Question: Write a summary based on this article:

GARY, Ind. — Last Friday evening, a 19-year-old woman named Afrikka Hardy arrived as scheduled at a Motel 6 near here. She was there to meet a 43-year-old man who had arranged the encounter through Backpage.com, a classified site routinely used to advertise prostitutes. 
  
 But later that evening, when another woman who had helped set up the meeting texted Ms. Hardy, the responses from her cellphone seemed suspicious. The woman and a male friend rushed to the motel around 9:30 p.m. There, they found Ms. Hardy alone in the motel room. She had been strangled. 
  
 The police say that she died at the hands of Darren Vann, a convicted sex offender who had been living in Gary recently, and that Ms. Hardy was not his only victim. ||||| Police: Alleged serial killer tied to seven slayings ‘basking in the glory’ and ‘reliving everything’ 
  
 A house on the 400 block of 43rd where a victim was found in the alley in Gary on October 19, 2014. | Jim Karczewski/For Sun-Times Media 
  
 Darren D. Vann led Gary police on a bloody scavenger hunt this weekend. 
  
 He pointed them to bodies of his alleged victims scattered in basements and empty, run-down buildings all over northwest Indiana’s Steel City, authorities said. 
  
 To the body of Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville. And Teaira Batey, 28, of Gary. And others whose identities are still unknown. 
  
 Police believe Vann used an online prostitution service to lure women to Hammond and Gary — typically to empty buildings — before killing them. 
  
 And they said he’s enjoyed showing off his handiwork. 
  
 “He’s basking in the glory,” one detective said. “He is reliving everything, seeing photos of the victims, dead and alive.” 
  
 Police have connected Vann, 43, to seven victims and “we have no idea how many more” are out there, the detective said. Vann allegedly admitted to killings dating back 20 years. 
  
 But he also said he wants to die, authorities said. He admitted he “messed up” after Afrika Hardy, 19, was found strangled to death Friday night at a Motel 6 in Hammond. Prosecutors charged him with murder and robbery Monday afternoon in connection with Hardy’s death. 
  
 Investigators are still gathering evidence to charge Vann with the other six. And Cook County Sheriff’s detectives are now looking into cold murder cases, particularly in the south suburbs. 
  
 Vann’s ex-wife was stunned Monday to learn he might be connected to a string of homicides. 
  
 “Oh my gosh, it would shock me,” said the woman, who said she was married to the suspect from 1995 to 2011 and didn’t want her name used. “I can’t see him doing that.” 
  
 RELATED: Ex-wife of accused killer is stunned by allegations 
  
 Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said she’s not sure how long Vann has lived in northwest Indiana. 
  
 Police were told a man using the name “Big Boy Appetite” arranged a meeting with Hardy on Friday, according to documents filed with the criminal charges. But when the woman who had set up Hardy with the man tried to contact her and received suspicious text messages in return, she went with a male friend to the hotel room to see what was wrong. They found Hardy dead, police said. 
  
 Surveillance footage showed a man later identified as Vann arriving at the motel, then later running from the room to a blue Jeep and driving away. The SUV was registered to Vann’s sister in the 600 block of West 49th Avenue in Gary, where police set up surveillance, according to court documents. 
  
 Vann was arrested at a friend’s home in the 800 block of E. 49th and later told police Hardy had begun to fight with him during sex. He said he strangled her with his hands, while wearing white gloves, and then used an extension cord before placing her in the bathtub and leaving. 
  
 Hardy’s mother, Lori Townsend, said Monday her daughter was originally from the Chicago area but lived in Colorado since she was 9 years old. Hardy moved back to the Chicago area because “she wanted to spread her wings,” Townsend told the Chicago Sun-Times. 
  
 RELATED: Mom of Hammond victim says daughter ‘was too trusting’ 
  
 Hardy turned out to be the first of seven women who would be found dead this weekend in northwest Indiana. Once in custody, Vann told police where to find three more bodies, officials said. 
  
 He led police Saturday night to an empty home in the 400 block of E. 43rd in Gary. Officers saw blood on the stairs to the basement and found the body of Anith Jones, who was reported missing Oct. 8. 
  
 One of Jones’ sisters, Yolanda Nowell, said she’s glad to hear police have someone in custody and said she wanted to be “left alone to grieve.” 
  
