Pearl Gash was 85 when she was found murdered in her Richmond, Virginia home on December 17, 1991. The cause of death was stabbing. Her killing was one of the early deaths linked to the series later called the Golden Years Murders, a string of homicides that targeted elderly women living alone between 1990 and 1996.

Early in the series the victims were six Black women who had been stabbed in their homes; later victims tended to be white and were often strangled. No arrests have ever been made in Pearl Gash’s case. Leslie Burchart was later considered a suspect in some of the Golden Years victims after confessing to four later killings, but he was not implicated in Gash’s death and the accuracy of those confessions has been debated. Community members and the NAACP criticized differences in attention given to white victims versus Black victims during the investigation.

Did anyone in Richmond at the time have information about Pearl Gash’s movements or visitors in the days before December 17, 1991?