Decade later, cops still seek answers to killings
Police are hopeful they can find killer of four women
It’s been a decade since LaQuetta Gunther left her best friend’s Daytona Beach house on Christmas Eve.
Gunther promised to come back in a few hours so she and her friend, Stacey Dittmer, could do what had become a holiday tradition: Stay up all night and cook a full Christmas dinner — turkey, ham, green bean casserole, yams, gravy, crescent rolls. But Gunther never returned. And now, every December, Dittmer puts the wooden box that holds her best friend’s ashes by the Christmas tree.
“She was my confidant, I could tell her anything,” said Dittmer, now 51, sitting in her living room and smoking cigarettes her husband just rolled. “She was the best friend a person could ever have. She had faults, we all have faults. But she was the bomb.”
Gunther, 45, was a painter and labor hall worker, known around Daytona Beach bars for her boisterous sense of humor.
Her death was the first of four murders police believe were the work of a serial killer who may have been targeting women with a history of prostitution. Investigators have been on the case for 10 years, following leads and checking DNA samples to see if they can match evidence taken from crime scenes.
“The police, they haven’t stopped,” Dittmer said. “But they can’t stop looking at others things. They have a responsibility, they have robberies, other killings.”
They have not made any arrests.
Bullet in the head
When Gunther didn’t come back to the house that Christmas Eve of 2005, Dittmer assumed she was still out — maybe she drank too much, maybe she lost track of time.
Around 9:30 p.m., Dittmer watched the movie “The Replacements” as she waited for Gunther to return.
By 1 a.m., Dittmer started getting mad.
The thought of breaking their Christmas tradition saddened her. And making dinner by herself meant Gunther wouldn’t be there to help with the gravy, which in Dittmer’s hands always turned into the consistency of wet cement.
Eventually, Dittmer stopped waiting and went to bed that night.
The next morning, Dittmer went to the bars her friend frequented and asked if anyone knew where she was. No one did. While searching for Gunther, she saw police investigating something in an alley on North Street.
She didn’t know it at the time, but that’s where Gunther lay dead: Partially nude in a hole behind two buildings, with a bullet shot through the back of her head.
More found dead
After Gunther’s death, Dittmer put together a poster signed by her friends to hang in the alley where she died. One of those who signed it was Julie Ann Green.
Three weeks after Gunther’s murder, a construction worker found Green laying face down at a site off LPGA Boulevard on Jan. 14, 2006. She had been shot in the head.
Green, a 34-year-old Jacksonville native, had two daughters, 11 and 13 years old, according to an obituary published at the time.
Like Gunther, she frequented Willie’s Place, a bar on Madison Avenue.
By the end of February, police had a third victim: Iwana Patton, 35, was found dead near a dirt path that went through a wooded area near Williamson Boulevard and Mason Avenue on Sept. 26, 2006.
Patton lived in Holly Hill, but was from Buffalo, N.Y. She worked as a nursing assistant, but also had a history of prostitution.
The area never felt safe, but women in the neighborhood were on high alert after the murders, said Linda Meade, 71, a bartender at Willie’s Place.
“When you live that kind of lifestyle, your life is in jeopardy,” Meade said. “But you don’t have to live that kind of lifestyle for your life to be in jeopardy.”
Nearly a year passed until the next death: Stacey Gage, 30, was a Daytona Beach native and mother of two. She was found on Jan. 2, 2007, in a wooded area off Hancock Boulevard.
Police believed she had been dead for a few weeks. She did not have a record of prostitution, but the circumstances of her death were similar to the other three,
police said.
‘People don’t kill in a vacuum’
In March 2006, Daytona Beach police said the deaths of Gunther, Green, and Patton were similar enough that they could have been committed by the same person.
Investigators found matching DNA on two of the bodies. The bullets matched as well. All three had a history of drugs or prostitution, and their bodies were left in secluded places.
“Between the DNA and the fired brass from the same weapon that was identified, that’s what tied the three of them together,” said retired Sgt. Clem Malek, who joined the investigation after Gage’s death. “There’s no dispute in physical evidence.”
When Gage died, police linked her death to the same killer, even though her body was badly decomposed and collecting physical evidence was difficult.
Police have come across people who seem to fit the killer’s profile: Sex offenders, people who have attacked or killed prostitutes, men with violent pasts. But when police tested their DNA, they haven’t come up with a match.
“It’s extremely frustrating, but we never stop working,” said Daytona Beach Chitwood.
Daytona Beach investigators have combed through every detail of the case, looking for new clues.
Chitwood said he believes someone aside from the killer knows about the deaths.
“I know in my heart of hearts that there’s somebody out there who knows who this guy is,” he said. “People don’t kill in a vacuum.”
Police
Chief
Hoping for answers
Every Christmas Eve, Dittmer brings friends to the alley where Gunther was murdered.
They light candles, pour out a can of Busch beer, and look at the wreath they hung to mark the spot where she died. The poster Dittmer made a decade ago, the one signed by Green, has long since disappeared.
Dittmer often tries to picture her best friend’s final moments.
“I can’t see it,” she said. “I try to picture it in my mind a lot.”
But Dittmer keeps asking and hoping for clues.
“Ten years, and it’s Christmas,” Dittmer said. “And it hurts. It hurts a lot.”
Michael
Investigators have been on the case for 10 years, following leads and checking DNA samples to see if they can match evidence taken from crime scenes.