Cornelia Crilley was 23 when she was found murdered in her newly rented Upper East Side apartment at 427 East 83rd Street in June 1971. What began as a move-in day ended in a ferocious sexual assault: she was discovered naked, bound, and strangled with a nylon stocking, with a bite mark and evidence that something had been forced into her mouth to silence her. The case went cold for decades amid limited forensic tools available at the time.

Preserved biological evidence later yielded a DNA match to Rodney Alcala, who had used the alias John Berger in New York. A Manhattan grand jury indicted Alcala in January 2011; he was extradited in 2012 and by December 2012 entered guilty pleas in the New York cases. On January 7, 2013, a judge sentenced him to an additional 25 years to life for the murders tied to him, including Crilley’s.

Did anyone in Manhattan in 1971 know Cornelia or have information about her move to East 83rd Street?