Neal Falls, the man shot to death by a prostitute after he attacked her on Saturday, had a cache of weapons and a list of online escorts inside his vehicle, police said Wednesday.
The items, as well as statements the woman said Falls made to her, led police to suspect he may have been involved in other unsolved crimes.
"He had a machete, shovel, two axes, a bunch of knives, a double-headed ax, a bulletproof vest, numerous sets of handcuffs, as well as the firearm used to kill him," Lt. Steve Cooper of the Charleston, West Virginia, police department, told The Huffington Post.
Police also found a list containing the names of an unspecified number of women inside the man's vehicle.
"We have been able to locate most of them and they were all on a website advertising for escort services," Cooper said. "The stuff that we found is so alarming that we want law enforcement across the country to be aware of it."
Falls, 45, was killed on Saturday after he met a female escort through Backpage.com, an online classified ad portal often used by men seeking prostitutes. Falls went to the escort's Charleston apartment, and got into a brief but intense altercation with her, police said.
"Nearly immediately after he stepped into her apartment, he said 'live or die' and a struggle ensued," Cooper said. "[Falls] laid his gun on a counter so that he could get a firmer grip around the victim's throat with both his hands and she was able to scoop that weapon up and fire one round, killing Mr. Falls."
The escort, who has not been identified, was hospitalized with multiple injuries, including broken vertebrae. Authorities have determined the shooting was a justifiable homicide.
Police on Wednesday said they had been unable to find much information about Falls. The vehicle he was driving was registered to an Oregon address, where he no longer resides. Employment records found by police indicate he had previously worked as a security guard. But authorities were unable to find a next of kin, suggesting he had been living off the grid.
"We have examined as many investigation avenues as we can and have not been able to come up with much information about him," Cooper said. "It does not appear he had a residence and we've done a thorough background and the only family members that come up are either deceased or unable to be found. We've got very little information on this guy. It's almost like he was a ghost."
HuffPost on Wednesday used online records to locate Falls' sister, Joanna Olah, who was unaware her younger brother had been killed.
"It is amazing [the police] could not find us because he has six brothers and three sisters," Olah said.
Falls' sister said family members have not been in contact with him since January, when his mother died.
"He took that real hard," Olah said. "He said, 'The only person who mattered in his life is no longer here.' He deleted everybody on Facebook and we haven’t been able to get ahold of him since."
HuffPost put Olah in contact with Charleston police, who are gathering additional information on him.
Authorities are now trying to determine whether Falls is connected to unsolved crimes, including a recent series of deaths and disappearances in nearby Chillicothe, Ohio.
The items found inside Falls' car, as well as statements Saturday's victim attributed to him, lead police to suspect it was not the first time he has attacked a woman. The woman on Wednesday recounted some of those statements to Charleston's WCHS-TV.
"I knew he was there to kill me," she said. "I could tell that he had already done something, because he said he was going to prison for a long time and that's when I knew he was going to kill me."
Anyone with information about Falls or similar cases is asked to contact the Charleston Police Department at 304-348-6480.
Woman who killed alleged serial killer recounts final fight
CHARLESTON, West Virginia - Police in West Virginia seem to have quite the case on their hands: a man killed by a woman he attacked in her home may have been a serial killer himself.
Investigators now believe 45-year-old Neal Falls may be connected to murders in three states.
Falls was answering an online ad for an escort, police said, when he showed up to a Charleston, West Virginia, home.
The woman, who wants only to be known as "Heather," answered the door.
She said Falls, armed with a gun, asked her: "live or die?" Then he started choking her.
"When he strangled me, I grabbed my rake, and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him," Heather said. "I grabbed the gun and shot behind me."
Heather ran out of the house and flagged down a neighbor, who called 911. The neighbor said she "had to defend herself," and she had "cuts and stuff all over her."
Inside Falls' car, detectives found a machete, axes, knives, a shovel, a sledgehammer, bleach, plastic trash bags, bulletproof vests, and four sets of handcuffs.
Now, police are investigating whether he could be connected to the murder or disappearance of nine women across three states: Ohio, Illinois, and Nevada.
Evidence found with dismembered bodies outside of Las Vegas, where Falls used to live, is similar to an item found in his car. And all the women were escorts, most of whom advertised online.
"It's likely that Mr. Falls is a serial killer," said Steve Cooper, Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives. "I believe she saved lives by shooting Mr. Falls, based on what he did to her and based on the items found in his car."
Police are not charging Heather for the shooting, which they say was in self-defense.
"I knew he was there to kill me," Heather said.
Police in West Virginia have asked the FBI for help, and are entering Falls' name into a national DNA database to check for links to other crimes.
