Margorie Upson was an 85-year-old widow who lived alone on West Cross Street in Ypsilanti, Michigan, when she was murdered in her home on September 29, 1982. She was found beaten, raped and strangled with nylon stockings; court records describe forceful sexual penetration and injuries consistent with a violent assault. The scene showed signs of a break-in and a struggle, her purse or wallet had been emptied onto a bed, and semen was recovered from vaginal swabs and semen-encrusted pubic hair.

Her killing drew swift attention because of striking similarities to other attacks on older women nearby, including the murders of Louise Koebnick in Ann Arbor days later and Florence Bell in Ypsilanti earlier that year. Investigators focused on Michael Darnell Harris, also known as Michael Stiggles, after his December 1982 arrest in Jackson for the sexual assault of an elderly woman, but existing 1982-era evidence was not then sufficient to charge him in Upson’s case.

Evidence from Upson’s body and residence was preserved and retested with newer DNA methods in the late 1990s; male DNA from vaginal and pubic-hair samples was reported to match Harris’s profile at multiple genetic locations. Prosecutors later charged Harris in connection with Upson’s killing; his defense contested the handling and testing of the decades-old biological material. Did anyone in Ypsilanti at the time notice suspicious persons or activity near West Cross Street in late September 1982?