Brenda Erving, a 41-year-old African-American woman, was found dead on October 15, 2004, in rural Peoria County, Illinois. Her body was discovered facedown on a muddy gravel road, nude except for a single sock, and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation.

Erving was one of the victims of Larry Dean Bright, who targeted African-American women in Peoria and Tazewell Counties between July 2003 and late 2004. Bright, known as The Bonecrusher, burned victims’ bodies and crushed bone fragments with a hammer; he dumped some bodies along rural roads and burned others in a backyard fire pit. A tip from a sex worker, Vickie Bomar, who said she had been strangled by Bright, helped lead to his arrest.

Bright was convicted of eight counts of murder and sentenced to eight life sentences without the possibility of parole. Brenda Erving’s death is part of a string of killings that affected sex workers and women with histories of drug use in the area. Did anyone in Peoria or Tazewell County know Brenda or see her around October 2004?