Florence McCormick was a 28-year-old Black woman whose body was found in Milwaukee on April 24, 1995. Workers entering a boarded-up house in the 600 block of West Locust Street discovered her in the basement near the foot of a laundry sink. A broken window was noted at the property. McCormick had been strangled; her wrists were bound with rope and tied to the washtub sink, and rope also extended around her neck. Officers observed her body was cold and rigor mortis was developing, indicating she had been deliberately restrained and killed.

For years the case remained unsolved until advances in DNA testing linked biological evidence from McCormick to an unknown profile associated with several other Milwaukee strangulation victims. In 2009 investigators matched that profile to Walter E. Ellis, who was charged in McCormick’s homicide among others. Ellis entered no-contest pleas to seven homicide counts on February 18, 2011, and was convicted; on February 24, 2011, he received seven consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole. The sentencing formally closed McCormick’s case more than fifteen years after her death.

Did anyone who knew Florence or who lived near West Locust Street in 1995 see anything that could help complete her story?