Hawaii County prosecutors suspect that two young women beaten and strangled to death eight months apart in 1978 were killed by the same man, Steven Ray Simpson, a fugitive who was living on Hawaii Island and wanted for a parole violation in his home state of Washington.

But they were able to secure only a single murder conviction for the death of University of Hawaii at Hilo student Mary Catherine Drapp, 24, whose body was found Dec. 11, 1978, in tall grass in Fern Forest in Puna.

Simpson was sentenced Feb. 25, 1980, to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.

The beating and strangulation death of Valerie Ann Warshay, 26, whose body was discovered April 23, 1978, by a young girl picnicking with her family at a park in Kalapana, remained a cold case for 45 years until a Hilo gr

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