#RememberThem: Debbie

Steak, macaroni and cheese, and vegetables.

That was reportedly the last meal Debbie cooked for her aunt before she disappeared. At least, that's what one of Detroit's daily newspapers reported at the time of this case. Steak, macaroni and cheese, and vegetables. Such a normal meal. For a normal life? It may have seemed normal in a lot of ways, but it was about to become a news headline, unfortunately, for Debbie.

Debbie was born in December 1960 to parents Charles and Sadie. Debbie herself had three children. Not much else is known about her, and no one could be reached to speak for her in the book "The Crack City Strangler." A few tidbits can be scraped together from the case files: Back in 1985 or ‘86, Debbie was thrown out of a third-story window over some drug deal, her Uncle Herb recalled. Her mother last saw her on December 4, 1991. Herb last saw her a few days later, on the afternoon of the seventh, when he picked her up and drove her somewhere, then gave her a ride back again “while it was still light,” he later told police. Debbie would sometimes stay at a crack house for a few days. Then, an aunt last saw her on December 8, when Debbie cooked her dinner before departing the west-side house.

Debbie was found in the basement of an abandoned apartment building at 170 Elmhurst in Highland Park on December 14, 1991, the day after her boyfriend Calvin last saw her. Because of the trauma to her head, police at first thought she may had been shot. She was labeled as Unknown Female No. 48 for a minute, before her mom came to ID her at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's office.

The sketch done by Highland Park Public Safety officers after they discovered Debbie's body at an apartment building on Elmhurst Street.

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 first learn more about the women Armstrong was known to have killed in Detroit, plus two of his survivors, then we turn to the women who encountered Atkins. Click on the "Honoring the Victims" label on the left to see all of the parts in the series. Also see the #RememberThem series on YouTube.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Above photo is a copyrighted image of a case file and specifically for use in The Crack City Strangler: The Homicides of Serial Killer Benjamin Atkins; any other use prohibited without permission.

BRBates.com
wbp.bz/CrackCityStrangler
Murders in the Motor City Series

(And yes, that photo on the book's cover is actually a photo of Atkins; see this blog post on the confusion over his photos.)