FBI Intensifies Its Search for Alleged Serial Killer : Homicide: Recent Van Nuys resident may be headed for Houston. He is suspected in at least four slayings.

The FBI on Friday intensified a nationwide search for alleged serial killer Glen Rogers, a laborer whose blond good looks and free-spending charm may have lured at least four women to their deaths in California, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana.

Officials believe that Rogers, who seems to have a predatory penchant for single, red-haired women he meets in country-Western bars, may be headed to Houston after a killing in Louisiana, drawn to the Texas city by his two teen-age children from a former marriage.

Rogers, a recent Van Nuys resident, will be added to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, an agency spokesman said Friday. The search for the 33-year-old Ohio native--dubbed the “cross-country killer” by investigators--also will be featured on the TV program “America’s Most Wanted” tonight, adding to the national exposure investigators hope will lead to a quick arrest.

“We’re using every means we can,” said FBI supervisor Tom Bush in Jackson, Miss., as Rogers’ relatives publicly urged him to turn himself in.

“Glen, babe, if you hear this, please give up. Please. I love you,” his mother, Edna Rogers, said in an interview with a Cincinnati television station.

Federal authorities have notified 42,000 local law enforcement agencies nationwide to be on the lookout for Rogers, described Friday as a charming but single-minded killer.

“He was picking us out, like oranges,” said Cindy Torgerson, who was drinking with Florida murder victim Tina Marie Cribbs hours before Cribbs left a bar outside Tampa with Rogers last weekend. Two days later, Cribbs was found stabbed to death in a nearby motel room.

Even as the search escalated, Rogers’ sister and a witness received threatening phone calls from a man believed to be Rogers who warned that he had a gun, police said Friday.

“This man is reaching the point where he’s kind of addicted to killing people,” said Detective Stephen Fisk of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Rogers, a former food worker at carnivals, allegedly began his string of killings in Van Nuys on Sept. 29.

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Victim Sandra Gallagher was a 33-year-old Santa Monica resident and mother of three who was celebrating a $1,000 win at keno when she gave Rogers a ride home from McRed’s Cocktail Lounge in Van Nuys. Her burned body was found in her truck, and she had been strangled.

Initially, Gallagher’s black hair threw a wrench into investigators’ belief that Rogers prefers redheads--until friends confirmed Friday that hers was naturally red and had been dyed.

Bolstering the redhead theory was the discovery of photographs that Gallagher displayed in the truck Rogers rode in, showing her with red hair, sources said.

From Van Nuys, Rogers moved on via Greyhound bus to Jackson, Miss., where police say he met his next victim at a country fair and quickly took up residence at her apartment. Linda Price’s naked body was found Nov. 3 in a bathtub. She had been stabbed to death and was left with a washcloth over her face.

After stopping briefly in the Shreveport, La., suburb of Bossier City, authorities say, Rogers met another of his victims--Andy Jiles Sutton, who drove him to a New Orleans station to board a bus for Tampa, Fla.

Outside Tampa, at a bar frequented by wintering carnival workers, Rogers allegedly chose slaying victim Cribbs from a group of co-workers with whom he danced and drank last Sunday afternoon. Cribbs was the only unattached woman in the group, a fact Rogers gleaned by questioning each of the four friends, all of whom worked as maids at a nearby Ramada Inn.

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Rogers is said to have told one that he did not “go after girls that are married or have boyfriends.”

After Cribbs was found stabbed to death in a bathtub, Rogers returned to Sutton’s home in Louisiana, police say. Sutton was found naked and stabbed to death Thursday in the bedroom they had shared.

That was the most recent murder linked to Rogers, who is also wanted for questioning by Ohio authorities in connection with the 1993 death of an elderly roommate. Although the victim was found bound and gagged beneath a pile of furniture, the cause of his death remains officially classified as unknown.

And there may be still more victims, according to authorities.

Police in Ontario, Calif., said this week that they consider Rogers a possible suspect in an unsolved 1994 murder similar to those in the South. Rogers also allegedly bragged to a drinking companion after Gallagher’s murder: “This is the eighth time.”

Port Hueneme police Friday were exploring whether Rogers was responsible for killing three women within three months in 1993 in the 4.5-square-mile town on the Ventura County coast.

The last killing, Port Hueneme Police Sgt. Jerry Beck said, fits Rogers’ profile best--Cynthia Burger, 44, was strangled and left in her bathtub, then her house was set afire Aug. 5. She was also sexually assaulted, leaving enough DNA evidence that a test should be able to determine if Rogers is the killer, police said.

Author John Douglas, a former FBI agent who created the agency’s psychological profile of serial killers, said the frequency of the murders and the careless and brazen behavior associated with each could be signs the killer wants to be caught, even though in Tampa, Rogers may have tried to hide his activities.

At the Tampa 8 Inn off Interstate 75, where Cribbs’ body was found by a housekeeper, Rogers asked for a “Do Not Disturb” sign, said Tampa Police Sgt. George McNamara. When one was not available, McNamara added, he wrote “Do Not Disturb for Any Reason” on a piece of cardboard and hung it on the door.

