For all you crime documentary binge-watchers and unsolved-case-podcast playing people, listen up: We’re sure you’re familiar with the classic Jeffrey Dahmer and Black Dahlia’s and Cecil Hotel stories.
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But have you noticed most of the well-known true crimes don’t have a Black face at the center of it? How many Black true crime stories do you know? Name them. As you fall down the true-crime rabbit hole, you’ll find we have all the same kind of serial killers, grisly cold cases and unexplained incidents that are depicted in the top ranking Hulu or Netflix crime docs. The only issue is that they tend to go unnoticed.
O.J. Simpson’s recent death got a lot of people reading or watching anything they could about the America’s most famous true-crime story. However, if you could name true-crime stories with a Black central casting other than O.J., well congratulations! You’re a real crime junkie. The rest of you, take a moment (if you have the stomach for it) to peruse this list of Black true crime stories every crime fanatic should know.
Mysterious Death of Kendrick Johnson
Kendrick Johnson was found dead, rolled upside down in a wrestling mat at Lowndes County High School in 2013. The autopsy said he died of suffocation in some freak accident. However, Johnson’s family believed their son was killed after the family saw spotty surveillance footage and social media posts that suggested he was attacked by his two white classmates.
Additionally, an independent autopsy found Johnson suffered blunt force trauma to the neck and that some of his organs were missing. However, a second investigation closed with no new findings and no charges were filed in the case.
Killing of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams
Back in 2012, Cleveland officers mistook backfire from Timothy Russell’s vehicle for gunshots resulting in a high-speed chase drawing 60 police cruisers and ending near W. H. Kirk Middle School. Over a dozen officers fired 137 shots into the vehicle killing both Russell and Malissa WilliamsWilliams who were unarmed. Police justified the killing on Russell’s previous criminal record including a prior police chase and Williams’ record of drug convictions.
The two were written off as mentally-ill drug addicts without shelter and each officer was acquitted of their manslaughter charges.
The Millbrook Twins
Teenage twins Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook have been missing since March 18, 1990. Their case was reopened in 2013 when a viral documentary on their disappearance aired, according to WJBF. The cops initially wrote them off as runaways. Their family said the twins’ last appearance was at a Pump-N-Shop store. A younger sister recalled walking with her mother to find them the night they vanished.
True crime sleuths assumed they were abducted by serial killer Joseph Patrick Washington, who lived in their neighborhood. Their father was also reported to be sexually abusive and some assumed he may have abducted them himself. The family put up two billboards, asking the public to help them find any information about their loved ones. A $50,000 reward has been offered for any information.
Mysterious Death of Tamla Horsford
Tamla Horsford was found dead in a friend’s backyard three years ago. She had been invited to a slumber party where she’d been drinking, per 11Alive News. Witnesses claimed Horsford went out on the balcony for a cigarette when she allegedly fell over the balcony to her death. However, the position of her body at the crime scene as well as an independent autopsy found Horsford sustained injuries before she fell.
Now, it’s unclear if she’d fallen at all. However, no one has been charged in connection to her death.
Murder of Jeffrey Dahmer
After a slew of gruesome, cannibalistic killings, Jeffrey Dahmer himself was slaughtered by inmate Christopher Scarver while in prison. The two served time alongside one another in 1992 after Dahmer got sentenced to 15 life sentences. Scarver told The New York Post he was disgusted watching Dahmer play with his food and shape the pieces into “body parts,” while smearing ketchup across them to make them appear bloodied.
Critics assume Scarver was aided in Dahmer’s attack because the cannibal was suspiciously left alone when Scarver went in for the kill.
Freeway Phantom
Between April 1971 and September 1972, six Black girls were kidnapped from their neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. and killed. According to the Metropolitan Police Department, their remains were found across D.C. and Prince George’s County. Authorities assume the suspect lived in the same neighborhoods as the girls, however, the case went cold and there’s no tips on who took their lives besides a cryptic letter discovered in one of the victim’s pockets.
“This is tantamount to my insensitivity to people, especially women. I will admit the others when you catch me, if you can!” - signed “The Freeway Phantom.”
Brian Easley’s Fatal Robbery
Former Lance Corporal Brian Easley, 33, was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2005 after serving in Kuwait and Iraq. He suffered from PTSD and schizophrenia. He survived off the disability checks from the Department of Veteran Affairs. However, suddenly, the money stopped coming.
On the morning of July 7, 2017, the timid, soft-spoken veteran walked into a Wells Fargo bank with a backpack that allegedly contained a C-4 homemade explosive. He calmly told several employees and customers to leave but held two employees hostage. His captives, though frightened, described Easley as respectful and polite. He then called 911 to report the incident and called WSB-TV to bring news coverage to his demands: a $892 check.
Following the trade for the hostages, a sniper took his shot at Easley through the window of the bank — ending the three-hour standoff.
Mysterious Death of Kenneka Jenkins
Jenkins, 19, was found dead inside a freezer at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois in 2017, per ABC 7 Chicago. Jenkins was attending a hotel party with friends when surveillance footage captured the teen wondering in the hallway by herself, seemingly intoxicated. Somehow, between walking out of the hallway and through the hallways, she ended up locked inside the hotel’s kitchen freezer.
Officials ruled her death an accident due to hypothermia and there were no signs of foul play. However, social media conspiracies suggested the party goers she was with had a hand in her death. No one has been charged in the case.
The Trial of O.J. Simpson
Former NFL star and late actor Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The two were found dead outside Nicole’s condo in Brentwood on June 12, 1994.
