“These 51 women were not killed by 51 separate men,” Hargrove said. To Hargrove, the evidence is indisputable.
Over three-fourths of the murders involved sexual components, according to the Murder Accountability Project, and CPD reported that many of the women had histories of sex work, illegal drug use or both.Ĭonfidential information provided by witnesses gives CPD reason to believe there are two or three serial killers at work. This might indicate a mobile killer with knowledge of Chicago streets, Hargrove said. Most of the killings occurred on Chicago’s South and West Sides, with a pronounced north-to-south pattern along South Indiana Avenue in Bronzeville. This implies the killers and victims were strangers to one another. Nearly all of the women were murdered outside or in abandoned buildings, though usually women are killed indoors by partners or family members, Hargrove said. The report, which pointed out glaring similarities among the Chicago murders, spurred the FBI and CPD to form an investigative task force.Ĭhicago’s cluster of unsolved female homicides is the largest in modern history and demonstrates striking patterns. In 2019, the Murder Accountability Project released a cautionary report at the behest of the Chicago City Council. The Murder Accountability Project first alerted CPD of a potential serial killer in 2017, but the department did not immediately act due to understaffing and underfunding.
“Why isn’t there DNA?”Ī map of Chicago’s 51 unsolved female homicides generated by the Murder Accountability Project. “That needs to be looked at,” Meyers-Powell said. “It’s possible this killer or killers are pretty intelligent and are aware not to leave their DNA behind.īrenda Meyers-Powell of the Dreamcatcher Foundation, a nonprofit agency working to end human trafficking, agreed that the lack of DNA must be investigated. “The fact that there is such a low rate at which DNA has been obtained is suggestive,” Hargrove said. Hargrove pointed out how unusual this is for cases of strangulation and asphyxiation, both very physical crimes. Out of the 50 unsolved cases, only 18 yielded the 21 DNA samples. “DNA has not been the magic bullet that we all had hoped for, especially the Chicago police,” Hargrove said. Identifying a serial killer in Chicago has proven more elusive, and Hargrove expressed his frustration with the results of the DNA analysis. Hargrove’s research helped identify and arrest Darren Deon Vann, a prolific serial killer in Indiana, in 2014. The Virginia-based, nonprofit investigative group previously spurred law enforcement to reopen homicide investigations in Youngston, Ohio and Gary, Indiana. The Murder Accountability Project, founded by veteran investigative reporter Thomas Hargrove, was the first agency to sound alarms that a serial killer might be on the loose. None of the 21 samples cross match to each other, nor do they match any of the DNA profiles of identified criminals in the FBI’s database, the representative said. However, the results complicate the theory that a serial killer is behind 50 unsolved strangulation and asphyxiation cases.
#UNSOLVED SERIAL KILLERS THOUGHT TO BE WOMAN SERIES#
All 21 DNA samples from a series of female homicides that have occurred in Chicago since 2001 have been analyzed, a Chicago Police Department representative confirmed.