My sister's cold case
I am staring at the man accused of raping and murdering my sister, Vickie, in August 1979. She was 28.
I can see him, but he can't see me. We are connected by video. He is dressed in an orange jumpsuit, sitting in a Maryland jailhouse holding room waiting for his bail hearing to begin. I am alone in a hotel room, on a business trip to New York.
I am taken aback by his appearance. He was 18 in 1979. Now 62, he looks years older, agitated, eyes darting. He is Black — like me, like Vickie.
I can feel my chest tightening, sweat accumulating on my forehead. Vickie's death left me with my own boogeyman. A faceless presence never far from my side. I saw real and imagined threats everywhere. My life was bifurcated into the before and the after. I lugged around survivor's baggage — sorrow, guilt and fear.
And now there he is: The boogeyman has a face and a name: Andre Taylor. And, most important, genetic markers. He left behind DNA when he brutally raped Vickie, shot her in the head and left her body alongside a rural road in Charles County, Md. For four decades, the police made no arrests. Her killing added to the shocking number of unsolved murdered or missing Black women and girls in the U.S.
My younger sister, Kay, now a retired California deputy sheriff, kept pushing for answers. I chose instead to focus on supporting Vickie's son, who was 8 at the time of her death, on raising money for the Vickie Belk Scholarship Foundation launched by our family church and on speaking out against gun violence.
Then in mid-2023, the combination of enhanced DNA technology, Kay's determination and new leadership in the Charles County Sheriff's Department and the Maryland state attorney's office, there was a major break in the case.
A DNA sample lifted from Vickie's clothing matched a profile in the national database. At the time, Taylor was living in a Washington, D.C., convalescent home. One of his legs had been amputated and he was using a wheelchair. He had no known relationship with Vickie. What he did have was a long, violent criminal record, and jail time. When the DNA match was confirmed, he was indicted and arrested.
Which brought us to the bail hearing.
Memories rush back. The last time I saw Vickie was on my wedding day. She was standing next to me at the altar in a blue maid-of-honor dress and matching hat. Three weeks later, I would be back at the same altar, sobbing over her lifeless body lying in a casket. She was wearing the same blue dress. For weeks, unopened wedding presents stayed stacked in the corner of our house.
I listen as the public defender explains why the judge should grant Taylor bail. A flicker of compassion moves me. I spent years working for criminal justice reform. I know the system often fails poor people, especially those with disabilities and communities of color. I've been a strong public advocate of restorative justice and a critic of mass incarceration.
'Judge, look at him,' the public defender says. 'He's not going anywhere. He's not a flight risk.'
I push aside any thoughts of compassion when the prosecutor shares Taylor's version of how his DNA got on Vickie's clothing.
He claimed that a friend named Mikey showed up at his house with a hysterical Vickie in the backseat of his car. Taylor's story was that she begged for her life, offering to have sex if they would just let her go. He said Mikey left with Vickie, alive, and when he asked later, Mikey told him: 'Well man, you know I had to do what I had to do.'
I start to weep.
The prosecutor jumps in, noting the defensive wounds on Vickie's body as she fought for her life and lost, the presence of Taylor's DNA on her panties. And then this: When Taylor was arrested, the prosecutor says, he told officers he would have enlisted his brothers to help him flee if he'd known the police were coming for him.
'He is a flight risk and should be held without bail,' the prosecutor insists.
'Bail denied!' the judge thunders.
::
A year and half later, in summer 2024, I travel east from California again, this time for Taylor's trial. Every day our family and friends from the old neighborhood and beyond are in the Maryland courtroom or Zooming in. But all their love and support isn't enough to lessen my dread of what will come.
Jury selection is a reminder of how much violence is ingrained in American life. The judge asks the diverse pool of nearly 100 prospective jurors to stand if they know someone who was wounded or killed by gun violence. Only five remained seated. When he asks about sexual violence, a majority of the women stand. Many accept the judge's offer to be excused if they feel they can't be impartial. I begin to worry if there will be any women left to serve. Finally, the prosecution and defense agree on four women and nine men (including one alternate). They are mostly folks of color.
