Darren Deon Vann: The Gary Serial Killer
Background
Darren Deon Vann is an American serial killer who murdered seven women in northwestern Indiana between 2013 and October 2014. Most of the victims were killed in or around Gary, Indiana, where Vann concealed their bodies inside vacant and abandoned houses. His crimes were discovered only after the strangling death of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy at a motel in nearby Hammond.
Vann was born on March 21, 1971, in Indiana. He served briefly in the United States Marine Corps after enlisting in December 1991, but he received an other-than-honorable discharge in September 1993. Long before his murder convictions, he had demonstrated threatening and violent behavior toward women.
In 2004, Vann was arrested in Gary after allegedly threatening to kill another man during a dispute involving a woman. His most serious known offense before the Indiana murders occurred in Austin, Texas. In 2007, he sexually assaulted a 25-year-old woman after inviting her to his apartment. He was convicted of sexual assault in September 2009 and sentenced to five years in prison. Vann was released from the Texas prison system on July 5, 2013, and returned to Indiana.
The Murders in Gary
After returning to Indiana, Vann began targeting vulnerable women in and around Gary. Investigators concluded that several victims had been involved in prostitution or were struggling with drug addiction, homelessness or unstable living conditions. These circumstances made their disappearances less likely to receive immediate public attention and allowed Vann to continue killing without being identified.
Vann generally strangled his victims and placed their bodies in abandoned buildings. Gary contained thousands of vacant structures, many of which were unsecured and rarely inspected. Vann used these neglected properties as concealed disposal locations. Some of the women remained inside the buildings for months before their remains were discovered.
The condition of the remains prevented authorities from establishing an exact date of death for most of the six Gary victims. Their last-known-alive dates, missing-person reports and body-recovery dates provide the most reliable publicly available timeline. Afrikka Hardy was the only victim whose death was discovered immediately and assigned a specific confirmed date.
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