Brenda Faye Crockett was 10 when she left home on a short errand in Northwest Washington, D.C., on July 27, 1971. Sent to a Safeway about five blocks away, she never returned. That evening she made a series of phone calls to family in which she said a white man had picked her up, that she thought she was in Virginia, and that she would be coming home in a cab. In one call she asked her stepfather if her mother had seen her; heavy footsteps were heard before the line went dead. Investigators later concluded the calls were likely made under duress.

The next morning a motorist found Brenda’s body on the side of U.S. Route 50. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with one of her own scarves, which remained knotted around her neck. Her shoes were missing and her feet were unusually clean, as if washed. Brenda’s murder was later linked to a series of similar killings of young Black girls in the D.C. area between 1971 and 1972 attributed to the Freeway Phantom. No one has been arrested or convicted in her death; the Metropolitan Police Department continues to offer a reward for information.

Did anyone in Brenda’s neighborhood or family ever recognize the voice on those calls or see a white car around July 27, 1971?