The hallways are cleared each morning as Taylor is wheeled into court. In person, he seems small, innocuous. I find myself wishing I knew how to hate better, but I come up empty. All I can muster is curiosity, loss and pain, wondering what had happened to him in his first 18 years of life.
Kay is one of the first called to the witness stand by the prosecutor. She must formally identify Vickie in the crime scene photos. Several family members choose to leave the courtroom. I stay and watch as jurors gasp at the images or look away. Taylor sits motionless, as if the evidence has nothing to do with him.
We hear emotional testimony from the man who'd found Vickie in the woods. Now a grandfather, he was 15, riding his bike near his home, when he saw her body. He had shared with the family how the image haunted him for years.
When the defense begins, I start directing my bitterness less at Taylor and more at his lawyers. It's a two-person team headed by the chief public defender, a Black woman, with a white woman in the second chair. I know they are doing their jobs, but their competency turns my stomach and heart inside out.
Taylor's lawyer asks the medical examiner who did the original autopsy if it is possible that Vickie committed suicide or if her blunt vaginal injuries could be from consensual sex. Absolutely not, the medical examiner says. She stands by her assessment that Vickie's death was a homicide, and that she was violently sexually assaulted.
Next Taylor's lawyers take a page from the O.J. Simpson playbook and spend hours trying to dispute the collection and validity of the DNA evidence.
But in the end, Taylor's own words convict him. The prosecution plays the entire two-hour video of his arrest interview. For almost 60 minutes, he denies having any contact with Vickie, and then he admits to what the prosecutors will call 'actions that amounted to rape.'
'I had sex with her to quiet her down. She was nicely dressed with nice expensive shoes. I remember those shoes. Dressed like she worked in an office or something.'
He deadpans, 'She was alive when I was done with her.'
In the closing argument, the prosecutor connects the dots. There was no Mikey. All the evidence points to the fact that Vickie was abducted, taken to the woods a few miles from where Taylor lived, sexually assaulted and murdered. The DNA implicates Taylor and Taylor alone.
It takes the jury two hours to come back with a verdict: guilty. As they file out of the courtroom, several of them make eye contact. I silently mouth 'thank you.'
::
A month later, I return to the courtroom for Taylor's sentencing. Family members are given the opportunity to make statements.
We are instructed to direct our comments to the judge, not Taylor. Vickie's son speaks first. I keep my remarks short, reminding the court of the brutality of the crime, how scared Vickie must have been, and how Taylor had shown no remorse for his actions.
When it is my youngest sister's turn, she first apologizes to the judge for ignoring his instructions, then turns to Taylor, and says what I wish I had had the nerve to say: ' You are a piece of trash.' She accepts the judge's reprimand and leaves the courtroom.
Taylor is sentenced to life in prison. 'My actions today won't bring Vickie back,' the judge says. 'It probably won't even provide closure. But I hope it will bring you some sense of justice and peace.'
Maybe one day it will. But not this day. I leave the courtroom feeling the loss of a sister — no justice, no peace.
Judy Belk, former president and chief executive of the California Wellness Foundation, is a frequent contributor to The Times. She is at work on a book of personal essays about racial justice and social change.
