Eastbound Strangler

What the record shows

The Eastbound Strangler is the name given to an unidentified killer, or killers, believed responsible for the deaths of four women whose bodies were found on November 20, 2006, in a drainage ditch behind the Golden Key Motel on the Black Horse Pike (Route 40) in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, just outside Atlantic City. The victims were Kim Raffo, 35, Tracy Ann Roberts, 23, Barbara V. Breidor, 42, and Molly Jean Dilts, 20. No one has been charged. The Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office described the case in 2023 as an open joint investigation with the Egg Harbor Township Police Department, and no arrest had been reported as of October 2026.

According to ABC News reporting in November 2006, the women were found within a few hundred feet of each other, face down in several inches of water with their heads turned east, toward the casinos. They were clothed but had no shoes or socks, and CBS News later reported that none of their purses, phones or other belongings were recovered. The orientation of the bodies gave the case its popular name. Decomposition indicated that the women had died on different days, ranging from about two days to roughly a month before discovery, ABC reported.

Autopsies established homicide in two of the four deaths. The Associated Press reported in November 2007 that Raffo, the most recently deceased, had been strangled with a rope or cord and had lain in the ditch for a couple of days; CBS News reported that Roberts died in a similar way, and ABC News described one death as asphyxia by unspecified means. The causes of death for Breidor and Dilts could not be determined because of the condition of their remains, according to the AP. CBS reported that toxicology found large amounts of cocaine in Raffo and Roberts, alcohol in Dilts and a potentially lethal dose of heroin in Breidor, and that investigators considered whether the victims had been sedated. Authorities have not said publicly whether one person killed all four women.

All four women were described in contemporary reporting as working in the sex trade in Atlantic City. Raffo was from Brooklyn, New York, and had lived in Florida before moving to Atlantic City; she was last seen early on November 19, 2006. Roberts was a former exotic dancer whom the AP described as being from Philadelphia and CBS as being from Delaware. Breidor, of Ventnor, was identified through dental records about a week after the discovery; CBS reported she had been missing since October 17. Dilts, from western Pennsylvania, was identified by a tattoo and had last contacted her family on October 7, 2006, according to CBS.

Then-Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blitz formed a task force. CBS News reported criticism from a retired Egg Harbor Township police captain and an unnamed FBI source about how the scene was handled, which the prosecutor's office disputed, saying important evidence had been recovered from the victims' clothing and bodies. Several men were questioned over the following months. The most publicized was a former handyman at the Golden Key Motel, Terry Oleson, whose home in Alloway Township, Salem County, was searched in April 2007. He was arrested that month on an unrelated charge of secretly videotaping a teenage girl, to which he later pleaded guilty, and in June 2007 he provided DNA samples. Authorities never named him a suspect in the killings, he denied any involvement, and he was never charged in connection with the deaths.

The case slowed in later years. In July 2013, Acting Prosecutor Jim McClain told NBC10 Philadelphia that there was more than one person of interest but that the investigation had stalled, with little new information in recent years. The Wikipedia article states that a 25,000 dollar reward has gone unclaimed. In 2010, after the discovery of remains along Ocean Parkway on Long Island, investigators examined a possible connection to the Gilgo Beach killings, and the idea resurfaced in July 2023 when Suffolk County police said the Atlantic City deaths were among cases under review following the arrest of Rex Heuermann. On August 1, 2023, an Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office spokesman said that after comparing timelines and methods with Suffolk County investigators, there did not seem to be a connection between Heuermann and the 2006 homicides.

The Golden Key and neighboring motels were bought by the township with grant money and demolished in 2015, according to Casino.org. The prosecutor's office has continued to say it will follow all leads, and the four deaths remain unsolved.