 “She was a kind, loving woman,” Nowell said of her sister. “She was my favorite sister. She was everybody’s favorite aunt.” 
  
 Jones had a stand at the 41st Avenue and Calumet Street flea market, Nowell said, and had moved from Chicago to Northwest Indiana about 10 years ago. She was one of seven siblings. 
  
 Though Vann told police where to find Jones, he initially failed to mention two dead bodies in the basement next door. As Vann continued talking to police, crime lab detectives and the coroner would return Sunday night to recover the bodies of those women, who have not been identified. 
  
 Teaira Batey was in a vacant, run-down home in the 1800 block of E. 19th. She’d been reported missing in January. 
  
 Other victims were found in the 2200 and 4300 blocks of Massachusetts. 
  
 The cases Gary police are investigating all happened in the last two years, sources said. Before that, Vann lived in Texas. He served a 5-year prison sentence there for sexually assaulting an Austin woman in his apartment, authorities said. 
  
 That victim was also a prostitute, according to a warrant for his arrest for the December 2007 attack. She was told by her boss to meet “Dean” in the parking lot outside Vann’s apartment, the warrant says. But when she showed up, Vann met her, took her to this room, asked her if she was a cop, then tripped her up and tried to strangle her. 
  
 Vann threatened to kill her, hit her several times in the face and raped her before letting her go, the warrant says. 
  
 Contributing: Mitch Dudek, Frank Main, Kim Janssen, Michelle Quinn, Christin Nance Lazerus, Ruth Ann Krause, Carole Carlson. ||||| Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share Police in Austin, Texas are reviewing cold cases to see if the Indiana man suspected of killing seven women could have connections to murders there as well. Darren Vann was convicted of aggravated rape in Austin in 2009. VPC 
  
 Police suspect Darren Vann in the slayings of seven women whose bodies were found in northwestern Indiana over the weekend. (Photo: Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP) 
  
 GARY, Ind. — Police in this northwest Indiana city on Tuesday fanned out across neighborhoods where investigators found the bodies of six women they suspect were killed by Darren Deon Vann. 
  
 Gary Police chief Larry McKinley said 20 officers, along with a cadaver dog, inspected 90 homes, and he will dispatch police officers to other neighborhoods Wednesday as Vann is scheduled to make his first court appearance in the killing of Afrika Hardy in the nearby city of Hammond. 
  
 Gary spokeswoman Chelsea Whittington said police had no specific information suggesting there are more bodies in some of the city's roughly 10,000 vacant homes. The cadaver dog was dispatched out of an abundance of caution. 
  
 "The purpose of the search is to ensure that the structures are completely vacant, get them boarded up and place them on the list for demolition," McKinley said. "We need our residents to feel safe and for them to know that their police department is out on the streets taking the measures to ensure this." 
  
 Authorities in Gary and Hammond are investigating Vann in the deaths of seven women. The 43-year-old Gary resident allegedly told police he committed more killings, some that date back to the 1990s. Authorities are trying to corroborate his claims. 
  
 McKinley said the FBI is assisting Gary and Hammond authorities with profiling experts and other technical experts. Gary is also coordinating with police in nearby Merrillville, Ind. He said investigators there have turned up evidence that suggests one of the victims, Anith Jones, might have been killed in that town and then moved to an abandoned home in Gary. 
  
 Police in Austin, where Vann was convicted in 2009 for aggravated rape, and law enforcement in the Chicago area have begun to review cold murder cases to see whether Vann could have connections. The Cook County Sheriff's Department is focused on unsolved cases involving runaways and those suspected of engaging in prostitution. 
  
 Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said he will dispatch officers in the coming days to comb abandoned properties along the Illinois-Indiana border. 
  
 Vann has been charged with the murder of Hardy in Hammond. Gary police will get their first chance to directly question Vann on Wednesday after he makes his initial court appearance. 
  
 Vann allegedly said he left Hardy, 19, dead in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond last week. Vann had arranged to meet Hardy, a prostitute, through an ad on a website called Chicagobackpage.com. He told investigators he strangled his victim with a cord, according to court documents. 
  
 Hardy's killing triggered an investigation that led authorities to Vann, who allegedly admitted killing at least six other women whose bodies he discarded in abandoned houses in Gary. McKinley said Gary police plan to file cases against Vann in the coming days. 
  
