DNA ties Oregon prisoner to 2 of 6 serial killings from 1976

January 23, 2015, 12:26 PM Last updated: Friday, January 23, 2015, 12:31 PM

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) DNA evidence linked an Oregon prisoner to at least two of the six serial killings of young women that terrified the San Francisco Bay Area and a city in Nevada four decades ago, investigators say. He is suspected of the other slayings.

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Rodney Halbower, 66

The San Mateo district attorney's office charged Rodney Halbower, 66, on Thursday with two counts of murder during the course of rape for the deaths of Paula Baxter, 17, and Veronica Anne Cascio, 18.

Their deaths were among six police say are connected and occurred between January and April 1976 in California and Nevada. Five of the bodies were found in the suburbs immediately south of San Francisco, including one near Gypsy Hill Road, giving the killings their nickname. A sixth body was found in Reno.

DNA evidence linking Halbower to both killings was found on Baxter and Cascio, San Mateo Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Guidotti said.

"Based on the forensic links between a number of the cases, the time frame of the murders, and the methods used by the offender to commit these crimes, investigators are confident all the crimes were committed by the same offender," The FBI said in a statement in March after a Gypsy Hill Task Force was created to revisit the cold case using DNA technology.

Halbower denied involvement in any of the killings in a jailhouse interview with a local television station.

"I'm confused, and I want some answers," he told KGO-TV (http://abc7ne.ws/1yY0UkQ ). "I don't know anything. No knowledge about this."

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DNA ties Oregon prisoner to 2 of 6 serial killings from 1976