Photo: Suspected Chicagoland Serial Killer Samuel Pierce, 27Police from several departments were searching on the Far South Side today for the body of a teenage girl believed to be at least the third victim of a serial killer, authorities said.
Blue Island police and the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force were leading an effort that included the Illinois State Police and the Chicago Police canine unit, police said.
Authorities were searching near 130th Street and Doty Avenue for the body of Mariah Edwards, 17, who was reported missing in July 2010, police said.
Blue Island Mayor Don Peloquin said the search began Tuesday in three locations provided by Pierce. Investigators this afternoon were focusing on the area near 130th and Doty, including a dive team searching a nearby creek. So far, the search has turned up no remains or clues, Peloquin said mid-afternoon today.
“We will continue the search until we run out of daylight, and then decide what to do from there,” Peloquin said.
Samuel Pierce, 27, is accused of killing Edwards in 2010 and killing two 18-year-old women -- Kiara Windom of Harvey, found in an alley in the 9000 block of South Avenue J in Chicago, and Kimika Coleman, found strangled in Blue Island in August 2009. Prosecutors have said they are trying to determine if Pierce killed anyone else.
Prosecutors say Pierce met the older victims after meeting them through phone chat lines and videotaped an assault on Edwards.
Pierce at first had denied knowing Edwards, but after police showed him videos of the assault on his computer, he admitted he invited her to his apartment with the intent of sexually assaulting her in front of several other men, according to court records.
Pierce then told police that he and the other men beat Edwards during the sexual assault and put her body in a garbage bag and dumped it, records show. He refused to say where, according to court records.