Elyse Rapp, whose surname later appears in some records as Napp, was a 21-year-old white Jewish woman from Flushing, New York, working temporarily in Hallandale through Kelly Girl Services. She left her apartment on the evening of July 30, 1975, to go shopping and did not return. Her yellow rented Chevrolet Vega was later found in a shopping-center lot with a deflated tire.

On the morning of July 31 a worker found her body floating in the Graham Canal in northwest Dade County, only a short distance from where Ronnie Sue Gorlin had been found about a week earlier. Rapp had been stripped except for a necklace bearing the Hebrew symbol for life, suffered severe sexual injuries and a significant blow to the head, and drowning was listed as the cause of death. Investigators concluded she had been sexually assaulted and linked her killing to Gorlin’s by the similar discovery of vehicles with flat or damaged tires; the cases were publicly discussed as the Flat-Tire Murders.

Detectives developed a profile of a young, physically capable man who might disable a victim’s tire and then offer help or a ride to gain trust. Authorities later compared these deaths with other killings across several states, but no one has been arrested, charged or convicted in Rapp’s homicide. Did anyone who knew Elyse in South Florida in 1975 see her that night or remember her Vega in the parking lot?