Alphonse Manning Jr., a 23-year-old Black man, was killed on August 7, 1977, in the parking lot of East Towne Mall in Madison, Wisconsin. Manning was in his white Oldsmobile Toronado with 23-year-old Toni Schwenn when an encounter with another motorist turned deadly. A gunman fired from his vehicle, striking Manning in the midsection; when Manning remained standing the shooter exited his car and shot him again, then fired into the Toronado and shot Schwenn as she exited or fell from the car. Witnesses scattered; one, Vicky Johnson, later said she saw the shooter holding a gun and found Manning calling for help as he died.

The murders remained unsolved for years. Investigators reopened the case after Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist then serving other life sentences, contacted Madison authorities in 1984 and gave a detailed confession placing him at the scene and describing events and injuries not in published accounts. Detectives corroborated parts of his story with ballistics, a motel registration in an alias, a bank-teller identification, and a later eyewitness identification by Vicky Johnson. Franklin was charged and ultimately convicted in Dane County of the two killings, receiving consecutive life sentences.

Does anyone have memories of East Towne Mall in 1977 or information about Manning’s life that could shed further light on the case?