Indiana man suspected in 3 deaths

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NEW ALBANY, Ind., April 28 (UPI) -- Remains found in the back yard of a New Albany, Ind., man charged with killing two women are those of a missing 35-year-old woman, police said Saturday.

Authorities said they had confirmed the remains found Friday on the property of William Clyde Gibson are those of Stephanie Marie Kirk of Charlestown, who disappeared in late March, The Evening News and Journal of Jeffersonville and New Albany reported.

Gibson, 54, had not been charged in Kirk's death. He was being held in the Floyd County jail without bond after being charged Tuesday in the recent death of family friend Christine Whitis, 75, of Clarksville and the 2002 death of Karen Hodella, 45, of Jeffersonville, the newspaper said.

The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal reported the preliminary cause of death for Kirk, who was last seen alive March 25, was strangulation. The newspaper said Whitis was found strangled in Gibson's home April 19 and the body of Hodella, whose cause of death hadn't been determined, was found along the banks of the Ohio River.