Port Elizabeth prostitutes have been warned by police today to be on the look-out for a serial killer who may have killed four of their counterparts, and another woman.

André Beetge, a police spokesperson, said a man was in custody in connection with the murders, but prostitutes should still be careful. Police found strong similarities in the murders of four women in 2001 and another woman last week. All the women were Coloured, and four of them worked as prostitutes. The women were all last seen with a white man who picked them up in central Port Elizabeth.

They were all killed in a different location from where their bodies were found. The fifth woman (60) was not a prostitute. All five appeared to have been strangled. "The modus operandi of the murders indicated a possibility, although only a possibility, that there might be a serial killer," Beetge said.