But he also departed from the motel in Cribbs’ Ford Festiva, according to one source, while leaving a pickup truck registered in his name outside the Louisiana apartment he briefly shared with victim Sutton.

In a development revealed Friday, Rogers may have threatened a Van Nuys bartender who had earlier fended off his advances. Rein Keener--who works at McRed’s--got an anonymous call from a man with Rogers’ trademark Southern drawl. “You will pay,” said the voice before the line went dead. Keener, a 24-year-old law student, said she has bought a gun.

Rogers’ sister in Ohio received a call Thursday night in which the fugitive told her he had a gun and was saving the last bullet for himself, Fisk said.

Such cries for attention, combined with the striking similarities in the slayings--the trolling for victims in bars and fairs and the corpses left in bathtubs--also are signs of a killer who wants to be caught, experts said.

Violence toward women long has been a trait of Rogers, said his former brother-in-law, Jimmy Bowman of Hamilton, Ohio, near Cincinnati. Bowman said his sister began appearing with black eyes and other bruises after becoming Rogers’ second wife.

Rogers’ first wife, Deborah, who divorced him in 1983, also complained of abuse, saying in court records that he had “threatened to do her great bodily harm.” Rogers tattooed the letters of her nickname--Debi--across the fingers of one hand.

“He likes to beat women. That’s his thing,” said Bowman, who added that Rogers called him about a month ago seeking money.

According to Bowman, Rogers also wanted to know whether he was “hot” in Hamilton, where he has a criminal history dating back to 1981, including charges of public intoxication, petty theft, forgery and assault.

The pattern of skirmishes and violence continued with his recent Los Angeles companion, Maria Gyore, who lived with Rogers at the Excalibur Apartments on Woodman Avenue in Van Nuys for a few weeks in August. The couple moved there from Hollywood after Rogers allegedly set Gyore’s clothes on fire in their apartment closet, police said.

Rogers was briefly jailed for that offense but the charges were dropped when Gyore refused to testify against him, LAPD detectives said. After his release, Rogers went to the bar where Gyore worked in Van Nuys--the Ujpest Sports Lounge--and became so drunk and belligerent he was kicked out, a witness recalled. Soon after, said bar owner Oscar Rozsa, Gyore had to be fired to keep Rogers away.

A few months later, Rogers was in jail again, on suspicion of attacking two men in Hollywood with a knife, according to police. Gyore got her job at Ujpest back. But when Rogers was released from jail, patrons say, his violence resurfaced.

Gyore’s friends say Rogers was highly abusive to the slender, dark-haired mother of two.

“He beat her up almost every day,” Rozsa said. “She couldn’t even wear a bathing suit to the beach. He beat her up for doing that.”

In August, Rozsa said, he got a frantic call from Gyore: “She told me, ‘I think my life is in danger.’ ” Gyore fled to her native Hungary, and the owner of the Excalibur Apartments tried to evict Rogers, but he refused to leave.

The assistant manager, Daniel Suluga, said Friday that he went to change the locks on Rogers’ door one day in September, hoping to chase him out. For safety, Suluga brought along a pellet gun. He looked around carefully to be sure Rogers was not around, but found that the suspect had changed the locks.

“He seemed like a psycho, the way he talked,” Suluga said. “He talked kind of fast. If you tried to get a word in edgewise, he’d interrupt you.”

When Gyore returned in October, she heard that her former boyfriend, who neighbors said complained that she did not discipline her 6- and 7-year-old sons sufficiently, was wanted for murder.

“She was just rolling her eyes around. She couldn’t believe it,” Suluga said. “I told her, ‘I guess it’s like you missed a plane and it crashed.’ ”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Leslie Berger, Sharon Bernstein, Henry Chu, Aaron Curtiss, Hugo Martin and Frank B. Williams. Chu reported from Hamilton, Ohio, and Clary reported from Miami.

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Manhunt for a killer

Glen Rogers, 33, is being sought in at least four murders, the latest believed to have been Wednesday in Louisiana. Shown below is the chain of events that several police departments say took place after Rogers left Los Angeles.

Sept. 30: Rogers takes a Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to Jackson, Miss., hours after allegedly strangling Sandra Gallagher in Van Nuys.

First week of October: He meets Linda Price, 34, at a county fair and moves in with her days later.

Nov. 3: Police find Price’s body in her bathtub--stabbed to death. Meanwhile, Rogers meets Andy Sutton in a Bossier, La., bar. She drives him to a New Orleans bus station, where he leaves for Tampa, Fla.

Nov. 5: He meets Tina Marie Cribbs, 34, at a bar in Gibsonton, Fla. She returns to his motel room and is killed.

Nov. 7: Police find Cribbs’ body in the bathtub, apparently stabbed to death. Rogers returns to Bossier City in Cribbs’ white Ford Festiva.

Thursday: Police find 37-year-old Andy Sutton’s body in the bedroom the two shared. Police say she was stabbed to death.

Source: Staff reports