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Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
My sister's cold case
I am staring at the man accused of raping and murdering my sister, Vickie, in August 1979. She was 28. I can see him, but he can't see me. We are connected by video. He is dressed in an orange jumpsuit, sitting in a Maryland jailhouse holding room waiting for his bail hearing to begin. I am alone in a hotel room, on a business trip to New York. I am taken aback by his appearance. He was 18 in 1979. Now 62, he looks years older, agitated, eyes darting. He is Black — like me, like Vickie. I can feel my chest tightening, sweat accumulating on my forehead. Vickie's death left me with my own boogeyman. A faceless presence never far from my side. I saw real and imagined threats everywhere. My life was bifurcated into the before and the after. I lugged around survivor's baggage — sorrow, guilt and fear. And now there he is: The boogeyman has a face and a name: Andre Taylor. And, most important, genetic markers. He left behind DNA when he brutally raped Vickie, shot her in the head and left her body alongside a rural road in Charles County, Md. For four decades, the police made no arrests. Her killing added to the shocking number of unsolved murdered or missing Black women and girls in the U.S. My younger sister, Kay, now a retired California deputy sheriff, kept pushing for answers. I chose instead to focus on supporting Vickie's son, who was 8 at the time of her death, on raising money for the Vickie Belk Scholarship Foundation launched by our family church and on speaking out against gun violence. Then in mid-2023, the combination of enhanced DNA technology, Kay's determination and new leadership in the Charles County Sheriff's Department and the Maryland state attorney's office, there was a major break in the case. A DNA sample lifted from Vickie's clothing matched a profile in the national database. At the time, Taylor was living in a Washington, D.C., convalescent home. One of his legs had been amputated and he was using a wheelchair. He had no known relationship with Vickie. What he did have was a long, violent criminal record, and jail time. When the DNA match was confirmed, he was indicted and arrested. Which brought us to the bail hearing. Memories rush back. The last time I saw Vickie was on my wedding day. She was standing next to me at the altar in a blue maid-of-honor dress and matching hat. Three weeks later, I would be back at the same altar, sobbing over her lifeless body lying in a casket. She was wearing the same blue dress. For weeks, unopened wedding presents stayed stacked in the corner of our house. I listen as the public defender explains why the judge should grant Taylor bail. A flicker of compassion moves me. I spent years working for criminal justice reform. I know the system often fails poor people, especially those with disabilities and communities of color. I've been a strong public advocate of restorative justice and a critic of mass incarceration. 'Judge, look at him,' the public defender says. 'He's not going anywhere. He's not a flight risk.' I push aside any thoughts of compassion when the prosecutor shares Taylor's version of how his DNA got on Vickie's clothing. He claimed that a friend named Mikey showed up at his house with a hysterical Vickie in the backseat of his car. Taylor's story was that she begged for her life, offering to have sex if they would just let her go. He said Mikey left with Vickie, alive, and when he asked later, Mikey told him: 'Well man, you know I had to do what I had to do.' I start to weep. The prosecutor jumps in, noting the defensive wounds on Vickie's body as she fought for her life and lost, the presence of Taylor's DNA on her panties. And then this: When Taylor was arrested, the prosecutor says, he told officers he would have enlisted his brothers to help him flee if he'd known the police were coming for him. 'He is a flight risk and should be held without bail,' the prosecutor insists. 'Bail denied!' the judge thunders. :: A year and half later, in summer 2024, I travel east from California again, this time for Taylor's trial. Every day our family and friends from the old neighborhood and beyond are in the Maryland courtroom or Zooming in. But all their love and support isn't enough to lessen my dread of what will come. Jury selection is a reminder of how much violence is ingrained in American life. The judge asks the diverse pool of nearly 100 prospective jurors to stand if they know someone who was wounded or killed by gun violence. Only five remained seated. When he asks about sexual violence, a majority of the women stand. Many accept the judge's offer to be excused if they feel they can't be impartial. I begin to worry if there will be any women left to serve. Finally, the prosecution and defense agree on four women and nine men (including one alternate). They are mostly folks of color. The hallways are cleared each morning as Taylor is wheeled into court. In person, he seems small, innocuous. I find myself wishing I knew how to hate better, but I come up empty. All I can muster is curiosity, loss and pain, wondering what had happened to him in his first 18 years of life. Kay is one of the first called to the witness stand by the prosecutor. She must formally identify Vickie in the crime scene photos. Several family members choose to leave the courtroom. I stay and watch as jurors gasp at the images or look away. Taylor sits motionless, as if the evidence has nothing to do with him. We hear emotional testimony from the man who'd found Vickie in the woods. Now a grandfather, he was 15, riding his bike near his home, when he saw her body. He had shared with the family how the image haunted him for years. When the defense begins, I start directing my bitterness less at Taylor and more at his lawyers. It's a two-person team headed by the chief public defender, a Black woman, with a white woman in the second chair. I know they are doing their jobs, but their competency turns my stomach and heart inside out. Taylor's lawyer asks the medical examiner who did the original autopsy if it is possible that Vickie committed suicide or if her blunt vaginal injuries could be from consensual sex. Absolutely not, the medical examiner says. She stands by her assessment that Vickie's death was a homicide, and that she was violently sexually assaulted. Next Taylor's lawyers take a page from the O.J. Simpson playbook and spend hours trying to dispute the collection and validity of the DNA evidence. But in the end, Taylor's own words convict him. The prosecution plays the entire two-hour video of his arrest interview. For almost 60 minutes, he denies having any contact with Vickie, and then he admits to what the prosecutors will call 'actions that amounted to rape.' 