 Police say Vann — who used the screen name Big Boy Appetite — arranged to meet Hardy — who used the screen name Octavia and Ms. Youngin — last Thursday, but he canceled, saying he couldn't get a babysitter. 
  
 An associate of Hardy, who was a partner in the escort service with the victim, received another call from Vann on Friday to arrange a meeting. Hardy texted her associate that Big Boy Appetite was in the room with her at 5:13 p.m. The associate called and texted Hardy, when it appeared the appointment was going beyond the allotted time. 
  
 The associate told police she received a text back that did not make sense and made her suspicious. The associate and a male friend went to the hotel to check on Hardy. They entered the room, and the associate discovered Hardy's body in the bathtub. 
  
 The two "found Hardy's body in the bathtub, and the water from the shower was running," according to an affidavit filed with the Lake County Superior Court. Inside the room, investigators found a broken fingernail, a button from a shirt and a torn condom wrapper. 
  
 The female associate provided police with a phone number she said was used by Big Boy Appetite to arrange the meeting with Hardy. Police spotted a dark-colored SUV in a hotel surveillance video that was parked not far from Hardy's room. A man in a dark jacket and sweat shirt was also spotted in the motel parking lot in the video. 
  
 Police obtained a search warrant of records for the cellphone used by Vann, which led them to a home in Gary, where they spotted an SUV matching the one in the hotel surveillance video. The vehicle belonged to Vann's sister. 
  
 Upon being told his rights, Vann allegedly acknowledged he had killed Hardy, saying he choked her with his hands, then used a cord. Vann allegedly told police he moved Hardy's body to the bathtub and used white gloves during the slaying. 
  
 A search of the sister's vehicle turned up a cellphone the suspect acknowledged belonged to Hardy, a men's shirt with a missing button and condoms that were the same style and brand as the wrapper on the floor of the motel room. Police found a white glove inside the house and a jacket and hooded sweat shirt. 
  
 At a news conference Monday, Hammond Police Chief John Doughty said Vann told officers he had "messed up" in committing the latest killing and was surprised police tracked him down so quickly. 
  
 In the Texas case in which Vann was convicted of aggravated rape, the victim told police she went to Vann's apartment, where he asked if she was a police officer. After she told him no, he choked her, hit her several times in the face and told her he could kill her. He then raped her. 
  
 Vann pleaded guilty to the incident in 2007 and served five years in prison for the crime, according to the Austin Police Department. 
  
 In Gary, neighbors of one of the victims, Teaira Batey, had mixed feelings about how Gary police and city officials have reacted to the killings. Batey had been reported missing to Gary police in January. 
  
 "I think they've done the best they can to deal with all the vacants, and they're trying to put people at ease," LaDonna Bazziel said. "Hopefully, this puts the fire in them to start moving faster to do something about all these abandoned homes." 
  
 Last month, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson announced plans for the first of 1,000 homes to be leveled with the help of a $6.6 million state grant. This month, the city completed the demolition of the old Sheraton Hotel, an eyesore that had become a symbol of this once great steel town's fall. Police followed up on an anonymous tip that Vann had stashed a body in the rubble. They searched the site with a cadaver dog Tuesday but found nothing. 
  
 Tuesday, McKinley, the Gary police chief, said city officials were working to speed the boarding up and demolition of vacant structures. 
  
 Some residents, including some of Batey's friends, felt frustration with the city for failing to find her sooner. 
  
 "No matter how she lived her life, she was a person," said Angie Johnson, a friend of Batey. "How can someone just disappear and it take so long for anybody to do anything about it?" 
  
 The Lake County coroner's office also released some details on Tuesday about two victims that authorities have not yet been able to identify. 
  
 One woman was 5-foot-3 and was wearing a silver-colored linked bracelet with the phrase "Best Aunt." The woman was also wearing two silver-colored rings, one with a heart shape and the other with scalloped engravings. 
  
 The other victim was 5 foot tall and was wearing black Rue21 jeans size 3 / 4 and white Nike gym shoes. 
  
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1whcByd ||||| A convicted sex offender has been charged with the murder of one of seven women found dead in Gary and Hammond over the weekend as police continue their investigation, including the suspect's possible involvement in other murders stretching back decades, police said Monday. 
  
 Darren Deon Vann, 43, has been charged with murder in the strangulation of Afrikka Hardy, 19, at a motel in the 3800 block of 179th Street in Hammond Friday night. Investigators discovered the bodies of six other women in Gary after Vann was arrested. 
  
