The Gary police department is notoriously under-resourced, and its job in this case was made more difficult due to the bodies being hidden among the city’s thousands of abandoned homes.
Still, many of these women operate in the shadows for a reason, and Gary mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson says that makes it tough to catch guys like Vann.
“It does make it difficult. And it sort of indicates he preyed on individuals that might be less likely to be reported missing,” Freeman-Wilson said this week. “One of the messages that we’re sending this week is the importance of being safe. You wanna be safe when you’re a citizen, but when you’re in a high risk profession, you want to heighten that safety.”
Freeman-Wilson says the city has reached out to those in sex work, by identifying them through the city’s Drug Court.
“One of the things that we’ve seen through the drug treatment court, is a number of individuals who have been historically been sex workers who have been able to get treatment because we know there’s a high incidence of drug use in that group and to really address some of the traditional challenges that have lead them down that road,” Freeman-Wilson said.