thank you for coming as you can see i'm joined here by District Attorney John Chisholm we're announcing that we're forming a task force to investigate a series of unsolved homicides spanning 21 years this task force will include the Milwaukee Police Department's cold-case squad the District Attorney's Office the state Division of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation we have discovered six homicides that are linked by one suspects DNA profile that was taken from each of the victims the victims in five of our cases were african-american females we know that they were working as prostitutes in a very high-risk occupation a sixth victim a white female was involved in drug use and sales suspect DNA was recovered from her as well these homicides date back to nineteen eighty six we now know the most recent one occurred in 2007 continuing advances in DNA technology have made this linkage possible and because of that we have formed the task force to gather more information about this unknown suspect now in the past we might have linked some of these homicides through their method of operation but Theory has given way to technology within the last couple of weeks we have been able to confirm a link as DNA technology advances we in law enforcement across the country are discovering more patterned homicides particularly those involving prostitutes currently Los Angeles Las Vegas and Mesa Arizona are all investigating unsolved patterns of murdered prostitutes that have been linked by DNA now we have compared the DNA in our cases to the national DNA databank and we can assure you that the deaths in Los Angeles Mesa and Las Vegas are not related to our investigation now these deaths over the last 21 years between 1986 and 2007 happened against a backdrop of an average of 116 homicides a year during that time during that 21 year period there were two thousand six hundred and five homicides in Milwaukee seventy-eight percent were cleared by arrest of those homicides between 1986 and 2007 42 were murdered prostitutes with a clearance rate of thirty one percent now this suspect with the DNA that we have uncovered in these six cases has been able to avoid any vain law enforcement for these last 23 years he has never been arrested for a felony as he does not appear in any DNA database now I district attorney John Chism's office has great experience prosecuting DNA cases and he will now speak to that issue we are committed to bringing justice to the victims and their families as part of that I have committed my resources I have experienced investigators and I have probably the most experienced and knowledgeable prosecutor in the country as it relates to investigations related to DNA and prosecutions related to DNA as a chief indicated we know we have a DNA profile located connected to six different cases at this point in time what is unique is that this individual is not in any known felony database as of yet and so because of that we are going to use constitutionally sound and approved methods to continue this investigation under the guidance of the Milwaukee Police investigators and under Assistant District Attorney norm gap as we proceed I am absolutely convinced that we will identify this unknown DNA profile and we will link it but we are going to ask one thing from the community where you're going to ask for your support we're asking for your support in the form of information and we're asking at the appropriate time that you cooperate with us as we try to identify this individual the number to reach us with any information that you have will be area code for 14 9 35 12 12 again area code for 149 three five one two one two we're going to continue to resubmit DNA samples from other murdered prostitutes they're going to go to the Wisconsin regional Crime Line when these results come back we may be linking additional homicides to this suspect we're in the process of submitting over 20 unsolved cases to D for DNA examination we have already determined that five suspects in murders of other prostitutes completely unrelated to this investigation have been identified because their DNA matched open homicide cases three of them are already in prison for cleared homicides of other prostitutes as the technology continues to evolve so have our methods of investigating homicides and the likelihood that we will make more connections between other offenders and murdered prostitutes as well as this unknown offender we have resubmitted data in at least two dozen unsolved cases of homicides of prostitutes and we are awaiting the return of that information finally to reinforce what the district attorney just said the tip line is for 149 three five one two one two now we can take a few questions but we'll both be obviously go guarded in our answers chiefland what you're describing here is a serial killer and that term is going to get people worried in this city what should they know about this serial killer and what can they do to really help well I think one of the challenges for us is those who have loved ones in the community that that work as streetwalkers quite honestly that's an extraordinarily vulnerable population it's a population that's probably in one of the most dangerous occupations there is our challenge is obviously to find an unknown suspect who conducts his business in secret with consensual potential victims and so it is going to be difficult for us and I think what we're going to really have to depend upon is gossip among other Street workers as well as information from families are there any other links outside of them being prostitutes there are a number of factors that we are looking very closely at and again we're working with the FBI we're going to develop profiles and I say profiles because it's not just the unknown DNA profile we're going to work with experts in the field to identify other means of identifying this person and then we're going to take advantage of the changes in technology that allow us for example to search databases for close matches close matches meaning that we're not going to get exactly a one-for-one match but you may very well find relatives who we can then use to follow up leads and we've done so successfully be in law enforcement have done so successfully and that's one of the methods that we anticipate employing as we go forward for the chief is there anything that could have led to this conclusion earlier without the DNA that could have been a link you know as I said earlier you know one can always develop a theory retrospectively the DNA technology evolved in the 1990s the first time DNA was submitted we didn't get any hits in around 2,000 we submitted some DNA and got two hits and now in 2009 we're finding the DNA technologies evolved where now we've linked six and so based on this promise we've submitted two dozen more cases because they're more may in fact be other cases linked to this unknown offender as well as I've said before you've established linkages with other offenders that are currently in custody you believe the suspect still is here area we don't know we have no idea he does not appear in any databases we don't know if he lives in the Milwaukee area but we are going to have to count on some real good cooperation out there among people that are both engaged in the sex trade as well as their family members we're going back what reason we have a task force is we can have that many more bodies to talk to people run down leads as the DA just indicated you know get an FBI profile put together i mean this is this is going to be an all court press your question about the task force that was earlier status what can you learn from that task force the experience that happened more than 10 years ago why was it to standard at that point in terms of technology wasn't there for there were there were some linkages at that point why was it disbanded in what well i would i would argue that it's never really been disbanded in the sense that that again we're talking about what's commonly referred to as a cold case homicide as opposed to a hot case which which is your exigent immediate pressing needs which consumes a lot of your resources when you when you have the ability you constantly go back again and again and again and try to develop additional leads we never stop we never stop there's no statute of limitations here and we have a long-standing tradition of trying to bring justice to our victim so so the answer is that even though that task force itself may have moved on the focus from the Milwaukee Police Department from their homicide division has never led up they keep coming back to these until those cases are solved and we've got a lot of examples a lot of very positive examples to give of successes in that in that field and you keep in mind you know over this course of the same period of time you know 2900 homicides 2900 other homicides are being investigated so sign an excuse is just perspective and within that 2900 we have found a pattern connecting six and that's a pattern clearly we're going to follow up now with this with this task force thank you all very much for attending