February 2nd, 1962 was a Friday night, and pretty high school senior Judi (sometimes spelled Judy) Reeder was planning her usual night out with friends in Bend, Oregon. The seventeen-year-old got into her car in the early evening and headed toward town, but she evidently never made it to her destination. The following morning, her … More Judith Reeder

On the evening of May 1st, 1967, in California, fourteen-year-old Nikki Benedict was walking home from a girlfriend’s house at around six p.m. As she took a short cut along a dirt road in the then-unincorporated town of Poway, near San Diego, she was attacked by a person or persons unknown. About a half-hour later, … More Nikki Benedict

Thirty-six-year-old Wharlest Jackson, Jr. was a veteran of the Korean War and a Florida native. He had moved to Natchez, Mississippi more than a decade earlier to marry his sweetheart Exerlena, who had been born there. The couple had five children. In the early part of 1967, Wharlest had been offered a promotion at the … More Wharlest Jackson

In the early spring of 1967, twenty-four-year-old secretary Gloria Fay Slump was excited to introduce her parents to a nice new man she had met. She phoned them on March 3rd and said she would bring him over for a weekend visit. She never arrived. On Monday, March 6th, workers at the Burlington Railroad discovered … More Gloria Fay Slump

Seventeen-year-old Judy Ann Corbin had always been something of a wild child, and during her younger years had spent some time in the juvenile justice system during her family’s stint in California, while her father was serving there in the Navy. After the Corbins had moved back to their native Iowa, Judy had struck out … More Judy Ann Corbin

Denise Sue Clinton was an adorable nine-year-old with a reddish-blonde pixie cut, freckles, and a maturity far beyond her years. In early July of 1965, she had just come back from a two-week vacation in California with her parents and her six-year-old sister Diana. On the evening of July 7th, her parents dropped her off … More Denise Sue Clinton

In early June of 1965, in Louisiana, there would be another racially-motivated killing that recalled the previous slaying of businessman Frank Morris from late 1964, as well as the Mississippi murders of Louis Allen and Clifton Walker from earlier in the same year. Oneal (alternately spelled O’Neal) Moore was appointed the first black deputy sheriff … More Oneal Moore

Fifty-six-year-old schoolteacher Lillian Elizabeth Hedman Randolph had not had very good luck with the men in her life. Her beloved first husband Bob O’Hara, with whom she had two children, had died of an accidental fall at the couple’s home in 1945.Five years after that, Lillian married again, this time to a man named Roy … More Lillian Hedman Randolph

It was the afternoon of October 9th, 1965. Fourteen-year-old Elsie Frost had been hanging out with her friends at the sailing club on Horbury Lagoon. It was nearing four p.m., and the teenagers decided to start making their way back home. Elsie’s friends set off along the towpath that lay parallel to the Calder and … More Elsie Frost

Twenty-one-year-old Suellen Evans was majoring in home economics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In 1965, she had just enrolled and signed up for several summer classes, and on the morning of Friday, July 30th, she had two of them: sociology and education. After classes were over for the day, she was … More Suellen Evans