Do you know who murdered Hazel Lewis?
Hazel Lewis, aged 52, was found dead on November 14, 2007, in a burning trash bin behind an elementary school in the Washington Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Her body showed signs of strangulation, and the manner of her death was strikingly similar to that of another woman, Theresa Bunn, who was found just two days earlier in the same area. Both women were stripped, strangled, and set on fire, raising suspicions of a potential link between their cases.
Hazel Lewis was among a larger group of women whose deaths occurred over nearly two decades in Chicago, and many were killed under eerily similar circumstances. The “Unforgotten 51” project brought attention to these cases, with investigative journalism students documenting the stories of these women, who were primarily African-American and were often found discarded in alleys and abandoned buildings. The circumstances of these deaths have led some experts to speculate that they might be linked to a single perpetrator, dubbed the "Chicago Strangler." The Murder Accountability Project, founded by Thomas Hargrove, has even suggested that these murders are the work of one or more serial killers based on the consistent patterns observed across the cases.
Despite such suspicions, Chicago police have not concluded definitively that a single serial killer is behind these homicides. They have, however, acknowledged the patterns and the challenges of investigating these unsolved cases. As of now, Hazel Lewis's death, like the majority of the other similar cases, remains unsolved. This lack of resolution underscores the ongoing tragedy faced by victims’ families and highlights systemic failures to address violence against women in vulnerable communities.
