Grace Hill was a 65-year-old Black woman found dead on April 9, 1986, in her apartment at the Herndon Homes housing project just west of downtown Atlanta. Her killing occurred amid a string of violent attacks on elderly women in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods that spring; other victims were reported raped and strangled in similar circumstances, and Hill’s death heightened fear in the area because it appeared to be part of that concentrated cluster.

Police moved quickly after Hill’s body was found. On April 23, 1986, Atlanta police publicly charged 31-year-old Richard Hunter in the murder of Annie Rochelle Copeland and said they believed he was also responsible for the killings of Grace Hill, Dena Mae Mike, and Aretha Clements. Reports from that time said Hunter had been taken into custody on a probation violation and that authorities were preparing evidence for indictments in the other slayings; a judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation before arraignment.

Does anyone in the community remember Grace Hill or have information about that string of attacks in spring 1986?