Added police presence, outreach efforts credited Since the strangled body of Brenda Neighoff was found on a wooded path in Baltimore in early July, no other prostitutes have met a similar end, police said.
Neighoff was the fifth victim to die over a perilous stretch during which five women with records of prostitution were strangled between late March and late July in Baltimore.
The deadly four-month period prompted an Examiner investigative series, “The Killing Fields,” which revealed the perils of the city’s sex trade as told through the eyes of half a dozen prostitutes. Records uncovered by The Examiner also showed that of the 26 women with prostitution records killed in the past decade in the city, only seven cases have been solved.
Since the series began, added police presence has slowed the violence significantly in city neighborhoods known for prostitution, said Baltimore Police Department spokesman Troy Harris.
“We saw there was a problem, and district commanders put more officers on the street and made this a priority,” Harris said. “In no way do we think we should back off.”
Key arrests also have made women safer, Harris said.
In July, police charged William V. Brown of Gwynn Oak with the 2003 fatal beating of Emma O’Hearn, two weeks after The Examiner ran a story about the prostitute’s cold-case slaying. Brown also was charged with the brutal beating and rape of another prostitute who survived, and the homicide of Antiona Mills, a 15-year-old girl.
In November, a special homicide task force formed to investigate the five strangling deaths arrested Joseph Bonds, charging him with the slaying of Nicole Sesker, the stepdaughter of former police Commissioner Leonard Hamm. Sesker’s naked body was found behind an empty northwest Baltimore row home in June.
Mayor Sheila Dixon convened a meeting of advocates for sex workers with the city health department to coordinate outreach efforts by advocates for women.
Both sex workers and advocates point to these efforts as evidence that progress has been made since women came forward and told their stories.
“It made people stop and think and see us as human beings,” said Kathy Bailey, 45, a former prostitute who began working the streets when she was only 14. “We can just disappear, and no one knows or cares.”
Sid Ford, executive director of You Are Never Alone, an outreach organization that helps prostitutes, said, “We are thankful that more attention has been paid to the women; I think it has helped.”
Still, former prostitutes such as Bailey say life is always fragile for city sex workers, adding that four of the strangling cases remain unsolved.
“People don’t understand what it’s like; you have to be numb to do this,” Bailey said from the West Baltimore offices of YANA.
“And to be numb you have to have drugs, so it’s a vicious cycle that women just can’t walk away from — even when their life is in danger.”
