On the night of September 13, 1981, Janice Beidleman and her 18-month-old son Brandon disappeared after leaving relatives’ home on Myrtle Avenue in Columbus, Ohio. They planned to stop at a grocery store and never made it home. The next afternoon both bodies were found in Alum Creek near Agler and Sunbury Roads — Janice lying in about a foot of water and Brandon roughly 50 yards downstream.

The scene suggested extreme violence. Janice had been beaten, raped, and strangled; her clothing was scattered along the creek bank. Brandon, wearing only a diaper and tennis shoes, died of suffocation. Residents reported hearing screams and a baby crying the night of the killings, and witnesses said a car like the Beidlemans’ drove down a wooded ravine toward the creek with its headlights off.

No weapons were recovered, no clear motive was established, and no suspects were publicly identified. Detectives have at times suggested more than one person may have been involved, but the case remains unsolved. Did anyone in Columbus at the time know the Beidlemans, the car described, or hear those cries that night?