Susan Melissa Sternfeld, 27, was found dead in Riverside, California on December 21, 1990. A janitor discovered her nude, carefully posed body near a dumpster enclosure at the rear of an industrial complex on Iowa Avenue. The Riverside County coroner ruled her cause of death as strangulation. She was last seen on December 19, 1990, about 2:00 p.m., attempting to solicit clients on University Avenue and was known locally to be involved in prostitution and drug use.

Sternfeld’s killing was one of a series of murders in Riverside County between 1989 and 1991 that targeted women, many of them sex workers and drug users. Those crimes were later linked to William Lester Suff, who was arrested on January 9, 1992, and was convicted of the first-degree murders of 12 women, including Susan Sternfeld, and the attempted murder of another woman. Suff was sentenced to death after a jury found special circumstances, including multiple murders and lying in wait.

Anyone who knew Susan Sternfeld or has information about her last movements is asked to come forward.