Several dozen people gathered around a makeshift memorial and prayed during a vigil outside an abandoned house in Gary where one of seven women was found dead last weekend.
The memorial at Wednesday night's vigil included seven candles marked with butterflies and seven heart-shaped balloons for the women who police say 43-year-old Darren Vann has confessed to killing.
Organizers wanted the vigil to also encourage residents to work on cleaning up abandoned houses. Organizer Sy Smith said only three homes are occupied on the block where the vigil was held, while the city owns the other 13.
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Resident Patricia King said she came to the vigil because her two daughters could have become victims as well.
Vann, a former U.S. Marine and a registered sex offender in Texas and Indiana, has so far been charged in the deaths of two women: Afrikka Hardy and Kristine Williams. He has not been charged in the deaths of five other women found over the weekend, three of whom have yet to be positively identified.
Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey on Tuesday asked for the public's help in identifying two of the women who were recovered over the weekend. Anyone with information is asked to call the Lake County Coroner’s Office at 219-755-3265.
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