'Chillicothe’s missing women' began disappearing a year ago.

As the bodies of dead women stack up, a small US town is reeling in the realisation there may be a serial killer in their ranks.

“Chillicothe’s missing women” began disappearing a year ago. Of the six victims, four are dead and two are still missing.

Five of those women were mothers. One was pregnant. Their families want answers and so do the frightened residents living in the fear that a serial killer is walking amongst them.

Authorities are now investigating whether the six vulnerable women from a town of 21,000 may be the ill-fated victims of a serial killer.

Most of the women were addicted to drugs, many worked as prostitutes to fund their addictions, and some knew each other. All four bodies recovered were found dumped in creeks and streams near the city, The Washington Post reports.

And, according to the Daily Mail, three more women who went missing from two nearby counties (both a short drive away) have been included in the investigation.

Are these women the victims of a sadistic serial killer?

1. Charlotte Trego (missing).

Charlotte, 29, disappeared on May 3, 2014.

The mother of two’s prescription pill habit had spiralled into heroin addiction.

Only months before her disappearance, she vowed to get clean. She entered rehab, but was later evicted by her roommate and effectively disappeared.

2. Tameka Lynch (dead).

Tameka, a friend of Charlotte’s, vanished on the same day. The 30-year-old mother of three had struggled with drug problems since being diagnosed with lupus and turned to prostitution to support her habit, the Huffington Post reports.

She was the first to be found. Three weeks after her disappearance, a kayaker found her body in a nearby creek. Though the local coroner determined the cause of death to be drug overdose, her mother Angela Robinson insists her daughter – who was afraid of the water – was murdered.

“She was already dead when she was put in the water,” Angela Robinson told the Huffington Post. “Somebody needs to pay for this.”

3. Wanda Lemons (missing).

Six months later, in early November, 37-year-old Wanda Lemons went missing. Wanda has five children, aged 7, 13, 19, 21 and 23.

Her daughter, Megan Hodges, told the Huffington Post: “She just disappeared out of thin air.”

“I think her disappearance might be related to sex trafficking, but if it were drugs I don’t think it would be related,” she said.

“I just want them to find out what happened to her.”

4. Shasta Himelrick (dead).

The body of pregnant 20-year-old Shasta Himelrick was found in a river outside Chillicothe just weeks after she went missing on Christmas Day, 2014.

She left her grandmother’s house, promising to return, but her abandoned car was found – doors open, petrol tank empty and battery dead – on a bridge hours later.

Her body found was a week later and though her death was ruled a suicide, friends – who Shasta had happily told she was “eating for two” – believe she was murdered.

5. Timberly Claytor (dead).

Timberly Claytor, 38, was found dead – shot in the head three times and left in a ditch near a creek – just four weeks ago, on May 29.

A friend told the Chillicothe Gazette Timberly had battled demons, but “had been doing really well and was working hard to get clean”.

A 36-year-old convicted sex offender, Jason A. McCrary, has been named by police as the prime suspect in her murder, but has not yet been charged.

6. Tiffany Sayre (dead).

And last Saturday, the body of mother of two Tiffany Sayre was found in a drainage pipe at a nature preserve south of Chillicothe by a couple on an evening stroll. She had been missing for more than a month.

Her naked body, with a crown of duct tape around her hair, was wrapped in a bed sheet and hidden inside the drain.

Tiffany went missing on May 11. She was last seen engaging in sex work at a local motel. Her sister Jessica Sayre told the Washington Post Tiffany’s drug habit had spiralled when her boyfriend died in April from a blood clot.

“It hit my sister really hard. She really loved him,” Jessica Sayre said.

“I think she did the drugs a little more to help with the pain. She didn’t want to be in her right mind because she didn’t feel like it was the right thing.”

But her family’s hopes that there would be a happy ending to this story were dashed just days ago. Like the families of the other women, their efforts to find their beloved sister, mother and daughter – handing out missing-person fliers, holding candlelight vigils, praying against the odds – were in vain.

The investigation.

Now a task force is investigating the deaths and disappearances of all six women – as well three others missing from nearby counties.

FBI officials are pulling together the profile of a potential serial killer. One that targets women vulnerable through addiction and prostitution and dumps his victims along waterways just outside the troubled town of Chillicothe.

Staff Lieutenant Mike Preston of the Ross County Sheriff’s Department told The Washington Post the community was “starting to get concerned”.

“I don’t want to come out and say ‘yes, we have a serial killer’ but it’s a small community that we live in . . . and the number of females who have come up missing, and then the bodies that we’ve found, that’s quite a bit for our community,” he said.

“Everyone just wants answers.”

Not least of all, the families of these women.

Watch a news report about the investigation:

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