 Hardy moved to Chicago in the summer to live with family here and was going to “spread her wings,” her mother, Lori Townsend, said in a phone interview. 
  
 Hardy planned on going to school and was excited about starting a new life. Her devastated mother is now planning to celebrate her daughter’s life with a party back in Colorado so that she came remember how Hardy lived, not her tragic death. 
  
 “She was a 19-year-old beautiful, intelligent young lady. She walked in a room and lit it up,” Lori Townsend said. “With her laugh, her smile, her beauty. She could make you cry. She could make you laugh. She made you think about things.” 
  
 Vann was charged late Monday with murder, murder in perpetration of a robbery and robbery resulting in serious injury, according to court documents. 
  
 According to an affidavit filed with the charges, Hardy was found naked in the bathtub of the motel room with the shower running. Red marks could be seen on her neck where she apparently had been strangled with “something thin,” the affidavit said. 
  
 CAPTION A suspected serial killer entered a plea of not guilty and answered a judge's questions in court. A suspected serial killer entered a plea of not guilty and answered a judge's questions in court. CAPTION A suspected serial killer entered a plea of not guilty and answered a judge's questions in court. A suspected serial killer entered a plea of not guilty and answered a judge's questions in court. CAPTION Marvin Clinton, boyfriend of murder victim Teaira Batey, speaks during a prayer vigil to remember the seven women found dead last weekend in Gary, Ind., Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Marvin Clinton, boyfriend of murder victim Teaira Batey, speaks during a prayer vigil to remember the seven women found dead last weekend in Gary, Ind., Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) CAPTION WGN discusses murder suspect Darren Deon Vann's refusal to talk. WGN discusses murder suspect Darren Deon Vann's refusal to talk. CAPTION Lake County Sheriff John Buncich talks with reporters outside the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Ind., Wednesday Oct. 22, 2014 following Darren Deon Vann's hearing. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune) Lake County Sheriff John Buncich talks with reporters outside the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Ind., Wednesday Oct. 22, 2014 following Darren Deon Vann's hearing. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune) CAPTION Family members gather on the West Side of Chicago at a candlelight vigil for Afrikka Hardy, who was found slain in a motel in Hammond. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) Family members gather on the West Side of Chicago at a candlelight vigil for Afrikka Hardy, who was found slain in a motel in Hammond. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) 
  
 Police found a broken fingernail, a shirt button and a torn condom wrapper on the floor of the room. and the beds had been moved away from the headboards, indicating there had been a struggle, according to the affidavit. 
  
 Hardy’s friend and partner in an escort business told police Vann was using the online name “Big Boy Appetite” when he responded to Hardy’s ad posted on the website "backpage," according to the affidavit. The friend said Hardy texted her at 5:17 p.m. Friday indicating the man was at the motel with her, according to the document. 
  
 The friend said after Hardy “went past the normal time” for an appointment, she tried to call Hardy’s cell phone as many as eight times but there was no answer. She texted Hardy’s phone and received an response that did make sense, leading her to believe the man had sent the message. 
  
 The friend then called another friend and the two of them went to the motel room and discovered Hardy’s body, according to the affidavit. 
  
 Video surveillance from the motel shows Vann getting out of a dark SUV and entering Hardy’s room around the time of the slaying, the affidavit said. Cell phone records of the man who answered Hardy’s ad with the name “Big Boy Appetite” led police to an address in the 600 block of West 49th Avenue in Gary, where a search warrant was conducted on Saturday. 
  
 After his arrest, Vann admitted to police he responded to an ad posted under the name “Octavia,” drove to the motel and killed Hardy as the two had sex. 
  
 Vann told police “at one point the sex was getting rough and she started to fight with him,” according to the document. “Vann said that he strangled the woman first with his hands and then with a cord before placing her body in the bathtub of the motel room.” 
  
 When Vann was arrested, he was wearing a shirt that was missing a button, the affidavit stated. 
  
 Hammond police Chief John Doughty said at a news conference earlier Monday that authorities were still investigating the deaths of six other women over the weekend, as well as claims by Vann that he had killed other people “going back 20 years in the state of Indiana.” 
  
 That information, Doughty said, has “yet to be corroborated.” 
  
 Asked about a possible motive for the slayings, Doughty said that investigators had been talking at length with Vann but “I don't have a specific reason he did this.” 
  
