Darren Deon Vann, the 43-year-old registered sex offender who confessed to the murders of at least seven women, did not appear in Lake County Criminal Court Friday and his scheduled hearing was delayed.
The alleged Indiana serial killer was ordered to appear in the courtroom to supply a DNA mouth swab mandated by the Lake County prosecutor’s office. Vann never appeared in court and the hearing has been rescheduled for Dec. 19, the Northwest Indiana Times reported, but the reasoning behind the delay and Vann's absence was unclear.
Attorneys couldn't comment because the judge issued a gag order.
It's not the first delay in Vann's case. His first scheduled hearing took more than a week to complete after he initially refused to be sworn in or respond to any of the magistrate's questions.
Vann was charged with murder in the Oct. 17 strangulation death of Afrika Hardy, 19, whose body was found in a Hammond motel bathtub and in the death of Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville.
Vann pleaded not guilty to the two deaths.
Authorities expet more charges to come.
Local
Vann is suspected in at least five other women's deaths, all of which were believed to be sex workers, after leading police on a bloody scavenger hunt in Northwest Indiana. Investigators used Vann's cellphone records to track his movements after he revealed to police he liked to check on the bodies he'd stashed after a fresh kill, authorities said.
In an interview with NBC 5, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart compared the investigation into Vann to the investigation into serial killer John Wayne Gacy saying, "When you’re dealing with someone who kills a lot of people, give up trying to predict."
