Did you know that the serial murders of Black women* have been going on unresolved in South L.A. since the 1980s? Law enforcement has divided the murders into three sets, but the time periods overlap and it isn’t even clear how many women have actually lost their lives in this brutal and vicious way.
Because the killings were not connected as serial murders, the tragic enormity of the situation has been hidden and downplayed, and vital evidence, connections and patterns may have been missed. Public and media attention which would have been greater if the total numbers of deaths had been known, would have spurred the police into a more vigorous investigation. Lives might have been saved and the community better protected from further attacks.
Families of several of the victims were never notified by law enforcement that their loved ones were killed by a serial murderer—and neither was the lone survivor of the attacks. Each was made to believe that it had been a random killer. Many families had to learn from press articles or from television! Crucial patterns of evidence have been missed.
Why was so little done in 20 years to solve these murders? If the murders had not happened in South L.A. against working-class Black women but in Beverly Hills or some other affluent neighborhood would they have been handled with the same lack of care and seriousness, would they be so under-reported by the media? What do you think?