Serial killer puts city on edge

GAFFNEY, S.C. --- Residents canceled July Fourth plans and holed up in their homes Friday as investigators hunted a serial killer believed to have shot four people to death.

Tanya Phillips had been looking forward to a backyard barbecue at her brother's house but instead planned to stay home with her doors locked.

"I'm not taking any chances," said Ms. Phillips, 32, a mother of two who works in a day-care center. "I'll go out during the day, but not at night. I just don't feel safe."

Plenty of evidence links the killings, though officials have not yet determined how the victims are connected or whether they knew whoever shot them, Cherokee County Sheriff Bill Blanton said.

"Yes, we have a serial killer," he said at a news conference in the rural community 50 miles south of Charlotte, N.C.

All investigators have to go on is a sketch of a suspect and a description of a possible vehicle.

The latest victims were found in their family's small furniture and appliance shop near downtown Gaffney around closing time Thursday. Stephen Tyler, 45, was killed, and his 15-year-old daughter was shot and seriously injured. Mr. Tyler's wife, his older daughter and an employee found them in Tyler Home Center, County Coroner Dennis Fowler said.

A day earlier and about seven miles away, family members found the bodies of Hazel Linder, 83, and her 50-year-old daughter, Gena Linder Parker, bound and shot in Ms. Linder's home.

The killing spree began last Saturday about 10 miles from Tyler Home Center, where peach farmer Kline Cash, 63, was found shot in his living room.

Sheriff Blanton said the killer might have first spoken with Mr. Cash's wife about buying hay. She left and came home a few hours later to find her husband's body. Investigators said it appears he was robbed, but they have not determined whether anything was taken in the other killings.

Cherokee County, home to about 54,000 people, had just six homicides in all of 2008, and half that in 2007.