Charged with the five Detroit-area murders–the magistrate entered a plea of “not guilty” until Armstrong gets a lawyer–the suspect was held without bail while the Navy and the FBI try to sort out the grisly details. It could take a while. Armstrong joined the Navy in 1992 and sailed on the Nimitz until 1999, when he left the service. According to the Navy, his record contained no hint of psychological or disciplinary problems. In fact, Armstrong earned four promotions–he was a petty officer who supervised the ship’s barbershop–and two Good Conduct Medals. Neighbors in Dearborn Heights said he was a nice guy, sometimes assisting a blind woman who lived across the street to go shopping. “He didn’t seem like a killer,” said Cathy Ciantar, who lives next door. “When you talked to him, you didn’t feel like you were going to be harmed or anything.”
But police said Armstrong liked to prowl the Michigan Avenue strip in southwest Detroit to find his victims. After the three bodies were discovered on April 10, several other prostitutes told police about terrifying encounters with a man who paid for sex, then yelled “I hate whores” and tried to strangle them. One survivor said she escaped by spraying the man with Mace. Cops say these witnesses were able to give them a detailed description of Armstrong’s black Jeep Wrangler. He was arrested early on April 12, authorities believe, while looking for prey.
By then it should have been obvious that someone had blundered–for Armstrong was already the prime suspect in the murder of another prostitute, Wendy Jordan, whose body had been found in the Rouge River on Jan. 2. Amazingly, Armstrong himself called Dearborn Heights police to report the corpse, telling them he spotted Jordan’s body when, feeling ill, he leaned over a bridge to vomit. The cops didn’t like his story and questioned him repeatedly. They matched fibers found on the body with fabric in Armstrong’s Jeep, and they sent DNA samples to a state lab for clinching proof.
The lab reported a definite DNA match in March, but Wayne County prosecutors refused to get a warrant for Armstrong’s arrest until the results were confirmed in writing–which finally occurred on April 12, the day Armstrong was coincidentally arrested in Detroit. “We wanted the final DNA findings before we went ahead,” prosecutor Richard Padzieski told The Detroit News. If they had moved sooner, he conceded, the three women whose bodies were found last week might still be alive.
