Cynthia Annette Johnson, a 30-year-old Black woman, was found dead on February 22, 1997, in the Green Meadows neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Her death was later determined to be the result of strangulation. Her killing was later tied to a string of murders that affected South Los Angeles across more than a decade.

Authorities eventually linked Johnson’s death to Chester Dewayne Turner, a man known to have committed multiple murders in the area between 1987 and 1998. Turner had a lengthy criminal history that included theft, drug possession, and assault, and he led a transient lifestyle; he had worked as a security guard at a homeless shelter. DNA collected after a 2002 rape conviction connected him to numerous unsolved homicides, including Johnson’s.

Turner was charged in 2011 with Johnson’s murder and three others; in 2014 he was convicted of additional killings and sentenced to death. Johnson’s case is one of several involving predominantly Black women, many described as vulnerable because of homelessness or addiction. Did anyone who knew Cynthia or saw her in Green Meadows in early 1997 notice anything that could still help investigators?