In the winter of 2018, the body of 57-year-old Annetta Nelson was discovered in a vacant house on Detroit's east side. An investigation by the medical examiner would later determine that she had died from blunt force trauma. Her case was the beginning of a series of grim discoveries that would instill fear in the community and point to the work of a serial killer.
Initially, a homeless man who found Nelson's body and moved it to the sidewalk was wrongly arrested and charged with her
murder. However, he was later cleared by CCTV footage. The investigation into Nelson's death continued, and over the next year and a half, the bodies of three other women, Nancy Harrison, Trevesene Ellis, and Tamara Jones, were also found in abandoned homes in the same area. The pattern of the killings and the locations of the victims' bodies led authorities to believe a serial killer was preying on women in the city.
In June 2019, a man named Deangelo Martin was arrested in connection with the sexual assaults of two other women. As the investigation deepened, DNA evidence linked Martin to the murders of Annetta Nelson and the other three women. He was subsequently charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and criminal sexual conduct. In September 2022, just before his trial was set to begin, Martin pleaded guilty to the second-degree murders of Annetta Nelson, Nancy Harrison, Trevesene Ellis, and Tamara Jones. He was sentenced to 45 to 70 years in prison for his crimes, bringing a close to a case that had terrorized Detroit's east side.
