Dorothy Keeler disappeared from Rochester, New York on July 29, 1989, leaving family and friends with the sense that something had gone wrong in her routine. She was 59 years old and White. In October 1989 two teenagers fishing near Seth Green Island found a badly mutilated, headless set of human remains in the Genesee River gorge that could not be identified at the scene.

After a series of killings in the region, attention turned to Arthur Shawcross, who moved through Rochester’s waterways and rougher neighborhoods. Following his January 1990 arrest, investigators said Shawcross told them the headless remains discovered the previous fall were Keeler’s and that he had killed her earlier in 1989. Police said he described Keeler as his mistress and alleged he killed her after she threatened to reveal their relationship to his wife.

Shawcross was later tried in Monroe County Court; a jury rejected an insanity defense in December 1990 and found him guilty on 10 counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced on February 1, 1991, to a combined term effectively totaling 250 years in prison. Did anyone in Rochester at the time know Dorothy Keeler’s routines or have information about her contacts in 1989?