The Bathtub Strangler

Clarkston, Georgia, is a small city of roughly two square miles in DeKalb County, about twenty minutes outside Atlanta. In 1981 it was a commuter suburb of low-rise apartment complexes, and it was at one of those complexes, the Wood Creek Apartments, that the first killing took place. On 15 April 1981 Luis Delsanto was found dead in the bath of the flat she shared with her brother, Dario. She was lying face down in a few inches of water, naked, and had been manually strangled. Semen was present in her vaginal area and in her mouth, and two pubic hairs were recovered from the bath rug; the hairs were said to be sufficiently similar to have come from one person. Dario had come home, called for his sister, found her in the bathroom and telephoned the police. He later testified that the water was still warm, that he found her at about 5.30 p.m., and that a telephone bill showed her last call, to her grandmother, ended at 3.30 p.m. She had not turned up for her four o'clock class at the Montessori school where she worked. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now One man got out, spoke to her briefly and walked with her out of sight; ten or fifteen minutes later he came back at a fast trot, got into the car and the car drove off. The next day Clardy did not report for work. The resident manager, Deborah Diane Smith, and the maintenance man, William Henry Hainey, searched and found her car. Smith unlocked apartment U1 and found Clardy face down in about four inches of water, naked apart from a blouse and manually strangled. There was no semen, but bruising showed she had been raped. Her clothes, a clipboard and papers had been thrown over her body.

Buffington became the central witness. He gave statements on 29 and 30 May, described a white man of about thirty in a V-neck shirt, with large wrists, muscled forearms and light hair on his arms and chest, and picked out photographs. He agreed to be hypnotised on 4 June 1981 by a psychologist, Dr Rashki, in an attempt to recover the car's tag number. The session produced almost nothing beyond a racing stripe on the car, and the recording was inaudible. A page of the police notes was later lost. The hypnosis, and what came of it, would shape the case for years.

Earlier attacks were linked to the series only later. On 3 March 1981 a man claiming to be a maintenance worker knocked at Margaret Finerty's door at the Windermere Apartments in Atlanta, choked her with a handkerchief or bandana until she passed out, and took nothing but a Second World War bayonet. details of the account remain covered until revealed She shut the door on the box and ran out the back to a neighbour to call the police. A coil of rope was found on the porch. Up the street that afternoon, Helen Whitehead was asked for a coat hanger by a man in a tan jumpsuit with a long white box on his car. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

On 5 June 1981 Meredith Nelson, who lived directly across the hall from Patricia Berry at the Windermere Apartments, was stopped in the hallway by a man who told her he had been in her apartment working on her pipes. Ten days later, on 15 June, Berry's roommate Julie Yao came home at seven o'clock, saw Berry's shoes kicked off in the hallway and ran to a neighbour's telephone. Her boyfriend searched the flat and found Berry face down in the bath, strangled with her own hair ribbon, half undressed but not sexually assaulted. A neighbour, Johnny Gan, told police he had seen a tall, blond, tanned and strongly built man wearing a gold medallion slipping round the corner at about 2.15 p.m. A composite drawing was made and published in the newspapers and on television, and a caller recognised it.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed His blood type matched the semen in two of the cases, which meant little, and the pubic hair was similar but not a DNA match. A search of his flat found nothing. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He had been born in 1949, had been abused by an alcoholic father, had received psychiatric treatment, and had served thirty days in 1980 for threatening to kill a friend, Jeff Campbell.

this part of the story is covered for now The judge refused a change of venue. Evidence from the hypnosis was excluded, and evidence of the other killings was admitted to show a pattern. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed Buffington was recalled and admitted he had been a day out about when he saw what he saw; the defence called the case a house of cards. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He had used a torn bed sheet. this part of the story is covered for now The episode leaves open whether he killed all three women, two of them, or none.