Darlenia Johnson was 16 when she disappeared after leaving for a summer job at the Oxon Run Recreational Center in Congress Heights, Washington, D.C. She failed to arrive for work on the morning of July 8, 1971, and her family reported her missing the following day. Her body was recovered on July 19, 1971, along Interstate 295 about fifteen feet from where another young victim, Carol Spinks, had been found months earlier.

Summer heat left her remains severely decomposed, so investigators relied on fingerprint identification. A definitive cause of death was difficult to establish, though evidence pointed toward strangulation; it could not be determined whether sexual assault had occurred. Like the earlier victim, she was found fully clothed but without shoes.

Darlenia is believed to be the second victim of the serial killer labeled the Freeway Phantom, blamed for six abductions and murders of young African-American females in 1971–1972. A witness reported seeing her in an old black car driven by an African-American man shortly after the abduction, but that lead did not produce a suspect. Several persons of interest have been named over the years, including the Green Vega Rapists and Robert Askins, yet no charges were filed in her murder.

Did anyone in Congress Heights in 1971 ever hear or see anything about an old black car or a man offering rides to young women that summer?