In late summer 1972 the body of 20-year-old Zenaida Tomes, a woman of suspected Hispanic descent, was found in a field near North Line Road and Lange Close in Taylor, Michigan. She was discovered on September 6 and had been stabbed 45 times. Investigators concluded she had last been seen in southwest Detroit and believed she was abducted from that area before being murdered and left in the field.

A special task force assembled in the early 2000s re-examined cold homicides in Michigan and considered possible links between Tomes’s death and serial killer Carl Eugene Watts. Watts was known to have been in the Detroit area around that time, and some details of Tomes’s killing — extreme violence, a young slender female victim, and stabbing — were noted as potentially consistent with his crimes. No formal charges were ever filed tying Watts to Tomes’s murder, and the case remains unresolved.

If anyone knew Zenaida, saw her in southwest Detroit in 1972, or has information about her abduction or those who might have been involved, please share what is known.