Police investigating a series of prostitute killings seized blood-spattered sections of drywall, pieces of rope, women's wigs and women's underwear from a basement room of a man in Ferguson, the Post-Dispatch learned Saturday.

Investigators told the newspaper that they first linked the man to the case last week through his home computer. They believe he downloaded a map that he used to pinpoint the location of the skeletal remains of the woman.

The map and a letter were mailed to a Post-Dispatch reporter. The reporter had written a profile of one of the women thought to be victims of a serial killer preying on prostitutes.

Investigators said the map came from the Expedia.com Web site. Investigators subpoenaed Expedia.com's records for the timeframe they thought the letter writer would have accessed the map; through that, police were led to the Ferguson man's computer at his home on Ford Drive.

The remains of the African-American woman were found May 25 at the spot marked on the map sent to the Post-Dispatch. The location was off Highway 67 in the West Alton area of St. Charles County.

On Friday, St. Louis police took the man into custody and brought him downtown to police headquarters. Detectives from St. Louis, St. Charles County and the Illinois State Police have been working jointly on the case. The bodies of 10 African-American women have been found in the St. Louis area since April last year.

Six of the women have been identified, and all were prostitutes with drug habits. Many of those women had been tied up with rope, and detectives theorized that they had been held captive before their bodies were dumped.

The identities of the four of the women, including the one pinpointed by the letter, have not been determined. A woman believed to have been an 11th victim survived but has been unable to assist detectives because of her injuries.

The letter to the Post-Dispatch provided a major break for investigators. And it was no simple task for them to track the letter to the man in Ferguson.

Expedia.com offers a number of vacation services, from buying airline tickets and making hotel reservations to renting cars and booking cruises. The Web site also offers maps.

On Saturday, a check of the Web site found a map that very nearly matches the one the letter writer sent to the Post-Dispatch to pinpoint the body's location.

After tracking the map of the intersection to its online source, police investigators would have to subpoena records from the Web site to find out which computers had accessed that particular map during a certain period, said George Landau, the president of NewsEngin Inc., a St. Louis company that makes Internet software for journalists.

Each computer has its own Internet Protocol address, which is assigned to it by the company that provides Internet service, Landau said. Authorities would then make a connection between the online map and the Internet service provider to find out who owns the computer, and where that person lives or works, he said.

Good police work.

Fry that mutherfucker

if they can catch murders like this I'm all for it. I am concered about our everyday eroding privacy though.