Della Mae Liggens was a 69-year-old Black/African American woman who was stabbed to death in Milwaukee on July 19, 1979. Her killing later emerged as the earliest known slaying in a series of residential attacks across northern Milwaukee that continued into April 1980. Victims were reportedly approached at home, sometimes under the pretense of needing to use a phone or bathroom; the assailant then attacked and often burglarized the residences, using various weapons.

Investigators eventually linked Liggens’ murder to other cases when fingerprints recovered during the investigations matched those of David Allen Van Dyke after his May 23, 1980 arrest for an attempted burglary. Van Dyke was charged with six counts of first-degree murder plus related offenses, tried in February 1981, convicted on all counts, and sentenced to multiple life terms. Liggens’ death was one of the murders prosecutors attributed to him.

Did anyone in Milwaukee at the time remember unusual visitors or suspicious activity in those neighborhoods during the summer of 1979?