Syllannia Terene Edwards was 15 when she vanished after leaving Lawton, Oklahoma and turning up in the Southwest. She disappeared on August 17, 2003; by May 2004 witnesses reported seeing her on East Colfax Avenue in Denver with women working the stroll, sometimes called Mimi or Chocolate. A bone found by a passerby’s dog on Albuquerque’s West Mesa on February 2, 2009 led to excavations that uncovered a clandestine cemetery of eleven women and a fetus.

Among them was Syllannia, identified on November 13, 2009. Investigators believe she was killed between 2004 and 2005 and buried near 118th Street SW; she was the only out-of-state victim and the only African American, suggesting the perpetrator targeted the most vulnerable rather than a single demographic. No arrest has been made; detectives have offered up to a $100,000 reward.

If anyone knew Syllannia, saw her in Denver or Albuquerque in 2003–2005, or has information about the West Mesa site, please come forward.