Baltimore police have learned the most recent victim in a rash of strangling deaths of women was working as a prostitute before she was killed, according to departmental reports.

Friends of Brenda Hatfield, 45, whose naked body was found behind the New Psalmist Church on July 8, told investigators she was working as a prostitute along Patapsco Avenue and Hollins Ferry Road in South Baltimore near the time of her death ? a known areafor prostitution, the reports show.