Gloria Denise Steele was 19 and a Western Michigan University student when she was murdered at her apartment in Kalamazoo on October 30, 1974. She had attended class and a job interview that day and returned to the Stadium Drive Apartments, where her boyfriend, Sam Waller, later found her fully clothed body on the bedroom floor.

An autopsy found Gloria had been stabbed between 30 and 35 times, mainly in the chest and abdomen; several wounds penetrated her heart and lungs and a fragment of the presumed carving tool was lodged in her spine. There were signs consistent with manual strangulation and no evidence of sexual assault. Witnesses reported seeing a Black man in the complex that day and one resident said a man had been knocking on doors, asking for someone named Charles; that man was later identified by a resident as Coral Eugene Watts.

Decades later, Watts was prosecuted in Gloria’s death and was sentenced to life in prison; he died in 2007. Does anyone have memories of Gloria, the Stadium Drive Apartments, or information about that night that could add to the record?