In the early morning hours of September 15, 1972, the body of 19-year-old Deborah Rae Stevens, a White female, was discovered in the lilac bushes just 75 yards from her home in Lynn, Massachusetts. A man walking his dog made the grim discovery at approximately 6:00 AM. Stevens, a sophomore physical therapy student at Boston University who also attended classes at Northeastern University, had been strangled. The medical examiner estimated her time of death to be between 2:00 and 3:00 AM.
Investigators believed she had been killed at another location before her body was left near her residence.
The evening before, on September 14th, Stevens had borrowed her sister's car to drive to her night class at Northeastern University, a departure from her usual routine of taking the train or bus. She was last seen by friends on campus around 9:30 PM, but it is believed she never made it to her class. When she didn't return home by her expected time of 10:00 PM, her family began to worry and started a search of their own. The car she had been driving was later found parked two blocks from her home, blocking a driveway. Inside the vehicle, investigators found what appeared to be two bullet holes, though Stevens had not been shot and there was no blood in the car.
Deborah's murder was one of a series of killings that terrorized the greater Boston area for a period of four months in 1972, attributed to a suspect dubbed the "Hitch-Hike Murderer." The victims were all young women. The wave of violence came to an end in December 1972 after a high-speed chase and shootout with police, which led to the arrest of Anthony J. Jackson. Jackson, then 33 years old, was subsequently charged in connection with the murders and was eventually sentenced to life in prison. The series of co-ed killings ceased following his apprehension.
