CaseFiles: Freeway Phantom. The unsolved brutal murders of 6 Black girls in DC

 

I remember my mother telling me about the so-called Freeway Phantom. A serial killer murdering little girls, around her age at the time, in 1971 and 72.
Girls would disappear heading to the store, from summer jobs, etc to have their remains discovered soon after.

This episode of the Casefiles podcast titled Freeway Phantom identifies each victim. Each victim has a common manner of death and with each death, the African American communities of Washington, DC became more unnerved. Conspiracies theories were vast.
This episode effectively addresses the issues of race in a changing city and their impact on the urgency of finding missing children and the predator.

 
I feel like everyone should know the story. 6 black girls between the ages of 10-18 were kidnapped and strangled over an 18 month period.

It started in May 1971 when a group of kids in South East DC discovered a body near the road by Suitland Parkway. Her name was Carol Spinks. 10-year-old Carol had disappeared a week prior after walking to the local 7/11 on an errand for her adult sister.

The circumstance was similar for her as the next 5 girls. Strangled, sexually assaulted, and abandoned in easily accessed areas. The next victim was an example of police negligence. A set of motorists had noticed a body visible in a grassy area off of 295. They reported the incident to the police.

Casefile Podcast: Freeway Phantom Map. View others here.

The responding officers, lacking regard drover by the area and failed to notice a body and moved on. Insane! Right?

A full week later, the motorist who had reported the incident drove back to the area and notice the body was still there sweltering in the heat, and reported the incident again. A police officer on a motorcycle was able to locate the body of Darlenia Johnson. A 16-year-old who had been reported missing about 2 weeks earlier.

The body was so badly composed that manner of death could not be determined and her fingertips were used to identify her. Had the police force seen the severity of the situation, perhaps more evidence could have been available.

Found 15 feet apart 10 weeks a part many began to see a connection between Darlenia Johnson and Carol Spinks.

The police were "reluctant to admit that the murders were committed by the same person." The cases received limited media coverage and most family and community members attribute this to race. Despite being the majority in DC, Black residents were still victims of workplace and housing discrimination, police brutality.

Congress Heights residents organized a protest outside of Carol Spinks. The Washington Informer president Calvin Rolark publicly proclaimed that the brutal murderers were being overlooked due to the color of the victim's skin. He said that equal treatment was not provided by the police citing slow response times and inadequate protections. "If they won't protect us, we'll have to protect ourselves."

Groups of young men from the neighborhood formed vigilante groups. The DC Police police force was "majority white."

The podcast paints this under the backdrop of the assassination 3 years earlier of Martin Luther King. Which resulted in the death of 13 people and rioting throughout the city.
The next victim was in Northwest, DC.

 
Brenda Faye Crockett went to the store alone although her mother asked her to bring a companion. About sometime later the phone rang at their house and it was Brenda. Brenda told her family that she had been snatched up by a “white man” who took her to Virginia but he was sending her home in a taxi. \

The next morning, a hitchhiker reported seeing a body on the side of the freeway. Brenda, unlike the 2 previous murders, was found in PG County, MD near Cheverly. However, she was strangled and sexually assaulted too.

As I explored finding more details of the case, I found that one former homicide detective Romaine Jenkins had been open to speaking to Washington Post in 2018. Of Brenda, Detective Jenkins wondered about the callousness that would draw a person to a 10-year-old to want to "snatch her off the street and rape and kill her?”"

On Oct. 1, 1971, Nenomoshia Yates went missing. She was 12 years old. She had gone to the Safeway near her home in South East, DC, but barely made it out the store, The contents for her bag were on the ground and witnesses say that they saw her get into a car. Two hours later her body was found along-side Pennsylvania Avenue.

Six weeks later, Brenda Woodward was reported missing as well. The 18 year old was the oldest victim. She had transferred buses around 8th and H street NE. The next morning a police officer discovered her body off of Route 202. She had been raped, strangled, and stabbed.

Diane Williams was the final victim. She had left hanging out with her boyfriend on Martin Luther King Avenue SE and had caught a bus home. The bus driver noted that she had indeed gotten off the bus by her home, but no one has seen her alive since. According to records she was "found strangled the next morning near an on-ramp" of 295.

Just as soon as the murders started, they stopped. Hundred of leads were presented and torn down. Piles of DNA evidence was collected, over the years much of it has been rendered useless. Plenty of suspects but no one of substance. 40 years later, the predator could be deceased.

2009, offered a glimmer of hope. It was discovered that the PG County Police Department had some DNA evidence preserved from the Diane Williams case. This was especially good news as much of DC's material evidence had been destroyed and misplaced.

Many aspects of the podcast and the stories of the girl remind me of the missing persons that still overwhelm our community here in Washington, DC. Notably, the young Relisha Rudd. A little girl missing from a shelter. It took weeks before she was even reported missing.

Child trafficking is the primary issue in the current discourse. However, the pain is still the same. Little black girls deserve to be safe and protected.

Listen to the podcast here.