On a spring evening in 1992, 16-year-old Jamillah Jones was walking home in East Orange, New Jersey, after being out with friends. About six blocks from her house she was attacked by Jerome Dennis, who raped and stabbed her and then left her body on a pedestrian overpass.

Jamillah was the fifth and final victim in a series of murders in Essex County; her body was discovered on April 10, 1992 along with three other women’s bodies found within blocks of each other along the Garden State Parkway. The victims had been killed days apart, and their discovery alarmed the community.

Jerome Dennis, a paroled rapist, was arrested on April 13, 1992 and charged with five counts of murder plus rape, robbery, assault and kidnapping; he later confessed and in 1993 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.