DETROIT—The FBI's Detroit office on Tuesday joined the hunt for a serial killer believed to be responsible for the deaths of five men in and around Flint, Mich., as well as attacks on more than a dozen others in the Flint area and as far away as Leesburg, Va., in recent days.
The most recent murder victim, a 49-year-old, was found dead in Flint last week, bringing the number of attacks to as many as 20.
Another Flint resident, a 26-year-old man, came forward Monday to say he was attacked on July 27 by a person fitting a police description of the suspect.
A composite sketch shows the suspect in a string of murders in the Flint, Mich. area.
In Ohio, a 59-year-old custodian taking a cigarette break outside the Toledo church where he works was stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen Saturday. He is in the hospital and is expected to survive. Both men said their attacker got out of his car and asked them for directions before stabbing them.
Initial reports had suggested that the attacker was targeting smaller men. But a Michigan State Police spokesman disputed that, noting that the 26-year-old Flint victim weighed about 175 pounds and is 5-foot-10.
"They're all different sizes," said Lt. John Card, the spokesman. "There have been some that were smaller in frame. It seems that he just does not distinguish."
Michigan State Police released a composite sketch last Friday, based on witness accounts. The suspect was described as a white or possibly Middle Eastern male, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-11, of muscular in build and in his early 30s. He has been described as driving a dark green Chevy Blazer or similar vehicle, possibly a late '90s model.
State police here are leading the investigation of the Michigan incidents. More than a half dozen other local and county law-enforcement agencies in Michigan are also involved in the manhunt, as well as authorities in Ohio and Virginia.
Police in Leesburg, Va., about 40 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., say three unsolved attacks this month, including one with a hammer, closely mirror the pattern of the attacks in Michigan. Flint is about 50 miles north of Detroit.
FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said the agency is providing manpower, and technical and forensic assistance to state and local law enforcement. "We're there to assist them with whatever we need to do."
Although all but two of his victims were black, authorities in Michigan aren't saying the motives of the killer are necessarily racial, though Virginia authorities believe them to be so.
"It doesn't seem to make a difference," Lt. Card said. Those attacked could be the victims of circumstance: Flint is a majority-black city, he noted.
