Pamela Kinamore, 44, an antiques dealer and artist, was found with her throat slit under the Whiskey Bay Bridge in a neighbouring parish on 16 July. Charlotte Murray Pace, 22, a graduate student at Louisiana State University, was stabbed to death in her town house on 31 May this year. Gina Wilson Green, a 41-year-old nurse, was strangled in her home on 24 September, 2001. But he confirmed that DNA matches showed that one man had killed the three women. When police chief Pat Englade - his neck wider than his head - tersely announced what the 230,000 citizens of Baton Rouge regarded as obvious, he avoided the phrase 'serial killer'. Two were found dead in their homes and a third was abducted, then killed. Their nightmare started when police confirmed that in the past 10 months a serial killer persuaded three attractive, middle-class women to open their doors to him.

They make sure their mobile phones are charged and they have ample Mace pepper spray on hand.

They have flocked to buy guns and learn how to use them. Women have given up walking, shopping or jogging alone.

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