Investigators were retracing the travels of a photographer charged in the slaying of one model and linked to the death of another, trying to determine if he could be tied to other unsolved killings.
Charles Rathbun, 38, led searchers to the body of model Linda Sobek in the Angeles National Forest last week. He claimed he accidentally ran her over and buried her in a panic, an account investigators now doubt.The remains of another blond model, 20-year-old Kimberly Pandelios, were found in the same forest in 1993, a year after she disappeared.
Rathbun "is a suspect in that case," Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday.
"People have placed them together on at least two occasions. Whether she ever went with him for a photographic session or whatever, we have not established that yet," he said.
Pandelios' mother, Magaly Spector, told KCAL-TV in Los Angeles that she wasn't surprised Rathbun was a suspect. She said her daughter had told her she was working with "someone that knew a lot about motoring."
Rathbun had recently made his living as a freelance photographer, specializing in automotive photos. His attorney, Mark Werksman, wouldn't comment on the Pandelios case.
Block said the investigation of Rathbun is widening to other states.
"We're sending some people out of state this week to look at some unresolved cases in areas where we know Rathbun has been," the sheriff said.
He said one murder case being investigated is in Columbus, Ohio, near where Rathbun's father lives.
Detectives in Columbus said they were contacted by Los Angeles investigators this week about the case of Stephanie Hummer, 18, who was strangled and dumped last year near Ohio State University. Rathbun was once a student at the university.
Meanwhile, preliminary autopsy results cast doubt on Rathbun's claim that Sobek was run over by a car. The Sobek family was told the model was asphyxiated, but an official cause of death hasn't been announced.
"There appear to be significant bruises to the body that would indicate force," Block said.
In another development, the sheriff's department said that Rathbun told a reserve deputy hours before his arrest that he was involved in Sobek's death, but the deputy - a friend of Rathbun's - never alerted detectives.
Shannon Meyer, 37, who graduated from the academy in February, told investigators she didn't believe Rathbun because of his reputation as a practical joker and was more concerned about his threat to commit suicide, officials said. Rathbun has twice tried to commit suicide since Sobek's death, police said.