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| Nancie Walker is among the 51 Unforgotten women |
By Mohammad Samra
Fifty-one women. Fifty-one lives. Fifty-one women strangled. Fifty-one souls. These are the Chicago women--from Jan. 4, 2001 to Sept. 10, 2018--whose homicides are believed connected to one or more serial killers.
This is a story by the numbers. Just the facts—a numerical summation of the data and analysis compiled by the Alexandria, Virginia-based Murder Accountability Project, which has used a computer algorithm to link the strangulation or asphyxiation murders of 51 Chicago women since 2001 to one or more serial killers.
These are the cold facts. A portrait of this case with no frills, although revelatory and piercing in its numerical simplicity:
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"One hundred percent of them have names. One hundred percent had lives and loved ones. One hundred percent of them had stories."
-Mohammad Samra
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| Diamond Turner is among the Unforgotten 51. |
Angela Marieanna Ford was the first victim--found Jan. 4, 2001; Reo Renee Holyfield was the most recent--Sept. 10, 2018.
In two separate cases, two victims were discovered on the exact same date. On average, over the 18-year period, there were about three murders a year, with 2003 having the highest number of related strangulation victims--eight.
Nancie Walker, Tarika Jones, Linda Green, Rosenda Barocio, LaTonya Keeler, Latricia Hall, Lucyset (aka Mary) Thomas and Ethel Amerson were the eight slain in 2003.
Tarika Jones and Linda Green were found slain May 20, 2003. The bodies of Latricia Hall and Lucyset (aka Mary) Thomas were discovered less than five months later on the same day: Oct. 15, 2003.
Yvette Mason, 35, was found on Christmas Day 2005, strangled, and in an alley at 5031 S. Indiana Ave.
By the numbers…
Of the 51 women identified by MAP, there was only one slaying in each of the years 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2014. No slayings were recorded in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
Twenty-seven percent of the bodies of the 51 were recovered in an alley. About 16 percent in garbage cans and about 16 percent in vacant lots.
Fourteen women--Jody Grissom, Loraine Harris, Celeste Jackson, Linda Green, Rosenda Barocio, Tamala Edwards, Precious Smith, Denise V. Torres, Yvette Mason, Veronica Fraizer, LaToya Banks, Shannon Williams, LaFonda Sue Wilson and Velma Howard--were found in alleys.
Seven women--LaTonya Keeler, Michelle Davenport, Antoinette P. Simmons, Theresa Bunn, Hazel Marion Lewis, Diamond Turner and Reo Renee Holyfield--were found in garbage cans.
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| Hazel Lewis is among the Unforgotten 51. |
Nine women—Winifred Shines, Elaine Boneta, Gwendolyn Williams, Nancy Walker, Makalavah Williams, Genevieve Mellas, Vanessa Rajokovich, Catherine Saterfield-Buchanan and Valarie Marie Jackson--were found in what is described as “outdoors”; and three women--Charlene Miller, Mary Ann Szatkowski and Saudia Banks--were discovered “indoors.”
By the numbers: Fifty-one women. Collectively they represent 1,878 collective years of life. Contained within those years are moments worth more weight than perhaps any statistics could ever convey.
“They (the victims) have become very important women,” said Beverly Reed Scott–a community activist and advocate for women’s issues who said she created an event in Feb. 2019, to honor the murdered women after being inspired by a piece produced by veteran Chicago investigative journalist Pam Zekman.
The story of their lives “can be a bridge for us to cross over into deeper understanding about what it means to try to live--to try to have your existence and have it matter in the world,” Reed Scott said.
“It’s not easily dismissed as, ‘she’s just a prostitute or she’s just an addict’ when she has a name...”
One hundred percent of them have names. One hundred percent had lives and loved ones. One hundred percent of them had stories.
And the number of them who deserve justice? Every single one.
