Just posted over at Balloon Juice. Story via WaPo

A woman in Charleston, W.Va, may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, as well, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker in her home last week.

Neal Falls showed up at the woman’s home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage . com, according to police. He showed up with a “kill list,” multiple pairs of handcuffs and a Subaru full of weapons and tools, including a shovel, knives, a bulletproof vest, a machete, bleach, trash bags, sledgehammers and axes, according to Fox affiliate KPTV.

In Falls’s pocket, police said, was a list of names of potential future victims, all of whom are sex workers who advertised on Backpage, according to the Daily Dot.

Now investigators are trying to determine whether Falls, 45, was responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada, the station reported.

From the moment Falls showed up at the home of his latest alleged victim, a sex worker, he turned violent, the victim — who asked not to be identified — told KPTV.

“I knew he was there to kill me,” she said. “I could tell that he had already done something because he said that he was going to prison for a long time. And that’s when I knew he was gonna kill me.”

The woman told the station that Falls, who was from Springfield, Ore., pulled a gun on her and began strangling her. She said she had a split second in which to take control of the situation.

“When he strangled me he just wouldn’t let me get any air,” she said. ” I grabbed my rake and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I just grabbed the gun and shot behind me.”

Edit: I didn’t create the links within the story and they don’t exist as links at the original story either. Weird. I have no idea where they came from. I added some spaces to get rid of the link to Backpage