Jeanette Woods was 24 when her body was found on a sidewalk on Melrose Street near I-375 in Detroit on the morning of April 19, 1980. She had been sexually assaulted, severely beaten, strangled and her throat slashed. The night before, she left her mother’s home on Hill Street around 9 PM saying she was going to meet her boyfriend. Woods had a history of prostitution and had been hospitalized twice in the year before her death for injuries from beatings.

The investigation produced two conflicting confessions. A 23-year-old local girls basketball coach, David J. Payton, initially confessed to Woods’s murder and two others but later recanted, saying his confession was coerced. A 36-year-old ex-convict and unemployed construction worker, Donald Murphy, then confessed to multiple killings and provided details that investigators found consistent with the scenes. Murphy was convicted of two murders and given concurrent 15-to-30-year terms; he was never formally charged in Woods’s death. Charges against Payton were dismissed in March 1981, and Jeanette Woods’s case remains officially unsolved.

Did anyone who knew Jeanette or who lived near Melrose Street in 1980 ever notice suspicious activity that spring?