Authorities have accused a woman of meeting men for sex only to drug, kill and rob them.
The US state of Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost announced on Wednesday that 33-year-old Rebecca Auborn, from the Northeast Side of the state capital of Columbus, had been charged with four counts of murder.
This in addition to four counts of aggravated robbery, five counts of assault, five counts of ‘corrupting another with drugs’, one count of evidence tampering, and four counts of drug trafficking.
The offences are alleged to have taken place between January and June of this year. One of Auborn’s alleged victims is thought to have survived an earlier attack, in December 2022.
Yost did not specify in his statement the identity of the victims nor the drug allegedly used to kill them.
He said: ‘Don’t buy sex in Ohio – it ruins lives and could cost you yours.’
In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch, he added the pattern to Auborn’s alleged killings appear to fit that of a serial killer.
He told the paper: ‘I’ve never seen a case similar to this in my career, and having talked to colleagues, they haven’t seen this kind of thing.’
The Attorney General added he was concerned Auborn’s alleged actions might undo his office’s work in promoting awareness of the harms of human trafficking, seemingly in reference to the risk of her case deterring female victims from coming forward for fear of being demonised.
He said: ‘It would be a real injustice if the actions of this individual were an impediment to other survivors of human trafficking.
‘Most of the women who are survivors are victims. They are not predators, they are the prey of predators.’
Auborn, who is currently being held in Franklin County Jail, is not reported to have had a significant previous criminal history prior to the charges filed against her this week.
She has at least one child, in addition to a daughter who died just days after she was born in 2016.
In another case, apparently unrelated to the charges she is currently facing, the accused is reported to have admitted to detectives she had mixed fentanyl, a highly powerful synthetic opioid, in a crack pipe used by one of the victims after they had met up for sex.
Police are continuing to investigate several other overdose deaths in the Columbus area along motorways where Auborn’s alleged crimes took place.
If convicted on all charges, she will face several decades behind bars. Court records indicate she does not presently have an attorney appointed to represent her.
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