Following the Inquiry in A City Owned

A case built from disturbing discoveries

A City Owned by OJ Modjeska recounts a real-life serial murder investigation. The first Murder By Increments book describes women disappearing across Los Angeles and bodies found beside suburban roads and freeways. The deaths involve sexual assault and severe violence, making this a difficult true-crime subject.

The investigation’s starting problem is identification. Repeated discoveries establish a growing emergency, but they do not immediately supply a dependable account of who is committing the crimes. The distinction between a pattern and a proven explanation is central to approaching the book’s premise.

Leads that need to be tested

Investigators consider a possible law-enforcement connection. An arrest involving the strangling deaths of two college students across state lines later offers a potential breakthrough. The distance between the two locations expands the inquiry beyond its original urban setting, while the investigators still have to establish what the new lead means.

For readers following the case as an investigation, these changes of direction are a central point of interest. A possibility that seems alarming still has to be tested; an arrest elsewhere still has to be understood in relation to the Los Angeles deaths. Modjeska’s account takes up that difficult movement from repeated violence toward an explanation. The investigative question is how separate discoveries begin to produce a connected picture of the crimes.