The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE - Sheriff's deputies in West Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge parishes plan to meet to examine whether a third unsolved killing of a woman might be connected to one killer.

West Baton Rouge Sheriff-elect Mike Cazes said Tuesday that the 1994 strangling of Christina Daigle resembles the recently linked killings of two women in East Baton Rouge.

Daigle was wearing just a pair of socks when a truck driver found her body near the U.S. Highway 190 bridge in March 1994. Her head and face had been wrapped in masking tape, and her body had been mutilated, authorities said.

Last week, East Baton Rouge sheriff's Col. Mike Barnett said the killing of a woman whose body was found near Pride two weeks ago resembles the death of Katherine Hall, who was found dead in January 1999.

Barnett said the most convincing connection between the women is the fact that they were strangled and beaten and their bodies were mutilated after they were killed. Other similarities between the two women include that they often were in the same neighborhood and that their bodies were found nude near construction sites. Barnett also said the women lived "high-risk lifestyles," whicvh he defined as drug use, being in high-crime areas late at night and getting into cars with men whom they did not know.

Though no forensic evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, links the cases, Barnett said investigators believe one person is responsible for killing both women.

Barnett said he expects to have the latest body identified by the end of the week.