Tyra Tassin was found dead in New Orleans on September 3, 1991. She was a 21-year-old Black woman and a mother of three. Her death was placed by investigators near the start of a years-long series of killings later discussed under the moniker Storyville Slayer, a label derived from repeated patterns in several victims rather than from a single identified perpetrator.

Strangulation recurs in descriptions of the series, and several victims were dumped in waterways or outlying areas. Reports note a survivor from an earlier attack who helped produce a sketch of a muscular, well-dressed, middle-aged man driving a dark vehicle. Investigators pursued multiple leads over the years, formed a task force in the mid-1990s, and publicly examined suspects including a police officer, Victor Gant, and a cab driver, Russell Ellwood. Ellwood was later charged and convicted in at least one murder, but Tyra’s case was never tied to a definitive suspect and remains unresolved.

If anyone knew Tyra, her routines, or saw something in New Orleans around late summer 1991, please share what might help close this case.