In early 1982, twenty-six-year-old Andrea Buchanan was an up-and-coming professional tennis player with a bright future ahead of her. Just a few months previously, she had competed in both the 1981 Wimbledon Championships and the 1981 US Open, acquitting herself well at both tournaments. She was a popular and well-liked player and was close friends with tennis legend Billie Jean King.
On January 28th, 1982, however, the young woman’s promising career was brutally cut short when she was found shot multiple times on the floor of a Los Angeles fish market where she worked part-time. Her boss, fifty-seven-year-old Nathanial Brown, had also been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene. Though Andrea was still clinging to life when she was found and was immediately rushed to a hospital in Culver City, she tragically succumbed to her wounds not long after she arrived, without ever regaining consciousness.
Authorities confirmed that robbery had not been the motive for the double murder, and were operating on the assumption that Nathanial Brown may have been involved in dealing drugs without Andrea’s knowledge. Whether this was indeed the case is still unknown, and the motive and perpetrators behind the crime remain a mystery.
Notably, Billie Jean King dropped out of competition at the 1982 Avon Championships of Detroit, held only days after the murder, as she was mourning her friend and couldn’t concentrate on her performance.
Crime Immemorial 