Sonja Brandon was a 32-year-old African American woman who was strangled in July 1998 as part of a string of killings on Chicago’s South Side. Her body was later linked to other victims in a pattern centered largely in Englewood, where abandoned buildings and vacant lots repeatedly became crime scenes. Investigators say a suspect took a pair of designer shoes Brandon had been wearing and later sold them for $29.

Investigators ultimately tied Brandon’s killing to Andre Crawford after DNA and other evidence connected multiple scenes and Crawford made recorded confessions describing agreements to exchange cocaine for sex, then killing and sexually assaulting victims. Crawford was charged in late January 2000; Brandon’s case was docketed as case number 00 CR 5459 (with her first name also spelled Sonji in court records) and proceeded to trial with the other deaths. The jury found Crawford guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated criminal sexual assault in Brandon’s case on December 10, 2009.

Does anyone have memories of the Englewood area in 1998 or information about Sonja Brandon that could help preserve her story?