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NAACP Says Police Need Help Solving Murders;...

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RALEIGH — The local NAACP says Raleigh police needcounty, state and federalhelp to successfully solve a string of slayings in Raleigh last year,which the group implied might be the work of a serial killer.

President of the Raleigh-Apex chapter of the organization, H.B.Pickett, had somesuggestions for police.

Police insist they are making progress. Officers arrestedLeman Evans Wednesday in connection with one of six unsolvedslayings of poor, black women last year.

In a related development Thursday, police finally identified the womanwhosebadly decomposed body was found more than fourmonths ago at a south Raleigh construction site.

Cynthia Louise Brown, 32, was the fifth of six black women mysteriouslyslain last year. Investigators had not been ableto determine who she was even though police had arrested her more than twodozen times over the past 14 years.

Maj. Otis Hinton said Brown's body had decomposed badly in the two weeksbefore she was discovered. He said shewas identified through her fingerprints.

Brown's strangled body was found Aug. 22. She had an extensive recordof drug, theft and prostitution arrests, andmay have been killed within days of her release from state prison Aug. 3.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, NAACP officials asked police notto refer to the slain women as prostitutesunless they had been convicted of the crime.

- From staff and wire reports

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