Jeanette M. McClelland was 24 when she was found stabbed to death on the evening of Thursday, May 5, 1977. She lived in an apartment on N. Morgan Street in Alexandria’s Holmes Run Park complex, the same building where another murdered woman, Gladys Ross Bradley, and a missing resident, Althea Byrd, had lived. McClelland had recently completed training as a graphics design proof-reader and was described as quiet, thoughtful, and serious about becoming a journalist.

Investigators arrested 18-year-old Montie Ralph Rissell after Althea Byrd’s billfold was found in his car. Rissell confessed to the killings of five young women in Northern Virginia, and an Alexandria grand jury indicted him in May 1977 on charges of abducting, raping, and murdering four women including McClelland. To avoid the death penalty he pleaded guilty to the murder charges and on October 11, 1977 was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences; his parole requests have been denied since he became eligible.

Did anyone in the Holmes Run Park complex or the Alexandria area at that time have information that wasn’t shared with investigators?