A young woman is found dead less then five months after she is last seen.
In the spring of 1996, a 36-year-old woman named Michelle Becker vanished from the streets of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was last seen on April 27, 1996, in an area of the city known for sex work, a life she had reportedly turned to in order to support a drug habit. Her life had seen its share of difficulties, including a tumultuous marriage that ended with her husband's death from a heart attack.
Months went by with no word of Michelle's whereabouts. Then, on a summer day, August 9, 1996, a city worker made a grim discovery. Michelle Becker's partially clothed body was found. The advanced state of decomposition made it impossible for medical examiners to determine the exact cause of her death, leaving a void in the investigation.
Her case remains cold, one of a string of unsolved deaths and disappearances of women that plagued the Grand Rapids area in the mid-1990s. The similarities in the victims' lifestyles led to the theory that a serial killer may have been responsible. In response to the growing number of cases, a task force was established in 1996 to investigate the string of murders. However, to this day, no arrests have been made, and no suspects have been publicly identified in connection with Michelle Becker's death. Her story is a somber chapter in a series of unsolved cases that continue to haunt the city.
