On December 21, 1986, detectives in Wiltshire, England, announced their search for connections in the recent slayings of two women, killed within hours of each other at Salisbury. In the early-morning hours of December 19, victim Ruth Perrett, age 25, was found naked and dead in her room at a half-way hostel for recovering mental patients. Last seen alive at a party the evening before, she had been raped and strangled by her assailant. The following day, police at Ringwood, near Southampton, were following up a missing person report when they found 45-year-old Beryl Deacon dead in her car, another victim of sexual assault. A third fatality was added to the list when homicide investigators voiced concerns about a link between the recent deaths and that of Linda Cooke, age 24, a one-time barmaid raped and murdered in the town of Portsmouth, on December 10. Cooke's death was seen as possibly related to a string of rapes, targeting nurses and female doctors at area hospitals over the past year. Police arrested several suspects in the case, but none were ultimately prosecuted. The most recent, described in press reports as a sailor, was released in January 1987 with no charges filed against him. At this writing, the case remains officially unsolved.