ANTHONY BALAAM | “The Trenton Strangler” | Serial Drugs-for-Sex Killer | ALS

Anthony Balaam. ALS. Pmk: March 21, 2007. SEALED. Content unknown. Pristine.

• A/k/a: “The Trenton Strangler”
• Classification: Serial killer
• Characteristics: Rape – Crack addict
• Number of victims: 4
• Date of murders: 1994 – 1996
• Date of arrest: August 8, 1996
• Date of birth: July 9, 1965
• Victims profile: Karen Denise Patterson, 41 / Valentina Cuyler, 29 / Concetta Hayward, 27 / Debra Ann Walker, 37 (prostitutes)
• Method of murder: Strangulation
• Location: Mercer County, New Jersey, USA
• Status: Sentenced to life in prison on January 26, 2001

Murder

Anthony Balaam (b. July 9, 1965 | age 58; hereinafter referred to as “Anthony”), a Trenton, New Jersey crack addict, confessed to sodomizing and strangling four prostitutes during sex-for-drugs exchanges. A fifth rape victim, who escaped after being raped, led police to her attacker – ending his 22-month deadly rampage. Anthony, 30 at the time of his arrest, showed no remorse and “came off as a nice guy”, “a ‘Yes. Sir. No Sir’ kind of person”, when he was arrested on August 8, 1996.

The crimes Anthony was charged with occurred within two miles of his home. Police said he encountered his victims in the pre-dawn hours, while cruising neighborhoods where women regularly swap sex for crack cocaine.

Insights into the assault and the tool used by the perpetrator led police to believe that the person they were looking for was also the person who strangled the victim on February 16, even though she managed to flee. Two murders were connected by DNA from semen taken from the victims and other lab findings. The rape victim eventually identified Anthony as her assailant after he was taken into custody.

Anthony, known as the “Trenton Strangler”, was convicted on June 1 of killing the four women. The slain women were: Debra Ann Walker, 37, killed July 29, 1996; Concetta Hayward, 27, killed April 10, 1995; Valentina Cuyler, 29, killed March 19, 1995; and Karen Denise Patterson, 41, killed on October 24, 1994. On June 17 jurors ruled against the death penalty for the convicted killer.ⁱ

Serial Drugs-for-Sex Killer

Deputy Police Chief Joe Constance, who has been on the force for 27 years, called Anthony, 5 feet 5 inches and 150 pounds, “one of the calmest and coolest murderers he encountered”. Anthony would strike bargains with the women, threaten them with a knife in the sexual encounter and strangle them. Three victims were found in vacant lots and the fourth was in a rundown hotel.

Investigators stated that they believed at least one other woman had fled after encountering Anthony and hoped she would come forward. The investigators also stated that they were consulting with police in Detroit, where Anthony lived from July 1995 to January of this year, to determine whether he committed crimes there. A homicide investigator in Detroit said that the city had no string of unsolved murders and that the police did not recognize Anthony’s name.

Two killings were near Anthony’s home, Chief Constance said. The body of the last victim, Miss Walker, was found by Anthony’s neighbors.

One of the neighbors said that she did not know Anthony, who lived a few doors away. “Oh, my God”, Catherine Emerson of 415 Stuyvesant Avenue said over the phone when she learned that a murder suspect lived nearby. She claimed she had no memory of him. Mrs. Emerson claimed that on the morning of July 29, a neighbor called her and said, "Go look out the back door." Mrs. Emerson did so, and she discovered a body in a nearby parking lot. "I thought it was a little child," she recalled the small-framed woman on the grass, her blue-and-white coveralls pulled down.

Chief Constance said that DNA testing in semen recovered near two bodies had linked Anthony to the crimes and that the police hoped that further tests would tie him to all four killings and the rape on February 16.

In addition to murder, Anthony was charged with robbery and illegal weapon possession. He has convictions for minor burglary and drug offenses and has turned down counsel. Anthony had been imprisoned without bail.

Chief Constance spoke with compassion about the kind of women who were slain. “It’s like The Night of the Living Dead”, he said. “They will do anything, literally anything, to obtain the drugs.”

VIDEO: Anthony Balaam New 2022 Serial Killer Documentary | https://youtu.be/dvF5gQBT3xM

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