Parler W. Edwards, a 71-year-old Black taxi driver, was murdered on October 8, 1980. His body was found stuffed inside the trunk of his taxi in suburban Amherst; investigators determined he had been beaten to death with a blunt object, his body mutilated, and his heart removed. A blunt instrument believed to be the murder weapon was reportedly recovered.

The next day another taxi driver, Ernest Jones, was found killed with his heart removed as well, and police linked the two crimes. The attacks touched off a massive police response described at the time as the largest manhunt in Erie County history. Attention later focused on Joseph Gerard Christopher, who while in military custody made admissions about multiple killings and has been repeatedly associated with the two taxi-driver murders, but no charge or conviction for Edwards’s killing was ever secured.

The Amherst Police Department is still listed as the investigating agency, and there is no documented prosecution tying Edwards’s murder to a particular person. Does anyone have information about Edwards, his work as a driver, or memories from Amherst in October 1980 that could help this cold investigation?