Alabama Man Says He Killed Women In NW -- Seattle Woman Is Among Reported Victims

A man from Birmingham, Ala., who already has admitted murdering three women, says he killed two other women in the Pacific Northwest - including one from Seattle - in the summer of either 1977 or 1978.

Jack Harrison Trawick, 45, said he told police he killed a female runaway aboard a ship traveling between Seattle and Alaska and dumped her in the Pacific Ocean. He said he killed a fifth woman in the Ashland, Ore., area, possibly near a ski resort.

Trawick, in an interview with The Birmingham Post-Herald published yesterday, did not say how the women were killed, what their names were, or exactly what he did with the bodies. But he did say the bodies were dumped.

TRIP TO VANCOUVER

Trawick said the murders occurred during a trip he took by car from California to Vancouver, B.C.

He said yesterday he would give more details about the crimes at a later date.

Trawick is being held in Alabama on murder charges in the recent stabbing deaths of Stephanie Gach and Aileen Pruitt and the 1972 murder of Betty Jo Richards. He is also suspected in the attempted murder of another woman in 1972.

Lt. Mel Clements of the Ashland, Ore., Police Department said he was unaware of any unsolved murders in Ashland. But he said that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Seattle Police Sgt. David Ritter knew nothing of a woman being dumped from a ship during 1977-78.

Seattle police spokeswoman Vinette Tichi said the shipboard murder did not sound familiar, but that detectives probably would be communicating with Birmingham Police and checking reports of runaways and missing persons from that time.

FIRST CHARGED

Trawick was first charged with murder Oct. 29 when, after being arrested for a parole violation, he confessed to the Oct. 9 murder of Gach, a 21-year-old Jefferson State College Student. Later he confessed to stabbing to death Pruitt, a 26-year-old prostitute, in June and Richards, a 17-year-old runaway from Quinton, in 1972.

He was charged with those murders earlier this month.

Trawick was paroled from the St. Clair Correctional Facility in 1990 after serving seven years of a burglary sentence.