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Interview with Eddie Rantz

Aired August 05, 2002 - 14:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: What connects the three victims of Baton Rouge's suspected serial killer? That's what families of the three women are trying to figure out. Police say DNA evidence shows that one man killed all three women, but it's not clear how he chose his victims. Families are working with investigators to find any common threads in the women's lives. Police are also looking back at nearly three dozen unsolved murders for any other connections. So far, police do not have a suspect.

Joining us now, former New Orleans homicide detective, Eddie Rantz -- Eddie, good to see you.

EDDIE RANTZ, FORMER HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: Good to see you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. We're talking up to three-dozen unsolved murders over a ten year period.

RANTZ: That's correct.

PHILLIPS: What's going on?

RANTZ: Well, over a ten-year period you have -- depending on the numbers you believe, up to 36 unsolved murders involving women. Over the last five years, you have 25 unsolved homicides with women victims. And I believe over the last 12 months, there's up to probably five that are unsolved involving women. In my opinion, an estimation -- that's an incredible amount of unsolved homicides involving women in a very short period of time, and I am going to say this with a caveat that I do not -- I am not privy to Baton Rouge investigations' information, but there should have been an ongoing investigation over the last five to ten years with that number of victims involved.

PHILLIPS: Eddie, did someone make a mistake here? Did a detective miss something here?

RANTZ: I don't want to say one detective, but the unit as a whole probably dropped the ball. Without gathering information, putting the information together, whether or not -- or during the course of these homicides it involved the doors being unlocked, the women's races, their age bracket, where their children went to school, things of that nature that would have found several common denominators during the course of the investigation over an extended period of time. PHILLIPS: So if you were on this case, and I know -- remember from New Orleans you had to track a number of serial killers, how would you track this guy? What would you do differently, what would you do now?

RANTZ: Well, I think now what you have to do, and now it becomes a widespread investigation in a very short period of time. Rather than the investigation being conducted over a five or ten-year period, and maybe coming to a conclusion at a much earlier date, now you have to investigate a much more widespread investigation at a very short period of time. And as you may or may not know, I'm a criminal defense attorney at this point in time, and as an attorney, I understand that when you do an investigation of that nature, there's going to be mistakes, and not necessarily mistakes that you did something wrong, but a mistake of not finding something because it is too widespread of an investigation, although it has to be done at this point.

PHILLIPS: So what do you think? Is this man still in the area?

RANTZ: My professional opinion, yes, I would think he is definitely still in the area because history of serial killers is that they believe they are smarter than the police officers involved, and they want to, more or less, they want to put in their face.

PHILLIPS: You think this man committed more than just these three murders?

RANTZ: Yes, I do.

PHILLIPS: Eddie Rantz, now defense attorney, former homicide detective in New Orleans. Great insight, Eddie. We will be talking again.

RANTZ: Thank you.

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