Cheryl Lewis, a 30-year-old woman from Bridge City, Louisiana, was reported missing by her mother, Lillian Lewis, on February 2, 1993. Witnesses later testified that in the days before she vanished they had seen Cheryl with or near a man who would figure centrally in the case, taxi driver Russell Ellwood. Her body was recovered on the morning of February 21, 1993, in a canal off Highway LA 3160 in Hahnville, an isolated stretch described in court as lacking homes and street lighting. She was found face down in the water, nude except for socks; fingerprints identified her as Cheryl Lewis.

Ellwood was indicted on March 23, 1998, on two counts of second-degree murder; the Delores Mack count was later dismissed and the indictment for Cheryl was amended to allege she was killed on or between January 31, 1993 and February 9, 1993. After a change of venue to Lafayette, Ellwood’s trial began June 8, 1999, and the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict for Cheryl’s murder; on August 17, 1999, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. Did anyone who knew Cheryl or who traveled that stretch of LA 3160 in early February 1993 notice anything that might still help explain what happened?