Ruth Abigail Hamilton was a 23-year-old White/Caucasian art teacher from Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the winter of 1972 she became one of several young women attacked in the Boston–Cambridge area during a wave of violent crimes. She had visited her parents’ home to bake holiday cookies for her students shortly before she was killed.

Hamilton was found murdered on December 24, 1972, in her apartment at 1 Langdon Street in Cambridge. Her body had been strangled and was discovered stuffed under a bed, wearing only underwear and a bra. Investigators linked her death to a suspected serial attacker who had targeted young women, many last seen hitchhiking.

On December 26, 1972, 33-year-old Anthony J. Jackson, a Boston-area pimp, was arrested after a car chase and shootout with police. He was indicted for multiple murders; reports say he was seen cashing a check from Hamilton after her death and that possessions of another victim were found in his car. Jackson was convicted of first-degree murder in Hamilton’s death and of other killings, receiving three life terms.

Did anyone who knew Ruth remember her routines, students, or whether she hitchhiked or traveled alone around Cambridge that winter?