Judge sets bond at $4 million for suspected serial killer

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A construction worker was ordered held on $4 million bond Thursday after being extradited from Georgia to face charges he strangled four women in Bridgeport in the early 1990s.

The gruesome crimes sparked fears of a serial killer on the loose in Connecticut's largest city. They went unsolved until last year, when detectives said they linked Emanuel Lovell Webb to the killings with DNA, including a match from a cigarette butt found at one of the crime scenes.

Webb, 40, arrived Wednesday night in Connecticut and appeared Thursday in Bridgeport Superior Court, where he did not enter a plea.

Webb, a former Bridgeport resident, was already in custody in a Georgia jail when he was charged last year with strangling 34-year-old Elizabeth "Maxine" Gandy to death in Bridgeport in 1993. Detectives said they also used DNA to link him to the deaths of Sharon Cunningham, 39, Minnie Sutton, 37, and Sheila Etheridge, 29.

Gandy's daughter, Tequea Gandy, 28, said after Webb's court appearance that she was pregnant and in the hospital when her mother was killed. Elizabeth Gandy never had the chance to meet her grandson, who was born a few days after she died.

"I really want him to pay with his life if possible," Tequea Gandy said, adding that her mother's death continues to affect her. "It just destroyed my life. I've been homeless, I've been through hell because of that man."

The four women were among more than a dozen killed in Bridgeport in the late 1980s and early 1990s, prompting authorities to create a task force to investigate similarities in the crimes.

Detectives looked into whether Webb might have been involved in up to six other homicides, but Bridgeport State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict said he isn't certain whether Webb will face additional charges.

"I don't see it at this point," he said.

The four women Webb is charged with killing, described by authorities as cocaine or crack cocaine abusers, were found dead in the east end of Bridgeport near where he lived at the time, police said. Three of the women were mutilated or disfigured, including one who suffered stab wounds to the neck, chest, forehead and stomach, police said.

Each of the crimes had a sexual aspect.

Webb frequented the same clubs as the victims, police said. One witness described him as a loner who sold fake drugs and acted strangely.

Detectives started reinvestigating the cases in 2003 and submitted the DNA evidence to the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory.

Police said a match later turned up for Webb, who was being held in jail in Georgia for violating his parole for the death of a young woman in 1994 during supposed "wild sex."

Detectives also determined that Webb was treated at Bridgeport Hospital for a cut to his finger in 1993, around the time Gandy was killed. Police believe he was injured during the killing, according to his arrest affidavit.

Police said that before moving to Georgia in August 1993, Webb had lived in Bridgeport and worked for a Fairfield security company and a construction company.

Superior Court Judge Earl Richards cited DNA evidence against Webb and the gruesomeness of the killings in setting bond at $4 million.