Angela Jones, a 32-year-old African American woman and mother of seven, was found dead on May 12, 2000, in an abandoned building on Chicago’s South Side. Her body was discovered by city workers during cleanup efforts in the Roseland neighborhood. An autopsy confirmed she had been strangled to death. Angela Jones was the first known victim in a series of murders that would later be attributed to Geoffrey T. Griffin, a 30-year-old African American man who became known as the “Roseland Killer.”
Griffin was arrested on June 17, 2000, after a videotaped confession in which he admitted to killing Angela Jones. He described how he strangled her during a sexual encounter after the two smoked crack cocaine. Following his arrest, DNA evidence linked him to the murders of six other women, all of whom were African American and involved in high-risk lifestyles, including drug use and prostitution. These women were found dead in abandoned buildings across Chicago’s South Side and nearby Harvey between May and June 2000.
In November 2005, Griffin was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Angela Jones and sentenced to 100 years in prison. He was acquitted in the case of another victim, Beverly Burns, due to insufficient evidence. Griffin's arrest and conviction brought an end to a series of killings that had terrorized the community and highlighted the vulnerabilities faced by marginalized women in urban environments.
