Bernadine Blunt, a 39-year-old Black woman, was found strangled inside an abandoned building at 331 East Kensington Avenue in Chicago on August 18, 2001. Her death was the fourth in a series of summer 2001 killings that targeted vulnerable women on the city’s South Side; the victims were reported to have been involved in sex work and to have struggled with substance use.

Investigators linked a timecard bearing the name Kevin Taylor found beneath Blunt’s body to other cases. Taylor, a 27-year-old Black man employed as a cook at The Cheesecake Factory, was arrested on August 20, 2001 after authorities connected him to the deaths of three other women found strangled after encounters with him. A fifth woman, Phyllis Robinson, survived an attack and later identified Taylor in a police lineup.

Taylor confessed to the four murders and the attempted murder of Robinson, and forensic evidence including fingerprints and the timecard were reported to support his confession. The killings drew attention to a broader pattern of violence against women involved in prostitution on the South Side. Does anyone have memories or information about Bernadine Blunt or the areas where these attacks occurred?