'I had sex with her to quiet her down. She was nicely dressed with nice expensive shoes. I remember those shoes. Dressed like she worked in an office or something.' He deadpans, 'She was alive when I was done with her.' In the closing argument, the prosecutor connects the dots. There was no Mikey. All the evidence points to the fact that Vickie was abducted, taken to the woods a few miles from where Taylor lived, sexually assaulted and murdered. The DNA implicates Taylor and Taylor alone. It takes the jury two hours to come back with a verdict: guilty. As they file out of the courtroom, several of them make eye contact. I silently mouth 'thank you.' :: A month later, I return to the courtroom for Taylor's sentencing. Family members are given the opportunity to make statements. We are instructed to direct our comments to the judge, not Taylor. Vickie's son speaks first. I keep my remarks short, reminding the court of the brutality of the crime, how scared Vickie must have been, and how Taylor had shown no remorse for his actions. When it is my youngest sister's turn, she first apologizes to the judge for ignoring his instructions, then turns to Taylor, and says what I wish I had had the nerve to say: ' You are a piece of trash.' She accepts the judge's reprimand and leaves the courtroom. Taylor is sentenced to life in prison. 'My actions today won't bring Vickie back,' the judge says. 'It probably won't even provide closure. But I hope it will bring you some sense of justice and peace.' Maybe one day it will. But not this day. I leave the courtroom feeling the loss of a sister — no justice, no peace. Judy Belk, former president and chief executive of the California Wellness Foundation, is a frequent contributor to The Times. She is at work on a book of personal essays about racial justice and social change.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Karen Bass in hot seat as Trump targets Los Angeles – but it's not her first crisis
In the mid-1990s, Karen Bass was in the streets of Los Angeles, protesting alongside Latino activists against new laws that targeted undocumented immigrants and were expected to land more young men of color in prison. These days, Bass is monitoring the status of protests against US immigration agents from a helicopter, as the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles. Bass, a 71-year-old former community organizer, is leading the city's response to an extraordinary confrontation staged by the federal government, as federal agents have raided workplaces and parking lots, arresting immigrant workers in ways family members have compared to 'kidnappings', and Donald Trump sent in the national guard and hundreds of US marines in response to local demonstrations. As Trump and other Republicans have tried to paint Bass as the negligent guardian of a city full of wild criminal behavior, Bass has pushed back hard. The political career of Los Angeles' first Black female mayor was forged during the chaos and violence of the 1992 LA uprising, which left more than 50 people dead, and in the long struggle afterwards to rebuild a more equal city. When the Trump administration tried to depict a few protests in downtown Los Angeles as rioting equivalent to the aftermath of the Rodney King trial in 1992, Bass scoffed: 'There is zero comparison,' noting that, as a Black community leader in South Central Los Angeles, 'I was at the epicenter when it was occurring.' Bass has earned widespread praise within California for her forceful denunciation of Trump's immigration raids, and her focus on the safety of LA's immigrant residents, and the terror the raids have caused. She has repeatedly described immigrants as central to the city's identity. 'We are a city of immigrants, and we have always embraced that,' Bass said. She has also made clear that what's happening in Los Angeles has wider importance, and that the tactics the administration is testing out in one Democratic-majority city are likely to be used elsewhere. 'I don't think our city should be used as an experiment,' she said last week. As city leadership, she's been holding it down Eunisses Hernandez, LA city council Bass, a force in California state politics before she spent a decade in Congress, built her reputation on consensus-building and pragmatism, not political grandstanding. Once a favorite of congressional Republicans for her willingness to work across the aisle, she is now denouncing Trump administration officials for the 'outright lie' of their characterization of Los Angeles as a war zone, and saying bluntly that 'this is chaos that was started in Washington DC.' 'As city leadership, she's been holding it down,' said Eunisses Hernandez, a progressive Los Angeles city council member who represents a majority-Latino district north of downtown. 