Mamie Harris Verlander, an 84-year-old white woman, was found murdered in her West End Richmond, Virginia, home on March 28, 1996. Her body was discovered in her bathtub and the cause of death was determined to be strangulation. Her killing was linked by investigators to a series of slayings of elderly women in the Richmond area between 1990 and 1996 that became known as the Golden Years Murders.

Police formed a task force called Operation Golden Years to examine connections between Verlander’s case and at least a dozen other unsolved killings of women aged about 55 to 89. Earlier victims in the string were typically stabbed; the later victims, including Verlander, were strangled. In 2000, Leslie Leon Burchart, described as a mentally ill drifter, became a prime suspect and confessed to Verlander’s killing and three other victims, giving details authorities said only the killer would know. Investigators lacked sufficient physical evidence to charge him, and Burchart recanted before his death in prison in 2002. No one has been tried or convicted in Verlander’s murder, which remains unsolved.

Did anyone who knew Mamie Harris Verlander or lived in West End Richmond in the mid 1990s notice anything unusual around March 1996?