Some of the victims, like Joann Feliciano and Vivian Caraballo, knew each other. They would hang out together on South Fourth Street, stopping in to see friends or sitting on a stoop, sometimes late into the night, as they scrounged for money to buy drugs. Many residents of a small section of northern Brooklyn expressed relief yesterday after word spread that the police had arrested a suspect in six strangulation and slashing murders that occurred over the last year. Every other week, it seems, the authorities convene another news conference to announce another sweep, another bust, another gigantic distribution network crushed. Years after forensic exams became a standard part of treatment for victims of sex crimes, the level of competence in administering the exams varies widely.
Some victims get meticulous treatment.
Many do not. ONE of the enduring mysteries of the school shootings in places like Littleton, Colo., and West Paducah, Ky., is how so many people could have known so much but done so little to prevent bloodshed. For seven months now, Denise Quinn has searched high and low for any indication that her son, Zebb, is alive or a clue about where to find his body if he's dead. A crack-crazed beggar has admitted strangling five Brooklyn women, saying the face of the mom who abandoned him haunted him moments before he killed his last victim. He was born the son of a police officer, but caused carnage that would send a small college town into a frenzy.