in an effort to quell public fears stemming from a spike in violent crime in and the police warnings of a serial killer in the city, officials announced Friday a massive, door-to-door dragnet for information and other victims.
"We are not going to let up," Detroit Police Chief James Craig said, flanked by other officers, city officials and volunteers at a news conference at police headquarters before the person of interest was taken into custody. "We are going to find this violent, predatory criminal."
The serial killer, Craig has said, appears to be luring women into vacant buildings, raping and then killing them.
News of a serial killer has generated national headlines, and city officials, as well as Detroit residents, do not want the bad news to revive the city's decades-long reputation for violent crime.
There were 261 homicides last year, down from 267 in 2017.
Moreover, Michigan history is dotted with serial killers who have targeted prostitutes. The men, crime experts say, often preyed on them because they tended not to draw as much publicity _ or public sympathy.
At the news conference, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan also promised to step up efforts to board up and tear down thousands of vacant homes and sought public support for his plan to seek a $200 million bond to continue his pledge to eliminate blight.
"The violence we've been experiencing in the city of Detroit has been heartbreaking," he said. "We've seen attacks on women, we've seen attacks on the LGBT community and we've seen random drive-by shootings."
Last month, he said, a teen was even shot and killed over Cartier eyewear.
Duggan promised that immediately after the media event, 40 neighborhood police officers would be deployed in pairs across the east side to search every abandoned house and "make certain we do not have any more victims."
In addition, he said, eight teams working overtime _ six days a week _ would board up thousands of homes.
"Some of you might remember, I promised it by the end of this year every house in the city would be demolished, occupied or boarded," he said. "Our board up teams have boarded up 19,000 houses in the city, we have 2,000 to go."
Duggan _ who called blighted homes a "plague on this city for far too long" _ defended his administration's program to demolish abandoned homes, which has been under scrutiny by a widening federal criminal probe.
The two other victims in the serial killing investigation have been identified as Nancy Harrison, 52, and Travesene Ellis, 53. One victim was white, the other black, an indication, the chief said, that the killer does not appear to be targeting women by race.
Social media rumors had been developing since mid-May that there was a serial killer in downtown Detroit, but, at the time, the Police Department repudiated them, saying, "there is false information circulating" and "this is not true."
Craig has reiterated the department's denial, saying that the three deaths he identified are different and urge anyone with information to call 1-800-SPEAK-UP so it can be used to help catch the killer.
