Dating apps were created to help people meet each other and maybe fall in love. But law enforcement authorities say a Connecticut man used them to prey on women, including a nurse in Queens he met through Tinder who was strangled to death earlier this month.
The police in New York have also linked the man, Danueal Drayton, to a rape in Brooklyn and they are investigating whether he might be responsible for other rapes and killings involving women he met through dating and ride-hailing apps. Mr. Drayton, of New Haven, has a history of arrests involving violence against women dating back to 2011, according to the authorities, and he has told investigators he is responsible for several other crimes.
Mr. Drayton, 27, was arrested last week in Los Angeles by a regional fugitive task force after the police in New York tracked him to a hotel room there, law enforcement authorities said. When Mr. Drayton was found, officers discovered he had raped a woman and was holding her captive after sharing an Uber ride, the authorities said [.....]
Investigators in New York have begun a deeper investigation into Mr. Drayton and are looking for other victims, Dermot F. Shea, the chief of detectives, said on Monday [....] “If you look at the body of work, what just took place, it’s not much of a stretch unfortunately to think that there are going to be other victims,” Chief Shea said. “We need those victims. We need them to come forward for a lot of different reasons." [....]
Since in police custody, Drayton has claimed to have murdered up to seven women nationwide -- all of whom he said he met on social media, police sources told ABC News.Drayton has claimed that three of the murders took place in New York, the police sources said, although no evidence has emerged to validate Drayton's claims.
She describes a long courting process before he turned on her and tried to strangle her, "We would talk all night, all day, regular conversation," she said. "No red flags, nothing. Just you know -- the perfect guy."
Danueal Drayton, charged with rape and murder, claims voices drove him to kill — but a successful insanity plea is extremely rare
By Amelia McDonell-Parry @ RollingStone.com, Aug. 1
A week after Danuel Drayton was apprehended by police in Los Angeles, saving the life of a female hostage, The New York Daily News scored a jailhouse interview with the self-professed serial killer, who blamed his alleged crimes on “voices” using “direct-energy weapons on me to control my mind.” Drayton told the paper that he is “a passenger in my own body,” and suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar II disorder, though police told the Daily News that he has no history of mental illness. In Los Angeles court on Monday, Drayton pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, forcible rape, false imprisonment by violence and sexual penetration by foreign object.
Drayton will be extradited back to New York by the end of August to face charges for the murder of Samantha Stewart, a nurse he met through the dating app Tinder, who was found strangled to death at her apartment in Queens, New York, on July 17th. Drayton reportedly used Stewart’s credit card to purchase a one-way plane ticket to Los Angeles, where he took a third woman hostage after reportedly sharing an Uber ride, sexually assaulting and beating her over a period of two days. A joint New York-New Jersey Task Force, which was investigating Stewart’s murder, tracked Drayton to L.A., where authorities there were able to find and arrest him in the knick of time. Once he was in custody, authorities say that Drayton confessed to killing seven other people in New York and Connecticut, but they have not yet been able to connect the 26-year-old to those deaths, raising doubt about the veracity of his claims.
In his interview with the Daily News, during which he reportedly paused several times to address people who weren’t there, Drayton admitted to killing Stewart after they went on a pizza date, and recalled strangling her until he felt her body go “stiff.” [....]
By Dave Altimari & David Owens @ Hartford Courant, July 30
In the weeks before he was suspected of killing a New York nurse, New Haven resident Danueal Drayton missed multiple mandatory meetings with his Connecticut probation officer, state officials acknowledged Monday.
Connecticut officials said they searched for but couldn’t find Drayton, who has reportedly told authorities he has killed other women, although they are not certain if he is telling the truth. What Connecticut officials say they did not know was that Drayton had been charged on Long Island with choking his girlfriend on June 30 and released on July 5 — less than two weeks before authorities say they believe he killed nurse Samantha Stewart in Queens.
“The Office of Adult Probation was not notified about Mr. Drayton’s arrest on June 30, 2018,” the state said in a prepared statement.
It was not immediately clear if New York authorities knew Drayton was on probation in Connecticut. The last time Connecticut probation officials saw Drayton was in late May, before he missed three mandatory visits. They say they moved to rescind his probation on July 17, which is the date that New York police say he killed Stewart [.....]
the last paragraph here certainly has part of the traditional serial killer narrative:
Drayton grew up in Hamden in a foster family and attended Hamden schools before transferring to the Hyde School in New York. He also went to summer school in Bath, Maine. An administrator there said Drayton “had quickly defined himself as a leader among his peers” and that is was a “pleasure having Dan” as a student.
There's this unrelated freaky fundamentalist cult crime story update over at the Courant, by one of the same reporters, that will disabuse any of the notion of Conn. being a totally bucolic blue-state liberal kinda place:
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From an ABC News interview of one victim who escaped from him
She describes a long courting process before he turned on her and tried to strangle her, "We would talk all night, all day, regular conversation," she said. "No red flags, nothing. Just you know -- the perfect guy."
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/02/2018 - 1:45am
Is ‘Tinder Serial Killer’ Trying to Establish Insanity Plea?
Danueal Drayton, charged with rape and murder, claims voices drove him to kill — but a successful insanity plea is extremely rare
By Amelia McDonell-Parry @ RollingStone.com, Aug. 1
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/02/2018 - 1:55am
Connecticut Officials Searched For Danueal Drayton But Didn't Know Of His Arrest Before New York Nurse's Murder
By Dave Altimari & David Owens @ Hartford Courant, July 30
the last paragraph here certainly has part of the traditional serial killer narrative:
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/02/2018 - 2:19am
There's this unrelated freaky fundamentalist cult crime story update over at the Courant, by one of the same reporters, that will disabuse any of the notion of Conn. being a totally bucolic blue-state liberal kinda place:
'Chief Apostle' Of Infamous Religious Cult Was Killed In 2004, Body Parts Scattered Across New Britain, Court Records Reveal Aug. 1. 2018
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/02/2018 - 2:31am