Elizabeth McKeown, 67, was reported missing from the Westchester area of Los Angeles on February 16, 1976. Neighbors described her as a quiet, independent woman who lived alone. Her body was found two days later in the trunk of her own car; she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and the scene showed signs of a calculated, violent attack on an elderly neighbor in her own community.

The case went cold for decades until biological evidence from the scene was reexamined with modern DNA techniques. In 2009 investigators linked that material via CODIS to John Floyd Thomas Jr., a Los Angeles man born in 1936 with a long criminal history of sexual assaults and burglaries. Thomas was arrested in March 2009 and later charged in McKeown’s killing among several other attacks on elderly women across the region.

McKeown’s murder was one of the cases prosecutors pursued against Thomas; he told authorities he was responsible for multiple killings and ultimately entered guilty pleas in a group of those cases. Does anyone have recollections of the Westchester neighborhood in 1976 or information that might shed light on Elizabeth McKeown’s last days?