The prostitutes who work the streets on Detroit s hardscrabble southwest side were scared. Since the late spring, there had been a john on the prowl who liked to play rough. A couple of hookers had been picked up by the guy in the dark late model SUV and barely escaped with their lives. The man looked innocent enough, but he had issues with women who sold it for money. He had tried to choke them, and had talked about his hatred of prostitutes while trying to strangle two of them.
Prostitutes make easy targets for killers and sexual sadists, psychologists say.
James Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston told the Detroit Free Press that such women are commonly attacked. They are the most common target, Fox said. They are women who get into cars and find themselves at the mercy of strange men. For the killer, it is psychologically easier to kill them because he already views them as worthless sex machines who exist only to give pleasure. The working girls were scared, but that didn t stop Kelly Hood from continuing to sell herself on the streets.