In 1986 and 1987 the black community of Washington, D.C. was looking over it's shoulder for a serial killer that was busying himself murdering young black females. The maniac was never apprehended and before he vanished eight women were dead.

Dorothy Miller, 20, was the first to be slain. Her body was found on December 13, 1986, in the woods near Suitland, Maryland, a suburb of Washington. On January 11, 1987, another body was found in those same woods. Pamela Malcolm, 25, had been missing since the previous October. Miller had died of an apparent drub overdose, Malcolm had been stabbed to death.

The day after Malcom's corpse was recovered, police searching for clues in the slaying found two more bodies hidden in the woods. Cynthia Westbury, 22, and Juanita Walls, 26, had both been stabbed to death. The very next day Angela Wilkerson, 22, was discovered dead near Suitland.

These first five had much in common. All but Malcolm disappeared from Washington and all five had been sodomized before or after their deaths, then dumped in the Suitland area. These patterns changed in the next three killings, though the victim's deaths are still generally included in the series.

On April 5 a Jane Doe was found dumped in a Washington alleway and on June 24 Cheryl Henderson, 21, was discovered murdered in a wooded area in the city, her throat slashed. An unnamed victim was found in an apartment complex on September 21.

Although the series remains unsolved, a man named Alton Best seems a legitimate suspect. Best was arrested and confessed to the murder of 20-year-old Janice Morton, who was strangled to death in a Washington alley on January 15, 1987. Best was never charged in the other slayings and in fact was in jail for Morton's murder when the last two victims were alsin.