On a summer morning in Hartford, Connecticut, the discovery of a young woman's body on the rear porch of an abandoned building at 272 Garden Street marked the beginning of a tragic mystery. It was June 20, 1999, when police found the partially clad remains of 28-year-old LaDawn Roberts, an African American woman from the area. She was five months pregnant at the time of her death.
An autopsy would later reveal that she had suffered severe head trauma, including a crushed skull and injuries to her head and neck.
Investigators learned that LaDawn had last been seen alive the previous night, around 11 p.m., near the intersection of Albany Avenue and Garden Street. She was known to frequent the Upper Albany neighborhood. The brutality of the crime scene suggested a deeply violent encounter; the nature of her injuries led investigators to believe she may have been stomped to death. For years, her case remained cold, a painful open wound for her family and the community.
A break in the case would emerge not from a direct confession, but from a disturbing pattern of similar homicides in Hartford. Between 2000 and 2001, the bodies of three other women were discovered, each having suffered crushed skulls. Forensic evidence, including cigarette butts and bloody boot prints, began to link the cases. This trail of evidence eventually led investigators to Matthew Steven Johnson, a man with a history of violence against women.
DNA evidence definitively linked Johnson to the murders of the other three women, and he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. While he was never officially charged with the murder of LaDawn Roberts, the striking similarities in the method of killing have led investigators to suspect he was responsible for her death as well. Despite the strong suspicion, LaDawn Roberts' case remains officially unsolved, and authorities continue to seek information that could definitively close this tragic chapter.
