Millicent Jones

Millicent Jones, known to her loved ones as “Peanut,” was a 25-year-old Black woman living in Chicago in the mid-1995. Her mother, Mary Jones, remembered her daughter being aware of the dangers in their Englewood neighborhood. Millicent had told her mother about rumors of a serial killer preying on women on Garfield Boulevard. She struggled with a drug addiction and lived with the lasting pain of a serious leg injury she had sustained in an assault years prior. Despite the challenges she faced, she was part of a family that cared for her and had a boyfriend, Danny Hopkins, who was by her side in her final hours.

In the early morning of June 11, 1995, Millicent and Danny were together on Garfield Boulevard. Around 2 a.m., she asked him to go into a drugstore to buy her a cigarette lighter. Citing the severe pain in her leg, she told him she would wait for him outside. Hopkins recalled being in the store for only six or seven minutes. A security guard even asked him where his girlfriend was. When he walked back out the door, Millicent was gone. He searched the area, calling out her name, but she had vanished without a trace. The next day, June 12, Millicent’s body was discovered in a stairwell of a church located just across the street from the drugstore.

Her death was one of a terrifying series of homicides that gripped the Englewood neighborhood with fear. Between December 1994 and June 1995, a number of women, many of whom were drug users, were found strangled. The community lived in terror of a serial predator they called the “Englewood Strangler.” The Chicago Police Department investigated the string of killings, noting the pattern of death by asphyxiation.

The break in the case came just days after Millicent was found. On June 17, the body of another victim, 42-year-old Mary Blackman, was discovered in a trash bin. The discovery was made by Angela Geralds, who identified the victim as her friend and told police she suspected her brother, Hubert Geralds Jr., was involved. Police arrested Hubert Geralds Jr. on June 18, 1995. During questioning, he confessed to the murders of six women, including Millicent Jones.

Hubert Geralds Jr., then 32, was charged with six counts of murder. His trial began in October 1997. Prosecutors detailed how Geralds used drugs to lure his victims, who were mostly drug-addicted women, into private spaces before strangling them. Geralds’ defense attorneys argued he was not fit to stand trial, claiming he had brain damage, a low IQ, and a mental disorder called paraphilia. The prosecution countered that Geralds was a cunning "malingerer" who was faking his symptoms. A woman who survived his attack, Cleshawn Hopes, testified against him, describing how he choked her into unconsciousness before assaulting her.

On November 13, 1997, a jury found Geralds guilty on all charges. In January 1998, he was sentenced to death. The case took a turn in 2000 when another serial killer, Andre Crawford, confessed to one of the murders for which Geralds had been convicted—that of Rhonda King. DNA evidence confirmed Crawford’s confession, and Geralds’ conviction for that specific murder was vacated. He was retried and convicted for the remaining five murders, including Millicent's, and remained on death row.

In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 prisoners on the state's death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hubert Geralds Jr.'s sentence was among those changed. He continues to serve his life sentence at the Menard Correctional Centre in Illinois. The case of Millicent Jones is considered closed.