'All of our leaders are navigating unprecedented waters.' In the short time Bass has been mayor – she was inaugurated in December 2022 – she has been faced with a series of escalating post-Covid crises, starting with the city's long-running struggle with homelessness and rising housing costs, then a historic double Hollywood strike in 2023, followed by ongoing economic problems in the city's crucial film and TV business. As multiple wildfires raged across the city this January, she was slammed for having left the city for Ghana during a time of high wildfire risk and dodging questions about her absence. Her leadership during the wildfires left her political future in question, with half the city's voters viewing her unfavorably, according to a May poll. The challenges Bass faces in leading Los Angeles through this new crisis are also only beginning, even as the first wave of Los Angeles' anti-immigration raid protests have quieted in the wake of Saturday's large nationwide demonstrations against the Trump administration. 'Our city is under siege,' said Roland Palencia, an organizational consultant and longtime local activist. 'The plan here is basically, strangle the city: economically, politically, every which way.' At least 2,000 members of the national guard and hundreds of US marines are still staged in downtown Los Angeles. A legal battle over whether Trump illegally deployed the national guard over the protests of California's governor is still playing out: after a Tuesday hearing, a federal appeals court seemed likely to keep the national guard under Trump's control as the litigation continues. I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants Karen Bass While denouncing the Trump administration for causing chaos in Los Angeles, Bass has also had to confront some of those taking to the streets, demanding that protests be 'peaceful' and responding sharply to anti-Ice graffiti on downtown buildings and businesses, noting that the city was supposed to host the Fifa World Cup in 2026. 'I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants, they have another agenda,' she said on 10 June. 'The violence and the damage is unacceptable, it is not going to be tolerated, and individuals will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' Meanwhile, federal agents are still conducting unpredictable immigration raids across the Los Angeles area, detaining people at work, in parking lots, and even at a weekend swap meet. Family members have been left without any information about their loved ones' whereabouts for days: lawyers and elected officials have described horrific conditions in the facilities where suddenly detained immigrants are being held. On Tuesday, Bass lifted the evening curfew that she had set for a swath of downtown Los Angeles a week before, one that major Los Angeles restaurants had complained had cost them tens of thousands of dollars. But the economic shock waves of the immigration raids are still rippling through the city, with many immigrants, even those with legal status to work in the US, afraid of going to work, or even leaving the house. The message Angelenos have taken from the federal raids so far, Hernandez said, was 'It doesn't matter whether you're documented or not: if you look brown, if you look Latino, if you look like an immigrant, we're going to stop you.' A third of Los Angeles county's roughly 10 million residents were born outside the United States. Half are Latino. An estimated 1 million people here are undocumented. Since the federal government stepped up the raids, swaths of the city once bustling with immigrant businesses and immigrant customers are unusually quiet, community members and local politicians say. 'It is pretty profound to walk up and down the streets and to see the empty streets, it reminded me of Covid,' Bass told the Los Angeles Times during a Father's Day visit to Boyle Heights, a historic Latino neighborhood. Bass has urged Angelenos to help local businesses harmed by the Trump administration's targeting. 'Now is the time to support your local small business and show that LA stands strong and united,' she posted on X on Tuesday. But Hernandez, the city council member, warned that the economic pain of the raids could escalate even further, particularly as immigrant families afraid to send breadwinners to work over the past two weeks faced the threat of being evicted from their homes. 'We cannot afford to have more people fall into the eviction to homelessness pipeline,' she said. When small businesses lost money, Hernandez added, the city's revenue was hurt, as well: 'Our budget – a significant portion of it is made from locally generated tax dollars,' she said. 'That revenue is drying up.' And the city government, already struggling with a huge budget deficit after the wildfires this January, also faced new crisis-related costs, Hernandez said: 'We're spending millions upon millions in police overtime.' She noted that the police department had estimated Ice-raid-related overtime costs at $12m within the first two weeks. Many journalists and activists have criticized the Los Angeles police department's own response to the protests of the past two weeks as violent and heavy-handed. The city of Los Angeles is currently facing a lawsuit from press freedom organizations over the police department's use of force against journalists. Palencia, the longtime activist and organizational consultant, said Bass's commitment to Los Angeles' immigrant community, and to Latinos in particular, was not in doubt. Bass's connection to the Latino community is deep, Palencia said, forged both through her early political activism as the founder of the Community Coalition, a non-profit which built ties between Black and Latino communities in order to jointly confront the challenges of the crack epidemic in the 1990s, and through her own family. Bass's ex-husband was Latino, and she remains very close to her four Mexican American stepchildren and their children. But, Palencia argued, leaders like Bass and the California governor, Gavin Newsom, will need a long-term leadership plan, one that gives more guidance to all the state's residents on how to respond to a new and dangerous situation. Even though Los Angeles had had a quieter week, the feeling that the city was 'under siege' continued, Palencia said. 'It's kind of like a cat-and-mouse situation,' he said. 'It's very fluid – and it can blow up any time.'
Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: The case of the ‘ragged stranger'
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on June 21, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Column: 11 observations to kick off a Chicago sports summer, including updating the 'Maddux' to the 'PCA'Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1920: United States Army veteran Carl Wanderer claimed his wife Ruth Wanderer was fatally shot by an unknown man during a robbery attempt in the vestibule of their apartment complex before he fatally shot the assailant. Wanderer later admitted to killing both and staging the scene in what was to be known as 'The Case of the Ragged Stranger.' 1921: Bessie Coleman became the first Black woman to earn a pilot's license. The International Aeronautical Federation in France presented it to her almost two years before fellow aviator Amelia Earhart. Coleman returned to the United States aboard the steamer ship Mancuria amid fanfare on Sept. 25, 1921. She proclaimed herself the 'only Negro aviatrix in the world,' the Tribune reported, and intended 'to give exhibition flights and thus inspire the colored citizens with a desire to fly.' 1926: Chicago became the first city in the U.S. to host the International Eucharistic Congress. Nearly 1 million Catholics from around the world joined the almost 1 million local Catholics during the four-day gathering, which started in Mundelein then moved to Soldier Field. Approximately 300,000 people — 150,000 inside Soldier Field and 150,000 outside the stadium — attend Mass there. 1958: The last remaining Chicago streetcar made its final run. The last paying trolley customer was Al Carter. Carter was also the last customer at the 1933-34 Century of Progress, which was the second World's Fair hosted by the city. 1964: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was the keynote speaker at the Illinois Rally for Civil Rights held at Soldier Field, where he told the crowd of more than 57,000, 'We must continue to engage in demonstrations, boycotts, and rent strikes and to use all the resources at our disposal. We must go to the ballot box and vote in large numbers. But nonviolence is the most total weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for human dignity.' Vintage Chicago Tribune: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leads 'the first significant freedom movement in the North'The predominantly Black crowd that gathered to hear him speak was smaller than expected, however, due to rain. 1971: The Chicago Teachers Union voted by a 2-1 ratio to accept a plan to integrate faculties in the city's public schools. The plan called for the faculty of any one school to be limited to no more than 75% Black or 75% white teachers. The vote of 11,681 to 5,566 represented a larger membership turnout than for the teachers' contract vote at the beginning of the year. 1996: Doors to the Museum of Contemporary Art's new building on East Chicago Avenue opened for the first time to the public at 7 p.m. and remained so until 7 p.m. the following day. The unique 24-hour concept was considered its own performance piece for the approximately 25,000 people who visited during that time period. Missing, however, was the museum's founder Joseph Randall Shapiro, who died just days earlier at the age of 91. 2011: Ferocious winds spawned tornadoes that hit Downers Grove and Mount Prospect, but warning sirens in the communities remained silent. In both cases, tornadoes about 200 yards wide traveled roughly 2 miles, toppling trees, tossing lawn furniture and knocking down power lines. Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
