During the fall of 2006, a serial killer known as the “Eastbound Strangler” hunted and murdered at least four women in Atlantic City: Kim Raffo, Barbara Breidor, Molly Dilts, and Tracy Ann Roberts.
Kim was 35-years-old and the first victim discovered. A few women accidentally found her remains behind the Golden Key Motel in November 2006.
Kim’s cousin, Juliette, remembers growing up alongside Kim, who was “always smiling” and “always happy.”
She went on to meet her husband, Hugh Auslander, and tie the knot in 1989. The pair moved to Florida, had two children together, and their life was “as good as it gets,” according to Hugh.
Then, everything changed. Kim ultimately fell in love with a chef she’d met during a cooking class, and her marriage to Hugh ended in 2003. She relocated to Atlantic City with her lover and was found strangled to death three years later.
The serial killer’s second victim, Tracy, was murdered in a similar way. She was younger, just 23-years-old, and grew up in a small town in Delaware. Tracy had only moved to Atlantic City within the past year.
When the third victim, 42-year-old Barbara, was identified, her sisters, Francine and Valerie, reportedly weren’t surprised. She’d been missing for weeks.
Molly’s identity, the fourth victim, was the hardest for authorities to determine since her remains had been left in a ditch for over a month. She was only 20-years-old, and photos of her tattoos, which included an English bulldog, helped her family identify her.
These four women, who had seemingly no connections to each other, all had their lives taken from them by the Eastbound Strangler.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
The killer left all four of their bodies along Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Their remains were carefully positioned, with their heads pointed east and their arms outstretched in the water.
“When this first happened, there was a frenzy and panic that was taking place. You have a guy who was pretty much killing a girl a week or a girl every 10 days. It was like, ‘Wow, he got a live wire here,'” recalled John Kelly, a criminal profiler.
His team at STALK Inc. (System To Apprehend Lethal Killers) is offering a $25,000 reward and still receives tips, but John admitted that his “level of confidence is not high.”
After Kim’s body was discovered, police found the remains of Tracy, Barbara, and Molly all in the same pit with a creek behind the motel, where they were left over a five-week period.
All the women were fully clothed except for their feet, which didn’t have shoes or socks. Additionally, their feet were used to anchor their bodies to the side of the ditch, preventing them from floating away.
John and the STALK team theorized that they were looking for a male murderer who either liked feet or decided to kill as part of a religious ritual.
“To me, this was someone who was concerned about DNA, concerned about some ritual, and concerned about possibly coming back, which most [serial killers] do to relive the situation,” he explained.
“It was not about somebody trying to hide the bodies because if you really wanted to hide bodies in that area, you’ve got a lot of places you can hide them. And all the women were found with nothing covering them.”
Some believed the Eastbound Strangler and the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK) might’ve been the same person. This theory was ruled out by John in 2011 or 2012.
Rather, John was able to create a personality profile of the murderer based on collected evidence. John claimed the Eastbound Strangler was a local male familiar with the Atlantic City area and where he disposed of his victims.
“He has a very organized personality, which influences his personal and everyday activities, including his work. He is very rigid and structured in his everyday life,” John added.
While the four victims didn’t have any immediately apparent connections to each other, the search for the Eastbound Strangler did reveal one commonality: they had troubled lives that the Eastbound Strangler might’ve considered sinful and spoken out about.
“And in his post-offense mode, he would say things like, “They got what they deserved,’ or ‘Good riddance,'” according to John.
Finally, the profile suggests the Eastbound Strangler had a record of abuse toward women and was likely abused as a child and detached from his father.
Still, as of March 2024, there have been no updates on the possible DNA recovered from the crime scene or testing using the latest forensic advancements.
John believes the Eastbound Strangler probably killed other victims before these four women and likely continued to kill afterward.
“This was not his first rodeo. I truly believe he killed before because it’s rare for somebody to evolve that quickly. Very rare. And so I have to believe he killed people somewhere else,” John detailed.
John stated that murderers like the Eastbound Strangler frequently solicit women who work the street, and he believes someone out there knows the infamous killer. That could be the key to catching him.
Anyone with tips is urged to contact the Atlantic City Police Department at (609) 347-5780.