'You're not a serial killer, right?' New Jersey student's chilling last text to man accused of strangling her to death
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: A man accused of murdering three black women in 2016 was asked if he was a serial killer by his last victim, prosecutors told the court.
Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, 23, is the primary suspect in the murders of 19-year-old sex worker Robin West, 33-year-old sex worker Joanne Brown, and 20-year-old New Jersey City University student Sarah Butler, according to the Daily Mail. He was also accused of attempting to murder a fourth black woman, identified in court documents as T.T.
At the hearing in Newark's Superior Court this past Thursday, November 7, prosecutors described how, on November 19, 2016, the day he first met Butler, Wheeler-Weaver searched the internet for information about date-rape drugs and homemade poison.
He then solicited the 20-year-old for sex on social media app Tagged and offered her $500 for the same. Prosecutors said Butler viewed the request suspiciously and messaged him, "Wow. You're not a serial killer, right?"
Ten days after that exchange, Butler's body was found at the Eagle Rock Reservation nature reserve covered by leaves and detritus. An autopsy determined that she had been strangled to death and ruled the cause as homicide.
The court heard how all the murders were sexually motivated, and how, with the exception of Butler, Wheeler-Weaver targeted young black women who turned to sex work to cope with mental illnesses or homelessness because he thought nobody would notice if they went missing.
Prosecutors also presented hundreds of pages of records which detailed how the 23-year-old had used his phone to search for instructions on how to kill a person using household chemicals like bleach and ammonia and then sought out ways to erase his search history. They said he had even searched for information on how to become a police officer and had typed, "police entrance exam practice test" on one occasion.
Wheeler-Weaver is charged with three counts of murder, three counts of desecration of human remains, attempted murder, aggravated arson, aggravated sexual assault, and kidnapping, with the trial set to continue this week.