On September 3, 1998, authorities in white jumpsuits and surgical-style face masks started pulling bodies from the Poughkeepsie, New York, family home of 27-year-old Kendall Francois.
By the time they were done investigators found the bodies of eight women in various states of decay tucked away in the attic, basement and crawl spaces of the home the bulging serial killer shared with his mother, father and younger sister. Francois -- who is black -- has been linked to the deaths of at least eight women who had disappeared from the same gritty Poughkeepsie neighborhood since October 1996. All the missing women had histories of prostitution and drug use.
So far, the other family members are not considered suspects and did not realize Kendall was stashing bodies in the house. "It's not the cleanest house in the world," a police spokesperson said explaining how the family could have been unaware of their home -- which is in a middle-class neighborhood a block away from Vassar College -- was doubling as a slaughterhouse. Though his parents and the letter carrier delivering mail to the house often commented about the funky smell, Kendall told them it was a dead animal that got stuck in a wall.
In February, Francois -- a college dropout who had been unhemployed since January 1997 -- was jailed for 15 days on a misdemeanor charge of sexual misconduct and assault involving a Poughkeepsie prostitute. In the usual post-arrest serial killer media blitz, neighbors said Francois, a former school helper known to the children as "Stinky", was "mild-mannered" and "friendly." Others said he was an obese, unemployed slob who smelled bad and reminded them of the cartoon character "Fat Albert." His pants were undone, his belly hung out and "stuff" caked the outside of his lips.
As of this writing Francois has only been charged with one count of second-degree murder in the strangulation of Catina Newmaster, 25, who was last seen August 26.