On September 10, 1988, seventy-eight-year-old Mattie Mae McClendon was found dead in her home in Atlanta’s Vine City neighborhood. She was discovered in her bed; an open window with a torn screen suggested forced entry. The autopsy determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation, and investigators concluded she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Her killing matched a series of similar attacks on elderly women in the area: forced entry through windows, sexual assault, and death by strangulation. Forensic evidence recovered from crime scenes, including fingerprints and DNA, ultimately tied all the scenes to one man. Fingerprints linked Lyndon Fitzgerald Pace to the investigation, and DNA from his hair and blood matched sperm found on multiple victims; the probability of a coincidental match in McClendon’s case was reported as one in 150 million.

Pace was tried from January to March 1996 on multiple counts including malice murder and rape, convicted on all counts, and the jury recommended death for the murder convictions. Did anyone in Vine City around 1988 notice unusual activity or suspicious persons near open windows that fall could shed more light on these attacks?