Suspected LA serial killer charged with 5 murders
LOS ANGELES – A man already accused of killing two women and suspected in the deaths of as many as 30 more was charged Wednesday with raping and murdering five other victims.
John Floyd Thomas, 73, was charged with killing the women between 1975 and 1986. The women – 56 to 80 years old – had all been strangled.
Thomas will stand trial for all seven deaths simultaneously. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. Calls to his court-appointed lawyers were not immediately returned.
Thomas was initially charged April 2 with two counts of murder after a match from a DNA sample implicated him in the sexual assault and death of a retired school administrator and another woman in the 1970s.
The five new charges came as authorities continue to re-examine cold cases for DNA matches.
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