Sheriff’s Deputy Held in Prostitute Killings : Gun Found in Trunk Linked to 3 Murders in South-Central L.A.

A veteran Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics investigator has been arrested on suspicion of murdering three prostitutes in South-Central Los Angeles, where police have been investigating the deaths of several women who trade sex for drugs, authorities said Friday.

Deputy Rickey Ross, 40, who has been with the Sheriff’s Department for 18 years, was spotted with a prostitute in an unmarked county car near the Harbor Freeway and Gage Avenue at 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said at a Friday morning news conference.

According to a police statement, Ross was held as a murder suspect after ballistics tests showed that a loaded gun found in the car “had been used in three murders of women involved in prostitution.”

‘A Number’ of Suspects

Ross is one of “a number” of suspects under investigation in a series of prostitute slayings, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris said Friday. There have been reports that perhaps as many as 12 murders are being investigated together, although officials have declined to enumerate or provide any specifics about the case, saying only that it involves prostitutes.

For the last two weeks, it was learned, officers have been showing Southside prostitutes two composite drawings--one of a white man and one of a black.

Asked whether any other suspects were sheriff’s deputies, Norris responded, “I can’t say.”

Gates said there was evidence Ross and the woman had been smoking cocaine.

As patrol officers approached them, police said, the unmarked car “pulled away from the curb in an erratic manner.” The officers forced the car to a stop and said they discovered Ross, who was off duty, “under the influence of an intoxicating substance.”

The woman, according to Gates, “was a prostitute who was concerned for her safety.” Officers said the woman told them that she had become frightened when Ross wanted to go to the trunk of the parked car. She was not identified.

Officers said they found the gun in the trunk of the car, a Ford Tempo leased by the county and used by Ross’ narcotics investigation unit.

Initially, Ross was booked at THE 77th Street Police Station on suspicion of driving under the influence. Then, according to Lt. Fred Nixon, Police Department spokesman, he was turned over to the Sheriff’s Department.

Deputies accompanied him to his home in Rialto and, according to Nixon, stayed with him while ballistics tests were being conducted on the gun. Late Thursday, they booked him as a murder suspect. He was held without bail at Parker Center.

Police stressed that the gun was not Ross’ service revolver. They said a second weapon was found in the car, but they described neither.

Victims Identified

The victims were identified as Judith Simpson, 27, who was found dead last Oct. 14 at 88th and San Pedro streets; Cynthia Walker, 35, whose body was found Nov. 18 at Flower and 46th streets, and Latanya Johnson, 24, found Dec. 11 on West 94th Street.

Gates told reporters that their murders had been investigated together because the same weapon had been used in each.

The chief said Ross was not a suspect before his arrest and was not being followed. Ross did not have his badge or Sheriff’s Department identification with him when arrested, Gates said.

According to Gates, Ross waived his rights and spoke with police, admitting that he picked up the prostitute found in the car, but he was unable to explain what he was doing with her.

Gates declined to say whether the woman with Ross was a “strawberry”--street slang for prostitutes who trade sex for drugs. Most victims in the unsolved string of Southside slayings were such women, police have said.

In recent weeks, police have been warning prostitutes about the possible presence of a serial killer. Gates said the woman with Ross had been “well-informed, well-briefed” by police.

Sheriff Sherman Block described the effect of the arrest on the Sheriff’s Department as “devastating.” It was, he said, “a very sad day for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”

Block, who joined Gates in announcing the arrest of Ross, said the deputy had a “very fine record” and had been “a very effective investigator in the narcotics bureau.”

‘Most Devastating Thing’

He said: “I think it’s . . . important to say that in law enforcement the most devastating thing that could happen to any organization is the death of one of its members--and close behind that is an incident where one of the agency’s members goes over the line and is involved in serious criminal activity.”

Although many of his fellow deputies described Ross as an affable, hard-working officer, the attorney of an elderly Pasadena woman who collected $30,000 from the county because of a raid by Ross and other narcotics deputies on the wrong apartment three years ago described him as “a very intense, nervous individual.”

Carol A. Watson’s client, then 69 years old, was in the hospital when the deputies burst into her apartment during the early hours of Jan. 8, 1986, looking for drug peddlers.

“He was quite arrogant about the correctness of his position,” Watson said. “I could only conclude that either his informant was a liar or that Rickey Ross was a liar.”

A clerical worker in the medical records section of the Men’s Central Jail, where Ross once was assigned, alleged in a 1981 lawsuit--later dismissed--that he and several other deputies searched her purse, ordered her to strip and then subjected her to a “skin search.”

The clerk contended in her lawsuit that the deputies then searched her car and booked her at Sybil Brand Institute on false charges. The charges were not specified in the suit. The clerk alleged further that she was fired by the county the same day.

The suit was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Jack E. Goertzen in June, 1985, because the clerk and her attorney failed to proceed with the case.

Gates said at the press conference that he had not previously considered the possibility that a law enforcement officer was involved in the prostitute killings. This disturbed Margaret Prescod, whose community activist group has claimed police harass South-Central prostitutes and do not thoroughly investigate when they are murdered.

Prescod said she and her Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders had talked to several street women who had survived attacks and believed that the man was some sort of law officer.

“We did try to bring the information forward through the proper channels,” Prescod said. “It just didn’t get very far.”

She said that subsequent to one early meeting her group had with police, she was contacted by “some women who worked in the area, because some experiences they had had pointed in that direction. They said they had passed this information on to police, but weren’t getting anywhere because they were viewed as prostitutes.”

Prescod’s group was formed during an earlier wave of prostitute killings in South-Central Los Angeles. Prescod contended then that refusal to publicize the slayings until after at least 10 women were dead had endangered the lives of poor black women in the district.

As many as 17 women were found strangled in South-Central Los Angeles between September, 1983, and July, 1986. Nearly all had also been stabbed. Most had prostitution arrest records. One man has been convicted in one of the killings.

Word of the arrest of a sheriff’s deputy spread rapidly among prostitutes in South-Central. “I prayed over this for the last few months,” said a woman named Mary as she stood in front of a motel at Figueroa and 81st streets, “and thank God he’s off the street.”

Others were more circumspect: “So what?” snapped a woman standing at 47th Street and Broadway wearing red shorts and bedroom slippers. She said that even if Ross is proven to be the killer who preyed on prostitutes, “another will come along to replace him.”

Ross, who attended John Muir Junior High School and Manual Arts High, joined the Sheriff’s Department in July, 1971, after graduation from the department’s academy.

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Bettina Boxall, Stephen Braun, Steven R. Churm, David Freed, John Kendall, William Overend, Judy Pasternak, Ginger Thompson and Craig Quintana.