Pittman is being held without bail. The women were all African-American and believed to be prostitutes. Police are still investigating the murders of the other four women and three missing women who fit the profile. • The persistent rumors that Chelsea Clinton was getting married in August on Martha's Vineyard obviously weren't true, as it's September and she's not married. The rumors got so bad that at one point the Clintons offered a $1,000 bet to any journalist's source that there would be no wedding. Hillary Clinton's reps issued a statement saying that they were, "sick of this insane environment where nobody bothers to heed the denials of the actual individuals involved and where facts and truth are a distant afterthought... So, if we're all going to be stuck together in this endless unfounded rumor loop through at least 8/29, let's at least make it interesting." There were no takers. • The wife of Yukio Hatoyama, who is expected to be voted Japan's next prime minister later this month, claimed in a book published last year that she rode a UFO to Venus 20 years ago. "While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," said Miyuki Hatoyama. "It was a very beautiful place and it was really green." • Six women have been awarded the $25,000 Jaffe award for emerging women authors including poets Vievee Fancis, Janice Harrington and Heidy Steidlymayer; fiction writers Lori Ostlund and Helen Philips; and nonfiction writer Krista Bremer. • French doctor Pierre Foldes has developed a simple reconstructive procedure for victims of female genital mutilation that removes the painful tissue and reconstructs the clitoris by cutting ligaments to expose the root. "The results are getting better and better," he said . "Seventy two to 75 percent [of patients] are back to normal sexuality after 18 months." He has operated on more than 3,000 women in his hospital in France and is developing a program that would follow up with the women for months, giving them psychological treatment as well. • Though many teen sections in newspapers have been cut for economic reasons, the Yakima Herald-Republic's "Unleashed" section will return this fall due to an agreement with the local school district in Washington State to provide $11,500 to pay a part-time coordinator and student contributors. • Christina Aguilera, Christina Applegate, Maria Bello, Anne Hathaway, January Jones, Sherry Lansing, Sigourney Weaver, and Laura Ziskin will be honored at Variety's Power of Women luncheon on September 24 for the contributions they have made to charitable causes. • A study of nearly 30,000 people in the former Soviet Union found that binge-drinkers, and particularly women, who consumed four or five pints of beer or a bottle of wine in one day were more likely to have a "beer belly" than those who drank the same amount in a week. • The publishers of the New International Version Bible will release a revised edition that will "undo the damage" of an earlier version that tried to be more inclusive by substituting words like "he," "father," and "son" with more gender-neutral terms. Many didn't like the version, which came out in 2005. Wayne Grudem, a Biblical scholar at Phoenix Seminary in Scottsdale, Arizona, says, "I'm delighted to see they have realized the TNIV was simply never going to be accepted by the Christian public who value accuracy in translating the word of God... I'm thankful for their honesty." • To promote the Ultimate Pole Dancing Competition, there are mobile pole-dancing units bicycling around Manhattan today. • On Sunday 71-year-old Dawn Fraser, who won swimming gold medals in three Olympics, fought off and helped capture a man who tried to rob her in her home near Brisbane, Australia. "This guy came out of the gate and grabbed me and I grabbed him by the ear and I kicked him in the groin," she said. "So he had to let me go. He threatened my life and I got really annoyed about that and just grabbed him by the ear and the hair." A male friend made him lie on his stomach until the police came. • Are men really more likely to brag online? MIT researcher Philip Greenspun theorizes that men are more likely than women to participate in behaviors associated with high social status but little practical return, such as bickering over details on Wikipedia or commanding raids in World of Warcraft. • We're not sure if the front page of this newspaper is a "fail" just because it runs a photo of a woman pole dancing under the phrase "Boob bitten, woman busted," or because it also labels pole dancing "fun for the whole family."

Yesterday, police arrested John Floyd Thomas, Jr., 72, after DNA evidence linked him to five murders, according to Reuters. Police say he is suspected of being the "Westside Rapist," who killed at least 30 older women in two waves of serial strangulations-rapes in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s.

