Denise Swanson was 79 when she was murdered in Lansing, Michigan, on November 30, 1981. Her death became part of a series of rapes and strangulations against elderly women in the area that winter, a pattern that left the community alarmed and prompted an extended investigation.

Authorities later arrested Michael Darnell Harris on December 7, 1982, initially for an attack on another woman; that arrest tied him to multiple violent crimes, including Denise Swanson’s killing. Harris was charged in Swanson’s murder and tried in 1983. On November 3, 1983, a jury found him guilty, and he received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Did anyone in Lansing at the time have information about the pattern of attacks or remember details that could shed more light on the victims’ last movements?