The PTA-mom-turnedhooker who was found slain with three others on a seedy strip outside Atlantic City had briefly kicked her debilitating drug habit before her death at the hands of a serial killer, a friend said yesterday.
“I really do believe she was trying to straighten herself out,” said JeanWebster, 71, an outreach worker who tried to help the slain Kim Raffo kick her addiction to crack.
“We used to pray all the time. She wanted off drugs.” But those hopes were dashed when the drugs that dragged Raffo into a life of prostitution finally defeated her.
She seemed to be making progress last month, Webster said, but after three days of sobriety, she was back on the crack pipe.
“She came in . . . and she put her head down,” said Webster. “She said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ ” Raffo’s strangled body was one of four found on Monday in a ditch behind a dingy hotel on the Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township.
She and the three other women all had blond or dyed hair and their bodies were left face down with their heads pointed east- spurring fears of a serial killer some are calling the “Black Horse Strangler.” Police said Raffo, the only victim to be identified so far, was strangled by ligature.
A second victim died of “asphyxia by unspecified means.” The other two women’s cause of death could not be ruled because their bodies had decomposed so much, authorities said.
Gov. Jon Corzine, who was serving a Thanksgiving breakfast at an Atlantic City shelter – where clients are on edge because of the slayings – said he has been following the case closely. “We obviously have to solve the killings,” he said.
Also desperate to solve the gruesome murders is Raff’s estranged husband, Hugh Auslander, father of her two children.
“We were working on a common goal to get back together for the benefit of the kids,” he said. “She wanted out. She wanted out bad.”