On L.A.'s mean streets they are known as "strawberries," young women, usually prostitutes, who trade sex for drugs. Since August 1985 police have discovered the bodies of at least nine strawberries; each woman had been shot to death with a small-caliber handgun. Last week lawmen found a suspect in the serial killings. In a twist right out of a lurid TV movie, he turned out to be a sheriff's deputy.
Rickey Ross, 40, a Los Angeles narcotics investigator, was stopped by cops for driving erratically. Ross, an 18-year veteran, was accompanied by a prostitute, though he insisted that he did not know about her profession. The woman said they were smoking cocaine.
In the trunk of Ross's car, officers discovered a handgun that matched the weapon used in three of the strawberry murders.