Indiana man was violent long before 7 killings

GARY, Ind. (AP) — With hindsight, there were signs years ago of increasing violence against women by Darren Vann, who police say has confessed to killing seven women in northwestern Indiana and who appeared in court today.

Indiana court records from 2004 describe him grabbing a woman in a chokehold, dousing her with gasoline and threatening to set her on fire. He was sentenced to a year in prison.

In 2009, he was convicted in Texas of raping a woman. She told police that when she went to his apartment in Austin he knocked her down and began to strangle her, hit her several times in the face and said he could kill her, court records show. He was released from prison last year, when he moved back to Indiana.

In both cases, the charges against Vann were reduced in plea bargains, and Texas officials deemed him a low risk for violence. He registered as a sex offender in Indiana and police made a routine check in September that he lived at the address he provided.

"He was not on our radar at all," Gary Police Chief Larry McKinley said at a news conference Tuesday, adding that Vann was never suspected of taking part in homicides in the days or months before his arrest at the weekend.

Now Vann, 43, is charged with the strangulation death of one woman in Hammond, Ind., and police say more charges are expected after he directed them to the bodies of six more in nearby Gary.