LA's First Alleged Serial Killer ID'd By Genealogy Site Arraigned

LOS ANGELES, CA — A man accused of raping and murdering two young women in the 1980s and dumping their bodies in the San Fernando Valley area pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and murder. Horace Van Vaultz Jr. was arrested by cold case investigators using the burgeoning technique of sourcing commercial DNA databases for cold case hits for the first time in Los Angeles County. The commercial database allows investigators to use a relative's DNA to pinpoint a suspect, who otherwise evaded detection, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

Van Vaultz Jr. is accused of raping 22-year- old Reseda resident Mary Duggan , whose body was found in the trunk of her car in a Burbank parking lot. Vaultz, 64, is charged with the June 9, 1986, asphyxiation of Duggan in the San Fernando Valley and the July 16, 1981, strangulation of Selena Keough, a 20-year-old mother who was killed in San Bernardino County and dumped under bushes in Montclair.

Both women had been sexually assaulted and bound, authorities said. Police had been watching Vaultz and arrested him Nov. 14 during a traffic stop in the Inglewood area, according to Burbank police Detective Aaron Kay.

The two killings were linked to a single suspect about two decades after the crimes, Lacey said.

"Those results linked a suspect to the crimes, giving law enforcement another vital piece of the evidence. Based on the match, the detectives then collected DNA from the defendant's trash," the district attorney said. "The DNA matched the forensic evidence found in both crimes, giving us the evidence we needed to file murder charges against the suspect."

Kay said he had a criminal history that predates the advent of DNA databases and that he has remained jailed without bail since his traffic stop arrest.

The murder charges include the special-circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder during the commission of a rape and sodomy and multiple murders. The District Attorney's Office will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against him.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said last month that his office agreed to allow Vaultz to be tried in Los Angeles County because the "Keough family has waited for 38 years to get justice and we don't want them to wait any longer."

Vaultz's attorney, Damon Lamont Hobdy, described his client last month as a retired widower.

"He was enjoying his life, enjoying his family," the defense lawyer said. "It is a devastating thing for his family, but they're handling it pretty well."

Vaultz is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Jan. 28, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to allow the case against him to proceed to trial.

City News Service and Patch Staffer contributed to this report.