For now, the slayings are linked only by circumstance: The young men had lived on society's fringe in this bayou town before they were strangled or suffocated and their bodies stashed away in remote areas until someone stumbled upon them.
Authorities say many of the victims, the first found on New Year's Day 2000, ran in the same circle of friends and had a history of drug use, soliciting prostitutes or minor run-ins with the law. Sometimes their bodies were found nude or shoeless.Beyond those basic facts, authorities say they have little to bring the cases together: no DNA, no anonymous claims of responsibility, no telltale signatures left at the scene of the crime.
The crime scenes, for that matter, are not even known. The eight victims are believed to have been killed elsewhere and dumped in sugar cane fields, along back roads or in ditches -- all of which are in ample supply in the swampy landscape surrounding Houma, a town of 32,000 about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans.
Meanwhile, tentative links have been made with another 10 cases showing similar patterns in Jefferson Parish and St. Charles Parish, including at least seven in which victims were found without one or both shoes.
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