#RememberThem: Zelda, survivor

You might have never heard of Zelda. She never wanted to tell her story. And she didn't tell it for many years.

She's not fond of that time of her life, but she has clearly come to terms with it. She has evolved far beyond it. These days, she is a child of God, and she is a soldier and warrior for Him. She has walked the path of addiction and other demons and come out triumphant.

As in the account of fellow survivor Natasha, Armstrong wielded a knife to threaten and subdue Zelda, when she encountered him in December 1999, four months after he tried to kill Natasha and in the same month that he succeeded in killing another woman on the streets of Detroit. The knife was just an intimidation tool, though -- Armstrong was a strangler. Manually, for the most part. He picked up Zelda in his Jeep, drove around the block a bit, they tussled when she realized this was a bad situation, she got cut up, and by the grace of God she was able to get out of the car. And she kept her silence, even from those closest to her, for years. Why bother going to the police? They usually don't take you seriously, she figured. They see you as the bad one rather than the guy who supposedly tried to kill you.

I'm thankful that Zelda was willing to tell her story for the first time publicly in "The ‘Baby Doll’ Serial Killer." Because, just like with the story of Natasha, it's the story of survival. And being spared for a purpose.

John Eric Armstrong picked up Zelda at this location in the area of Detroit known as Mexicantown.

Image by the author; see note below.

This post is part of a series on this blog that I am calling #RememberThem, a chance to honor the women who encountered the two Detroit serial killers I have researched, John Eric Armstrong and Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins. In this continuing series, with installments dropping every week or so, we'll first learn more about the women Armstrong was known to have killed in Detroit, then two of his survivors, then we'll turn to the women killed by Atkins. Click on the "Honoring the Victims" label on the left to see all of the parts in the series.

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BRBates.com

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Above photo is copyrighted and specifically for use in "The 'Baby Doll' Serial Killer"; any other use prohibited without permission.

See more photos from the case at the gallery on the WildBlue Press website.