Brenda Crockett

A 10 year old runs an errand for her mother and is found dead the next day
On a summer evening in Washington, D.C., ten-year-old Brenda Faye Crockett was a responsible girl living with her family in a rowhouse in the Northwest quadrant of the city. On July 27, 1971, her mother sent her on a simple errand to a Safeway grocery store just five blocks from their home on 12th Place NW to buy food for the family's dogs. When an hour passed and Brenda, an African-American girl, had not come back, her family grew anxious and began to search the neighborhood, but they could find no trace of her.

Later that evening, the family's telephone rang. It was Brenda, and she was crying. Her seven-year-old sister, Bertha, answered the first call around 9:20 p.m. Brenda told her that a "white man picked me up" and that she thought she was in Virginia. She added that she was coming home in a cab before abruptly hanging up. The phone rang again a short time later, and this time Brenda’s stepfather answered. She repeated much of what she had told her sister and then asked an odd question: "Did my mother see me?" Her stepfather, hearing heavy footsteps in the background, urged her to put the man on the phone, but Brenda only said, "I'll see you," and the line went dead.

Authorities came to believe the kidnapper forced Brenda to make the calls, feeding her false information to mislead her family and the police investigation. The technology to trace calls did not exist at the time, leaving investigators with few leads. The family’s worst fears were confirmed early the next morning, on July 28, 1971. At around 5:50 a.m., a hitchhiker discovered Brenda’s body in a conspicuous spot alongside U.S. Route 50, near the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Prince George's County, Maryland.

Brenda had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. A scarf was still knotted tightly around her neck. Her shoes were missing, a detail that would become a recurring element in a series of terrifying local crimes. Brenda's murder was the third in a string of similar killings of young Black girls in the Washington, D.C., area between April 1971 and September 1972. The unknown assailant was dubbed the "Freeway Phantom" by the media because the victims' bodies were often found near major highways.

The victims of the Freeway Phantom included Carol Spinks, 13; Darlenia Johnson, 16; Nenomoshia Yates, 12; Brenda Woodard, 18; and Diane Williams, 17. The murders sparked widespread fear and anger in the community and prompted a massive investigation involving the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI. Investigators explored numerous leads and looked at several persons of interest over the years, but a lack of evidence and the limitations of forensic science at the time hampered their efforts. Tragically, much of the physical evidence from the cases was lost or destroyed over the decades.

The case of Brenda Crockett and the other victims of the Freeway Phantom remains one of Washington, D.C.'s most haunting unsolved serial murder cases. The pain of the loss has stayed with Brenda's family for decades. Her brother Lewis, who was 14 at the time of her murder, later said, "My family was separated and weakened by that loss... Part of me was just killed. It was just destroyed." Her mother, Reatha Mae Crockett, spoke of the enduring grief nearly a decade later, explaining the unique bond between the victims' families: "If mine is dead and yours is dead, then we can understand each other."

As of today, no one has ever been arrested or convicted for the murder of Brenda Crockett or the other five girls. The Metropolitan Police Department's Major Case/Cold Case Unit, in conjunction with the Prince George’s County Police Homicide Unit, continues to seek the public's help in solving these decades-old crimes. A reward is available for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Metro Police at 202-727-9099.