DARK LIGHTS: The Vanishing Women of Chicago

For nearly three decades, dozens of Black women have disappeared from Chicago’s streets—strangled, discarded, and too often forgotten. In this haunting premiere episode, we follow the stories of Nancie Walker, Diamond Turner, and others whose lives were cut short and whose cases remain unsolved. Through the voices of grieving families, determined activists, and a city haunted by secrets, we uncover the patterns the world refuses to see. This is the story of a community’s fight for justice, the silence of the system, and the shadows that still linger in Chicago’s alleys.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Chicago is a city of. Bright lights and deep shadows.
In the heart of the South Side, the street lights flicker.
But some stories remain in darkness for nearly. 3 decades.
A pattern has haunted these streets.
Black women strangled. Discarded.
Their names barely whispered outside their neighborhoods.
Nancy Walker. Was the eldest of 6.

(00:25):
She was an entrepreneur, a dancer, a woman who built her
own world Beauty salons, condos,townhomes.
She was careful. Detail oriented the kind of
person who didn't trust strangers.
But on a cold day in January 2003, a black van pulled.
Up outside her salon. Two men waited inside.

(00:46):
Nancy stepped out, opened the door and vanished into the
city's silence. Her sister Myrna called and
called. No answer.
The next day, Nancy's condo was untouched, her phone still on
the table. Myrna knew something was wrong.
She went to the police, but the urgency faded when they heard
the word Englewood. Stereotypes replaced.

(01:08):
Concern. Everybody is a criminal.
Everybody totes guns. The family felt invisible. 63
days later. Workers found three.
Garbage bags. Along the Bishop.
Ford Expressway. In one, a head, in another arms
in the. 3rd legs. The torso was never found.

(01:29):
Nancy had been beaten, strangledand dismembered.
The city moved on. The case went cold.
But Nancy was not alone. Over 50 Black women Sharon
Denise, Latoya Monique found in alleys, vacant lots.
Stairwells all. Strangled.
All black. All forgotten.
The pattern grew, but the city didn't see it.

(01:52):
The police. Said there was no evidence of a
serial. Killer.
Just bad luck, bad choices. Bad neighborhoods.
There was Diamond Turner, just 21, found in a garbage can in an
abandoned building in 2017. Her mother, Latonya, remembers
the last time she saw. Her daughter, her laughter.
Her dreams of becoming a nurse. The police called it a tragedy,

(02:15):
but the case? Faded from the news within days.
There was. Rio, Renee Coleman. 32.
Found in a vacant lot in 2008, her family described her as a
loving mother, a woman who worked.
Two jobs to support her children.
Her killer was never found. Her children grew.
Up with questions and no answers.
And there was the case of the unknown Jane Doe, found in 2014,

(02:38):
her body left in a dumpster behind a shuttered.
Grocery store. No one came forward to claim
her. She was buried in a city grave,
her name still unknown. The families gathered in church
basements, piercing together what the police would not.
They. Saw the pattern?
They warned their daughters. Their sisters.
Their friends don't walk alone, don't trust the night.

(03:02):
But the stories faded. One by one in the neighborhoods,
fear grew. Women walked faster, eyes
scanning every shadow. The danger was real, but the
warning was quiet. A whisper, A look.
A story passed from one woman toanother.
Community activists began to organize, holding vigils,

(03:23):
marches and meetings. They demanded answers.
But the. City's response was slow.
Azia Roberts was just. 13 When she organized the first We Walk
for her March, she was angry that black women and girls were
going missing, being harmed, abducted, even murdered, and
nothing was being said or done about it.

(03:43):
She went to her grandmother, to the Kenwood Oakland Community
Organization and told them we should do a March.
The Marchers. Walked for the dead for those.
Whose innocent blood still criesfrom premature graves for the
missing, the murdered, the unforgotten.
Their voices rose. Foreclosure for justice.
For answers for an end to the slaying of black women and

(04:06):
girls. Their bodies discarded like
yesterday's trash. But this?
Story is not new Chicago has a long history of violence against
black women stretching back to the.
Days of. Redlining and segregation in the
1960s and 70s, black communitieswere systematically denied.
Resources. Jobs.
And safety. The city's power brokers.

(04:28):
Built highways through neighborhoods, dividing families
and erasing histories. The police.
Were often seen as occupiers, not.
Protectors trust was scarce. And justice, even scarcer in the
1990s as the. City struggled with.
Poverty and the crack epidemic. Black women became even more
vulnerable. Many of the victims were
mothers. Daughters.

(04:48):
Sisters. Women who worked.
Hard, who loved deeply, who deserve.
To be remembered. But their.
Stories rarely made the news. The city.
'S heartbeat on indifferent. In 2018, after years of silence,
the city formed a task force. 51women, maybe more.
The police said. They were working on it.

(05:09):
The families waited. The candles burned lower.
The alleys stayed dark. Some say.
A serial killer is out there. Others.
Say the system itself is the. Killer slow.
Blind, indifferent. The truth is tangled in alleys
and empty lots, in files, gathering dust in voices that.
Refuse to be. Silenced Myrna.

(05:30):
Walker still keeps. Her sister's memory alive.
A photo on the dresser. A candle in the window.
She sits. By the glass some nights,
watching the street lights flicker, waiting for a sign, a
knock, a voice in the darkness. This is Chicago's secret.
This is what? The others don't see until next

(05:50):
time, hopefully. I'll see you there.