A routine phone call gave police in L.A.'s cold case unit a lead in the case. Thomas, a convicted felon, has served 12 years in prison for several burglaries involving sexual assault. In 1978 he was convicted of rape in went to prison until 1983. As a registered sex offender, Thomas is required to provide a DNA sample for the state's database, but due to the backlog of cases - more on that here - he was not asked to come in to have his cheek swabbed until October, CNN reports. After running Thomas' DNA through a database, law enforcement officials found that it matched rape kit evidence collected from Ethel Sokoloff, who was beaten and strangled in her home in 1972 when she was 68.

Thomas has been held without bail since his arrest on March 31 and will be arraigned on May 20 on two counts of murder, one for Sokoloff, and another for the 1976 rape and murder of Elizabeth McKeown, who was 67. California did not have the death penalty when the crimes were committed so he will face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Police say the breaks between the waves of killings, as well as the areas where they were committed perfectly match the periods when Thomas was in jail, or when he moved. Twenty women survived rapes and assaults that fit the case, but their descriptions of their attacker were conflicting. Another factor that may have made Thomas more difficult to catch is that he does not fit the common profile of a serial killer, as he is African-American. Though the theory has been disputed, several serial killer profiles claim that most serial killers are white men in their thirties and forties, according to the book Contemporary Perspectives on Serial Murder.

Police believe Thomas may have begun killing as far back as 1955. According to The New York Times, investigators are currently reading through handwritten case files dating back to the 1950s. Charlie Beck, Los Angeles deputy chief of police, said that some of the earliest crimes on Thomas' record may have been sexual assaults that were prosecuted as burglaries. "It just goes to show how things have changed over the years," Chief Beck said. "Back then, a rapist might only get two years." Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said the investigation may reveal that Thomas was one of the most prolific serial killers in the United States. "We have yet to reach the depths of what he has done," said Bratton

L.A. Police Arrest Man Linked to 30 Rape-Murders [Reuters]
DNA Leads to Suspect in 1970s Los Angeles Serial Killings [CNN]
DNA Links Los Angeles Man to Killings That Span Decades, Police Say [The New York Times]
Contemporary Perspectives on Serial Murder by Ronald M. Holmes [Google Books]

EArlier: One Year Later: Rape Kits Still Not Being Tested In L.A., Elsewhere

Deborah Perez, a 47-year-old real estate agent from Southern California, gave a press conference on Wednesday in front of the headquarters of The San Francisco Chronicle. Perez said her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, committed at least two of the murders attributed to the "Zodiac killer" who is believed to have committed at least five murders in the San Francisco area in the late 1960s, the Chronicle reports.

Perez says she first saw a sketch of the Zodiac Killer while watching a 2007 episode of America's Most Wanted. "I recognized the individual as my father," said Perez. She did not provide a photo of her father, an Orange County carpenter who died of cancer in 1983. She said after working with a forensic psychologist she made sense of some of her childhood memories, "but remembering what happened really wasn't a problem. I just had no idea what they all meant."

Perez's claims include that her father took her along on some of the murders and had her wait in the car. (She says heard gunshots but at the time he told her they were "just firecrackers.") Perez also says she has a pair of glasses taken from Paul Stine, a cab driver shot on October 11, 1969, which she is turning over to police. She also wants police to test her DNA against stamps on letters from the Zodiac killer, but experts say the DNA evidence may not be reliable.

She also claims that, as a child, she wrote a letter as the killer to San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli. The letter contains erratic punctuation and misspellings and starts, "Dear Melvin This is the Zodiac speaking I wish you a happy Christmass. ... please help me." She says she wrote the letter when she was 7 becase she wanted to get help for her father, and that she saw a scrapbook with mementos from more than 30 killings, but she can't find it now. "I was a child and just thought I was helping my father," Perez said. "He kept telling me he was sick and he killed many, many people. I had no idea."

Many people believe that the Zodiac Killer was Arthur Leigh Allen, a convicted child molester who died in 1992. San Francisco Police Sergeant Lyn Tomioka told the Associated Press, "We get a significant number of calls a year. We will look into whatever evidence that is presented to us." The timing of Perez's announcement is suspect, since there is a documentary being filmed about her that is close to being finished. Also, her press conference was publicized by Hollywood public relations agent Edward Lozzi, who is known for having dated Anna Nicole Smith. Perez's attorney, Kevin McLean, who was present at the press conference, said that they came forward because another man is selling his own documentary in which he claims his late stepfather was the Zodiac and, "We want to set the record straight."