Police in Illinois, Nevada look at attacker in West Virginia self-defense killing
By Stephanie Gallman, CNN
Updated 6:27 PM ET, Tue July 28, 2015 | Video Source: CNN
(CNN)—"He pulled a gun on me! He was going to kill me!"
Those are the chilling words caught in the background of a 911 call placed earlier this month after a woman faced off with an attacker who tried to rape her, pointing a 9 mm gun to her chest.
The victim, who is being called "Heather" by investigators, fought back so hard, police in Charleston, West Virginia said, that her attacker -- who police now believe may be linked to other crimes -- lost control of his gun.
Heather grabbed the weapon and blindly fired it, killing 45-year-old Neal Falls in self-defense, police said.
Heather, who met Falls after connecting via the escort section of backpage.com, was not charged in the incident.
Because the offender died during the crime, "our case is closed," according to Lt. Steve Cooper, chief of detectives of the Charleston, West Virginia, Police Department.
But while the West Virginia part of the story might be over, what police discovered in the trunk of Falls' car has investigators in other states wondering if he could be linked to other unsolved cases involving escorts.
Cooper said Falls had what police are calling a "kill kit," which included four sets of handcuffs, an ax, a machete, bulletproof vests, knives, a box cutter, a large container of bleach, and a large number of trash bags.
Police say it's unlikely this was the 45-year-old Falls' first violent crime.
The FBI said Tuesday that while there is no information that connects him with any unsolved killings, it will explore the possibility.
'I knew he was there to kill me'
The last person to see Falls alive said she knew her attacker had experience committing violence.
"I knew he was there to kill me," Heather told CNN affiliate WCSH, "I could tell he had already done something because he said he was going to prison for a long time."
Police said Falls also carried a list of about 10 women -- all escorts in West Virginia -- along with their ages and phone numbers. Those women are all alive and have not had any previous contact with Falls, Cooper said.
The nature of the crimes and where the crimes occurred have also given officials pause.
In 2005, Falls lived in Las Vegas, the same year four women who were working as escorts in the area disappeared. Their dismembered bodies were later discovered in Illinois.
One of those women, Lindsay Marie Harris, was 21 when she disappeared from Henderson, Nevada, in May 2005. Her legs were found in Springfield, Illinois, three weeks later.
Representatives from the Henderson and Illinois State Police departments both confirm they have been in contact with officials in Charleston.
"Our role is simply to share DNA, other crime-scene information, and witness and victim information with any other agency that wants to compare their cases with this one," Cooper said.
The Las Vegas Police Department has not returned CNN's calls for comment.
Falls' car had an Oregon license plate, and he is believed to have lived in that state for a time, though police couldn't say for sure when he was last a resident.
Landlord: He was a 'little creepy'
CNN spoke to a woman in Eugene, Oregon, who said she is Falls' sister. She said she wants nothing to do with her brother and that the family will have no further comment.
Falls' former landlord told CNN affiliate KVAL that Falls lived at her house in 2010. The woman, who asked to be identified only as Pauline, said she evicted Falls after one year because his strange behavior made her uncomfortable.
"The first thing that he did that was a little odd was that he immediately changed the deadbolt to his own room so that only he had a key," Pauline told KVAL. "He said he had guns and weapons and that he was a security guard."
Springfield, Oregon, Police Sgt. Rich Charboneau said his department had some contact with Falls during the last few years for minor offenses like traffic tickets and a dog at large.
Falls also filed a complaint against someone else for trespassing on his property.
"Little creepy, very tightly lipped and not a chummy guy, definitely not a chummy guy," Pauline said. "Somebody who doesn't like to be exposed."
No connection to missing Ohio women, authorities say
Though there are no open murder investigations in Springfield, police have assigned a homicide detective to work as a liaison with officials in West Virginia, Charboneau said.
With just 120 miles separating Charleston, West Virginia, and Chillicothe, Ohio, officials had considered a possible connection between Falls and six women who have gone missing or have turned up dead in a little more than a year.
But that connection has been ruled out.
"There is nothing whatsoever that can tie him to the missing women in Chillicothe," said Lt. Michael E. Preston, spokesman for Ross County Sheriff's Office.
CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, Chuck Johnston, AnneClaire Stapleton, Camille Cava, Julia Talanova, and Janet DiGiacomo contributed to this report.
His family speculates that part of his rampage came from losing his mother.
I find it pathetic that a person can use their inner pain as an excuse to justify unleashing their evil unto to the world.
He used women as the scapegoat for his problems, so it made sense that a woman would put him out his misery (in self-defense, of course).
I don't think so. He probably was doing crime before she died.
I don't doubt that he had a strong attachment to his mother, but her departure certainly isn't the cause of his actions. The family just don't know what else to make of it. Though this guy was very clever at covering his tracks. And you're right Sam, it is pathetic. But there's a gratification behind it and why it occurs.
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