Ouithreaun C. Stokes, a 28-year-old Black/African American woman, was found beaten and strangled on April 27, 2007, inside an abandoned rooming house at 3128 North 7th Street in Milwaukee. Her killing initially appeared to be an isolated homicide, but DNA recovered in her case later matched evidence from earlier murders, linking her death to a larger series of killings on Milwaukee’s north side dating back to 1986.

Investigators eventually focused on Walter E. Ellis after reexamining cold-case evidence and obtaining a DNA sample from a toothbrush. Prosecutors charged Ellis in multiple deaths, alleging a pattern of strangulation across seven victims; Stokes’s death was the last in that series. In February 2011 Ellis entered no-contest pleas and was convicted on seven counts of first-degree intentional homicide, receiving seven consecutive life sentences without parole. The case raised painful questions about a missing convicted-offender DNA sample that might have identified Ellis sooner.

Did anyone on Milwaukee’s north side between 1986 and 2007 notice suspicious activity or unknown vehicles near abandoned properties where these women were found?