Pamela R. Benda, 33, had recently moved into an apartment at 6600 Washington in University City and worked at the Washington University Faculty Conference Center. On the evening of February 18, 1978 she went to a lounge called Some Place Else on Lindbergh Boulevard and was last seen there with Winford L. Stokes after she offered him a ride. Three days later a serviceman let into her apartment with a manager’s pass-key found her nude body in a ransacked back bedroom, a pillow or pillowcase over her head and an apron wrapped around her neck.

A pendant watch and her car were missing and a butcher knife was recovered from the toilet bowl. The autopsy documented multiple cuts, deep wounds, extensive bruising, hemorrhaging in neck muscles, a recent hyoid fracture, and ruled the cause of death manual strangulation; spermatozoa indicated likely intercourse within six hours of death and timing placed death in the window after she was last seen that Saturday night. Latent prints lifted from a scotch bottle, a brass bed headboard and a cosmetic box were later matched to Stokes.

Did anyone who knew Pamela or who was at Some Place Else that night see her get into a car with a man named Winford Stokes?