 When police took Vann into custody over the weekend, he not only admitted his involvement in Hardy's death but “expressed interest” in telling more. 
  
 “He was looking for some type of deal with the prosecutors,” Doughty said. 
  
 Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott said police “caught a break” and were able to surprise Vann with how fast they were able to track him down. 
  
 “I think he was shocked,” McDermott said after the news conference. “We caught him off guard, and he … started working with police.” 
  
 During questioning, Vann told detectives about the locations of other victims, including three women found in the 400 block of East 43rd Avenue, a block littered with vacant buildings and weed-choked lots. Two of those victims have been identified as Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville, and Christine Williams, 36, of Gary. 
  
 Another victim, Teaira Batey, 28, of Gary, was found in the 1800 block of East 19th Avenue in Gary on Saturday, police said, and an unidentified African American woman was found in the 2200 block of Massachusetts Street in Gary. 
  
 Around 7:50 p.m. on Sunday, the body of a still-unidentified woman was found in the 4300 block of Massachusetts Street in Gary, according to the Lake County coroner’s office. That woman’s cause of death was strangulation. 
  
 McDermott said that Vann has mentioned shootings in Hammond that go back to the 1990s. Police have to follow those leads to see if they can be verified, he said. 
  
  
  
 The Lake County coroner’s office continued trying to positively identify five of the women Monday afternoon, an official there said. Coroner’s office personnel were trying to use DNA to identify two of the women. 
  
 Vann was convicted in Travis County, Texas, of sexual assault and served five years in a penitentiary, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 
  
 According to the state’s records, he was arrested for a Dec. 15, 2007, attack on a “25-year-old Hispanic female,” whom he assaulted and “struck several times and attempted to strangle,” said spokesman Jason Clark. 
  
 Vann was sentenced in September 2009 and he was ordered to register as a sex offender after his release in 2013. 
  
 Vann last registered as a sex offender in Lake County, Indiana, in August 2013, using the address of 1428 E. 50th Ct. in Gary, according to online records. 
  
 Indiana court records show Vann was arrested in April 2004 and charged with residential entry and intimidation stemming from an incident in Gary. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty in June 2004 to misdemeanor residential entry, while the felony charge of intimidation was dropped, court records show. 
  
 He was sentenced to a year in jail and a year on probation. 
  
 In September 2005, Vann admitted to violating rules of his probation and he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, court records show. |||||

Summary:
Answer: – The ex-wife of Darren Vann says she is "lightheaded" to discover the man she was married to for 16 years is a suspected serial killer—whose crimes may have begun in the early years of their marriage. Maria Vann tells the New York Times that the man she first met in 1991 "was kind, intelligent, very relaxed, very nice to everybody," but something of a loner. The couple were divorced in 2011 but had been separated for years beforehand, and she says she cut off all contact in 2009 after discovering the man from Gary, Ind., had been convicted of a 2007 sexual assault in Texas. He got out of prison in July last year. More: Vann's younger brother, who is also a Gary resident, has offered apologies to the victims' families. "To the victims, I'm sorry for their loss," he tells the Chicago Tribune. “I'm a father of two daughters myself. This comes as a shock to us and our household. … This is a painful moment for us, too." Maria Vann's son tells the Tribune that the man who married his mother "was strange, he was weird," and he could never understand why Vann, now 43, was interested in his mother, who is considerably older than the suspect. Police say Vann quickly confessed to the murder of 19-year-old Afrika Hardy in a Hammond, Ind., motel room after they tracked him down, and he confessed to killing six more women whose bodies were found in abandoned houses in nearby Gary, USA Today reports. Vann has told investigators he strangled Hardy with a cellphone cord and left her in a bathtub. Hammond's chief of police says Vann told investigators he "messed up" with his last murder. The woman Vann served five years in prison for assaulting was a prostitute, and investigators believe he used an online prostitution service to find his victims in Indiana. Police sources tell the Chicago Sun-Times that Vann seemed to get a thrill out of leading them to the bodies. "He's basking in the glory," one detective says. "He is reliving everything, seeing photos of the victims, dead and alive." Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson says cadaver dogs may be used to see if there are more victims in the city's many abandoned properties. "We have 10,000 abandoned buildings and can only account for five that were the location of these bodies," she told reporters yesterday. "Do the math."