Intro

“Welcome to Murder By Nature, where we discuss True Crime, Mystery disappearances, and unsolved cases! I’m Jazmin Hernandez, your host!

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Since 2001, at least 50 women between the ages of 18 and 58 have been murdered in a similar fashion within the city of Chicago. The victims were mostly African Americans, typically employed as sex workers, and often had previous experiences with the justice system. Nearly all were strangled, partially or fully stripped, and then left in abandoned buildings, alleys, garbage bins, parks, or snowdrifts. Twenty-five of the cases were closed by police, resulting in the arrest of 13 men.

Many strangulations were committed in just three police districts on Chicago's South and West sides. Areas with histories of violent crime and drug use, such as Washington Park and Garfield Park, have been common locations for these murders to occur. This pattern was recognized in 2018 through the Murder Accountability Project (MAP), which reviewed over 50 unsolved strangulation and asphyxiation cases dating back to 2001. The algorithm used by MAP sorts unsolved homicides by location, victim, and killing method to identify clusters associated with low homicide clearance rates. According to MAP, these factors could indicate an active serial killer. The Chicago police deny that any one person is behind the slayings. Others point to parallels across the murders, including location, method, and victimology, to suggest a Chicago serial killer has been terrorizing the streets for over two decades.

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