Dorota Dorothy Dziubak, a 30-year-old White woman of Polish descent and a single mother, was found dead in her North Side Chicago home on January 10, 1997. Firefighters discovered her body after responding to a house fire; her 5-year-old daughter was not at home. The medical examiner determined she had been strangled. There were no signs of forced entry or an obvious struggle. Autopsy findings raised suspicion of sexual assault, though that could not be conclusively confirmed.

Investigators learned Dorota had recently been in contact with a man who wanted to buy her home; a friend said Dorota had expressed unease about that prospective buyer. Phone records show she received a call from a nearby payphone on the day she died, but the call yielded no usable evidence. The murder was later linked to Paul Frederick Runge, a serial killer whose crimes from 1995 to 1997 included Dorota’s case. Did anyone who knew Dorota or saw her around January 10, 1997 remember the prospective buyer or the payphone call?