Newsmaker

Selling sex a deadly game in N.J. city

(AP)
Updated: 2006-12-04 09:51

In any case, the attacks illustrate how dangerous it is for prostitutes, who are statistically 18 times more likely to be killed than other women, and 40 times more likely to die from other than natural causes, according to national studies.

A study of the murder rate among prostitutes from 1981 to 1990 found that an average of 124 hookers were murdered each year in the United States, according to a 2004 article in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The nation's most notorious prostitute killings were committed in the Pacific Northwest by a single attacker who came to be known as the Green River Killer. In pleading guilty in 2003 to the murders of 48 prostitutes, Gary Leon Ridgway told a judge he targeted street walkers "because I thought I could kill as many as I wanted to without getting caught."

"They were easy to pick up, without being noticed," he said in court. "I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing."

Like many prostitutes in similar situations, Spazz, who said she was beaten by a "trick" two years ago, didn't call police when it happened. Like all four hookers found dead behind the motels in Egg Harbor Township, and like 85 per cent of prostitutes nationwide, Spazz has a drug problem.

"I froze," she said. "I was afraid he was going to shoot me. So I just took it."

Spazz, who said she is 23 but looks twice as old, said she has been turning tricks in Atlantic City for five years since arriving from New York.

"I really don't want to be doing this," she said. "I want to get my GED and become a child's counselor. But I get sick and I gotta get well," she said, referring to finding drugs to satisfy her addiction.

The violence has prompted Atlantic City hookers to arm themselves. Christine, 37, who works out of a cheap motel on Pacific Avenue near the entrance to several casinos, bought a canister of pepper spray after the bodies were found in the ditch.

She said she and other working girls she knows have stopped accompanying men on trips to motels on "The Pike," preferring to stick closer to home and meet clients in cars or motel rooms.

"It scares the hell out of me," she said. "We're all talking about it, and I'm still ready to jump in the first car that comes along."

Bunny, a prostitute in her early 20s who also works on Pacific Avenue, said she has temporarily stopped hooking and switched to peddling drugs.

"This is no kind of life," she said. "None of us graduates from high school thinking we're going to end up doing this."