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Ex-sailor not linked to any Seattle deaths
Despite reported claims, he's charged only in Detroit
Monday, April 17, 2000
By ELAINE PORTERFIELD
The former sailor who has confessed to killing prostitutes in Seattle and other ports around the world has yet to be linked to any deaths outside of Detroit, law enforcement officials said yesterday.
Investigators here and in Detroit said they haven't tied John Eric Armstrong to any slayings other than the five killings in the Detroit area with which he has been charged.
Authorities worldwide are trying to match his account of at least 11 other slayings while he was serving on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, where shipmates knew him as "Opie." The Nimitz was stationed at Bremerton from July 2, 1987, to Sept. 1, 1997.
Armstrong has reportedly said he killed three prostitutes in the Seattle area.
"We have nothing one way or the other" about any links to Seattle-area killings, Detroit police investigator Ronald Tate said yesterday.
Some investigators have warned that Armstrong may be exaggerating.
Seattle police Detective Dave Kannas yesterday said he was unaware of any new information that would connect Armstrong to slayings here.
The department has assigned an investigator to work with other agencies involved in the case to review unsolved slayings here.
Armstrong also claims to have killed two women in Hawaii, two in Hong Kong and one each in North Carolina, Virginia, Thailand and Singapore.
"There are gaps in his timeline we are concerned about," Detroit police Cmdr. Dennis Richardson told the Detroit Free Press. "However, nothing outside of Michigan has been confirmed yet."
Detroit police Detective Don Johnson said Armstrong has talked to investigators -- without a lawyer present -- since his arrest.
Police have interrupted the interviews to give him a chance to eat and sleep.
His relatives say they find it difficult to imagine how a quiet child who earned decent grades, played Nintendo and enjoyed fishing and baseball could emerge as a suspected serial killer.
"The Eric we raised could not have done these things," his mother, Linda Pringle, said in yesterday's Detroit News. "This is just not the person we know. . . . We just did the best we could."
"We're having a real problem reconciling all of this," said his stepfather, Ron Pringle.
Armstrong was, however, abused by his biological father and traumatized by the death of an infant brother, his family says.
In youth, Armstrong, now 26, talked of becoming a police officer. He preferred to be called Eric -- not John, the name of the father accused of abusing him.
Armstrong's father "was abusive to me as well -- and Eric saw that," said Linda Pringle, a 49-year-old teacher's assistant in North Carolina.
Even so, family members remember Armstrong as a loving son who only got counseling for a brief time after his young brother Mikey died.
At age 5, Armstrong rode his bike into speeding traffic. "He said he wanted to be with his baby brother," his mother said.
After high school, he worked for several months at a grocery store, then enlisted in the Navy in 1992 and left the next year.
On the Nimitz, he worked as a barber and took required safety education classes, including one that warned against soliciting prostitutes. Aboard the Nimitz, he met Katie Rednoske, a Dearborn High graduate who in 1998 became Armstrong's wife. She's now pregnant with their second child.
"Everyone on the ship's talking about it," said Petty Officer Stephen Olson, who arrived after Armstrong was discharged in 1995 as a third-class petty officer. "For God's sake, he was a barber."
Armstrong had no charges of misconduct and got two good-conduct medals, military personnel records show.
After Armstrong left the Navy, he applied for a job with the Virginia State Police and got far enough in the process that the agency called a neighbor as a reference, the News said.
On April 10, investigators found the bodies of three strangled prostitutes in a railroad yard in southwest Detroit. Police arrested Armstrong two days later and charged him in five deaths.
P-I reporter Elaine Porterfield can be reached at 206-467-5942 or elaineporterfield@seattle-pi.com
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