Simpson’s trial was known as one of the most publicized trial in American history. Everything was called into question, from DNA samples—which included blood, hair follicles and materials from Simpson’s vehicle—to the intentions of the LA police who were under scrutiny for the Rodney King beating. Simpson was eventually acquitted on all charges. However, there are still strong suspicions he was guilty all along.
Murder of Harry T and Harriette Moore
The Civil Rights power couple founded a chapter of the NAACP in Brevard County, Fla. The two were teachers but worked to help Black people vote, investigate hate crimes and overall fought for racial equality. They both fought in the Groveland case where four Black men were wrongfully convicted of raping a woman. However, Christmas night, a handmade explosive of dynamite detonated under the couple’s bed.
Harry died on his way to the hospital and Harriette died nine days later. It was found 50 years later that four KKK members were behind the killing and no one was arrested.
Lynching of Emmett Till
A true American horror story, Emmett Louis Till was only 15 when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered by racists. Emmett, who was from Chicago, had gone to Mississippi to visit family in August 1955. A young city boy, he had no idea how dangerous the Delta could be. Eventually, he was accused of whistling at a white woman in a store. That woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, told her husband and his brother that the boy had assaulted her.
The two men tracked down the boy, snatched him from his bed, tortured and mutilated him and left his body in the river. When his body was recovered, he was barely recognizable. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, held an open casket funeral which sparked a new wave of civil rights protests against the senseless violence racism had brewed.
The D.C. Snipers
John Allen Muhammad Lee Boyd Malvo went on a shooting spree around the DMV in 2002, per CNN. Most of their shootings targeted civilians in public places like shopping center parking lots, gas stations or school zones. Then, one day they left a clue at the scene of one of their crimes: a “Death” tarot card reading “Call me God.” Their motives were never clear. Some suspected Muhammad wanted revenge after his ex-wife and children left him. Others believed they were involved with Al Qaeda, given the fresh wound of the 9/11 attacks.
The killings began earlier that year, then became more frequent during the month of October. A total of 17 people died and another ten who were shot survived their gunshot wounds. Eventually, the two were arrested. Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009. Malvo remains in prison on a life sentence, though he’s been ordered for a resentencing now that he is an adult, per WUSA9 News.
Mississippi Burning
On June 21, 1964, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were in Neshoba County to look into the burning of the CORE Freedom School site. The three were volunteering to help people register to vote as a part of the Mississippi Summer Project. However, they weren’t aware that the burned down site they went to visit was a product of the KKK, who didn’t plan on stopping their trail of arsons.
On the drive back, the three were stopped by a sheriff, arrested and released. Then they disappeared. After an investigation into their vanishing was opened, their remains were found in the swamps of the Mississippi. They’d been tortured and killed by seven members of the KKK—all of whom were found guilty of the killings. None of them served longer than six years.
Chicago Strangler
Between 1999 and 2018, 75 Black women in Chicago were found strangled to death and their killers have never been found. According to Fox 32 Chicago, their bodies were often discarded in buildings or dumpsters and some were even dismembered.
Police have only solved 24 of the cases. Joel Cammon was arrested and charged in the kidnapping of one woman but it’s unclear if he’s connected to any of the other strangulation murders. The Murder Accountability Project began tracking these cases alongside activists who called out the Chicago Police Department for its inability to catch what they assume is a serial killer, who may still be on the loose.
Murder of Tanya Byrd
Police say the remains of Tanya Byrd were found on the streets of the South Bronx after a dog sniffed a trash bag, which contained Byrd’s hands and arms. The police arrived and found more of Byrd’s body parts in several heavy-duty plastic garbage bags and inside a duffel bag among trash piles in four different locations. In the last bag her head was found, which police matched to a photo.
Her son, 23-year-old Bahsid McLean, was seen donning a black bandana around his neck and a smirk on his face proudly lifting his hand to show off his mother’s severed head. McLean and his accomplice who’s accused of helping stash the trash bags were arrested. He confessed to the brutal murder and told the judge during a court hearing that his mother was dying and he was trying to help her. However, by the time he was sentenced in 2016, he owned up to the callous crime.
Kidnapping of Kobe Lee
Tiffany Rubin and Jeffrey Salko split up just four months after their son, Kobe Lee, was born. When Lee turned seven, his father fled to his native home of South Korea. However Rubin discovered her ex kidnapped her son and taken him abroad from a note confirming he had plans to fly to South Korea and never come back. The FBI issued a warrant for Salko’s arrest but it wasn’t until months later, the Association for the Recovery of Children helped her devise a plan to kidnap her son back.
Rubin flew 15 hours to Seoul, captured her son and disguised him as girl to make it back to America. Salko was eventually arrested and charged with kidnapping.
Mysterious Death of Shanquella Robinson
Shanquella Robinson was found dead while on a trip to Mexico with a group of six friends in October of 2022. After 14 sessions of CPR, six electric shocks and five doses of adrenaline, Robinson died. Authorities initially reported no foul play suspected in her murder and her friends said she died of alcohol poisoning. However, her autopsy report claims she suffered a broken neck and fractured spinal cord.
Videos from the trip showed Robinson being grabbed by the neck and body slammed onto the floor by one of the girls. To make matters more suspicious, the doctor who responded to the call for help when Robinson was found unconscious, said she wanted to transfer the woman to the hospital immediately but her friends refused.
The overwhelming call for justice gathered attention from the US Embassy in Mexico City, US Attorney’s Office in North Carolina and even the White House to get involved. One of the six friends was named a suspect by the family and prosecutors in Baja California.
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