Cora Perry, a 79-year-old white woman who lived in the Lennox area of Los Angeles County, was found murdered in her home on September 20, 1975. Her kitchen window was open and the screen was missing, indicating forced entry. Investigators recorded rape followed by strangulation, and her body was found with a pillow or blanket covering the face, a detail that appeared in multiple similar cases from that period.

Perry’s killing fit a pattern of attacks on older women living alone in the region during the 1970s. That pattern was ultimately linked to a suspect known as the Westside Rapist, later identified as John Floyd Thomas Jr., a Black male born in Los Angeles in 1936 with a long criminal history including burglary and sexual assault. Thomas was arrested in 2009 after a DNA match tied him to several unsolved murders, including Perry’s; he was charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and later pleaded guilty in 2011, receiving seven consecutive life sentences, one without parole.

Did anyone in Lennox or the surrounding neighborhoods remember unusual activity near older residents in 1975?