Dad Was the Zodiac, And I Can Prove It [The San Francisco Chronicle]
Woman: My Father Was The Zodiac Killer [The Associated Press]
Police Say Man, 72, Tied to SoCal Serial Killings [The Associated Press]

• Authorities in South Florida say they've solved the 1981 killing of a boy whose father, John Walsh, is the host of America's Most Wanted. The man who killed the boy died in prison a decade ago. • A Chicago woman alleges that a doctor inflicted hellish and unnecessary pain on her while she was giving birth to her fifth child. • A new scientific report has found that the normal muocosal lining of the female genital tract is not a foolproof barrier against contracting HIV. • A new Danish study reports that girls have a better sense of taste than boys but boys have a bigger sweet tooth. • A 60-year-old man died at his retirement party in Japan after his colleagues failed to properly catch him after they threw him in the air as part of the celebration. • A young Minnesota woman was arrested for drunk driving after she ignored a police officer's honking as she waited in a McDonald's drive-thru line. • Dutch researchers report that it is safe for girls to undergo surgical reshaping of the nose for facial clefts at 16 while boys can undergo surgery safely at 17. • On Monday, a German court ruled against a woman who wanted her insurance to pay for her breast reduction surgery. • Aw: a nerdy dad-to-be wrapped his wife's pregnant belly with sensors to tweet the unborn baby's kicks on Twitter. • Good or bad idea: vibrating body jewelry. • A new study reveals that the most commonly prescribed medication for Aussie women is antidepressants. • A Nevada woman brought home 27 dogs from the pound but was forced to give up most of them after her neighbors complained about the barking. • The Palazzo Versace fashion house, a luxury hotel in Dubai, plans to create the world's first air-conditioned beach. • A Bangladeshi woman who lived and worked in the UK as a doctor has returned to London after being held captive by her parents in Bangladesh who wanted to marry her off. • A 12-page Skoal ad in Playboy promotes dipping with nearly nude women.

[Image via Getty]

• A new study indicates that 90% of pregnant women feel stressed during pregnancy, usually over a number of "taboo" topics that they don't feel like they can discuss publicly. Among them? Nearly two-thirds worry that their partners don't appreciate how tired they are and write off any emotional outbursts as "hormonal" — ladies, having a douchebag for a baby daddy is not a taboo topic. Perhaps Britney will take your calls! [Guardian Unlimited]
  
• An Iowa Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriages. Finally, a reason to visit! [CNN]
  
• Preliminary studies suggest that eating flaxseed can ease menopausal hot flashes. Mommy, what does a hot flash feel like? [CBS News]

• A suspected serial killer was arrested in Lansing, Michigan after he killed five women in a month. A sixth woman was attacked last week, but her dog chased the man away. Way to go Lassie! [ABC News]
• Johnny Cash's often-overlooked first wife Vivian, who died in 2005, compiled a book of letters from the singer during their relationship and had them published as a memoir, "I Walked The Line", out this week. Totally on our reading list, even though we know it's going to tarnish our image of the Man In Black just a lil' bit. [NY Times]
• Dennis Gallagher is that disgustingly pervy councilman who was arrested for raping a woman earlier this month. What's irking us in particular this morning is that the amNY article about Gallagher and other pols like him describes them as "men behaving badly" — as if raping women is similar to, say, toilet papering a neighbor's house. [amNY]
• Princess Di's ginger kid Prince Harry was the showstopper at the tribute ceremony for the late Princess of Wales. We mention this mainly because we've always wanted to make a case that Harry is the far hotter son, despite that whole Nazi uniform wearing business. In other news, ginger kids are a dying breed. [Daily Mail, KLTV]
• Something the French can't be all high and mighty about is a Rwandan commission's assertion that French troops raped women and girls during the 1994 genocide. [The Independent]
• Brian De Palma's new film Redacted stunned audiences at the Venice Film Festival because of it's brutal depiction of a real-life war crime committed during the Iraq War, in which US soldiers raped a 14-year old girl and murdered her family. Normally we're quite squeamish about violence in movies, but if there ever was a time when hitting audiences with some cold, hard reality is necessary, this it. [Reuters]
• Aside from being freaking evil, the rise in female feticide may have consequences for Indian society — the United Nations says that fewer Indian women could lead to a rise in sexual violence, child abuse, and wife-sharing. [Reuters]