Man linked to deaths of nine women since 1986

A MILWAUKEE man police say is linked by DNA to the killing of nine women since 1986 had shown angry tendencies in the past, but nothing that suggested he was responsible for deaths that terrorised local prostitutes for more than two decades, police said.

Walter E Ellis, 49, has been charged in the deaths of two of the nine victims, and more charges are expected this week, prosecutors said.

Ellis had been in trouble with the law before. He pleaded no contest in 1998 to a reduced charge of second-degree reckless injury and served three years of a five-year sentence, police chief Edward Flynn said. That wasn’t enough to raise red flags, he added, without providing additional details about that crime.