Cynthia Lee Westbury was 22 when she disappeared from Washington, D.C. in the autumn of 1986. On November 10 she left her apartment intending to meet a friend and did not return; her absence was not resolved until January 13, 1987, when her body was found in a wooded area near the Bradbury Recreational Center in Suitland, Maryland. She had been sexually assaulted and died of multiple stab wounds.

Investigators linked Cynthia’s killing to a series of attacks on young Black women in the Suitland area between late 1986 and early 1987; authorities considered that a single perpetrator may have been responsible. Alton Alonso Best, a Washington, D.C. resident arrested in connection with another young girl’s murder, was treated as a person of interest in the Suitland series, and the killings reportedly stopped after his arrest. Best was never charged in Cynthia’s death, and no one has been held legally responsible for it.

Does anyone have information that could help bring more clarity to Cynthia’s case?