The Evidence Behind Chicago's Unforgotten 51 — What the Algorithm Found, What Police Disputed, and What One Court Case Proves

Fifty-one women. Two decades. One arrest. This is what the court record, the crime lab, and the data actually show — sourced, timestamped, and laid out case by case.

How the Pattern Was Found

In 2018, statistician and former investigative journalist Thomas Hargrove ran Chicago's unsolved homicides through an algorithm built by his nonprofit, the Murder Accountability Project (MAP). The algorithm sorts hundreds of thousands of murder records into clusters by victim profile, cause of death, and geography, then flags clusters with abnormally low clearance rates.

Applied to Chicago, it flagged 51 unsolved homicides sharing a strikingly consistent profile:

• ◦All 51 victims were women; more than three-quarters were Black.
• ◦All died by strangulation or asphyxiation.
• ◦Nearly all bodies were recovered outdoors — in alleys, abandoned buildings, or vacant lots — rather than indoors.
• ◦At least three-quarters of victims showed signs of sexual assault: partially or fully disrobed, or clothing torn to expose the body.
• ◦Body-recovery sites clustered in three zones — the West Side, the South Side, and the far South Side — with the South Side cluster forming an unusual north-south linear pattern Hargrove said was consistent with a mobile offender working a driving route.

"These 51 women were not murdered by 51 separate men," Hargrove told reporters. "That simply did not happen."

Sources: Murder Accountability Project (murderdata.org); WBEZ/Chicago Public Media, "A Serial Killer May Be Preying On Black Women In Chicago" (April 2019).

What Chicago Police Have Said On the Record

CPD has publicly and repeatedly rejected the serial-killer theory. In an official statement, a department spokesperson said: "There is no evidence linking the cases to each other or to suggest there is a serial killer responsible for these homicides. Detectives are continuing to investigate the cases individually."

Then–Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson did call for a formal review after sustained press coverage from Vice News, HBO, and a CBS 2 Chicago investigative series in early 2019. That review faced a structural problem from the outset: the 51 case files, or "murder books," were scattered across individual precincts rather than centralized, and investigators said they intended to search them for untested DNA.

Sources: WBEZ/Chicago Public Media (April 2019); official CPD statements.

The DNA Record: Untested and Unmatched

Of the 51 cases in the cluster, DNA was collected in only 18. None of those 18 samples cross-matched one another — a detail investigators and independent researchers cite on opposite sides of the "is this one killer" debate. In one case in the cluster, DNA recovered from underneath a victim's fingernails sat untested for 16 years before a 2018 database match named a suspect who was never extradited or charged, after prosecutors cited a 2017 Illinois Appellate Court ruling limiting prosecutions built primarily on DNA evidence alone.

Source: Murder Accountability Project case analysis; Illinois Appellate Court records as referenced in public reporting.

The One Case That Reached a Courtroom: Diamond Turner

Of the 51 cases MAP identified, exactly one has produced an arrest, a set of charges, and a conviction.

The victim: Diamond Turner, 21, was found strangled, beaten, and partially disrobed inside a trash bin in the 7300 block of South Kenwood Avenue, in Chicago's Grand Crossing neighborhood, on March 3, 2017. She was last seen alive on March 1, 2017, leaving Red's Lounge on South Stony Island Avenue with a man named Arthur Hilliard.

The autopsy: The Cook County medical examiner ruled Turner's death a homicide, caused by asphyxia and blunt force trauma to the head.

The Evidence

• ◦DNA: Blood recovered from inside Arthur Hilliard's home was matched by an Illinois State Police crime lab to Diamond Turner.
• ◦A secret recording: Turner's aunt, Latonya Turner, and community activist Andrew Holmes recorded a conversation in which Hilliard allegedly described details of the murder — including the location of a sledgehammer used to beat Turner — while claiming a roommate was responsible. Police later interviewed that roommate and determined the claim was false.
• ◦Witness statements: Prosecutors said multiple witnesses placed Turner with Hilliard later on the night she disappeared, at an apartment building Hilliard managed and lived in, where the two continued drinking. Prosecutors said the two were in a relationship at the time.
• ◦Prior record: Hilliard had six prior misdemeanor assault or battery charges, none resulting in conviction.

The Investigative Timeline — Where It Slowed Down

• ◦March 2017 — Chicago Police submit the first set of evidence in Turner's case to the Illinois State Police crime lab.
• ◦January 2018 — The lab returns its first DNA report, roughly ten months later.
• ◦September 2018 — While Turner's case remains open, Hilliard stabs a separate victim, Andra Williams, to death and leaves his body in a shopping cart in a West Side alley.
• ◦November 2018 — CPD submits a second set of evidence in Turner's case to the crime lab.
• ◦January 2019 — Hilliard pleads guilty to concealing Williams' homicide, is sentenced to less than a year, and is released from jail on probation — while Turner's case, and his own DNA evidence, are still sitting in the system.
• ◦March 2019 — The lab completes analysis of the second evidence set, confirming Hilliard's DNA at the scene. He tells detectives it's present because Turner was his girlfriend, then points them to the earlier recorded claim blaming his roommate — which they disprove.
• ◦October 2019 — CPD obtains an arrest warrant for Hilliard.
• ◦January 2020 — Hilliard, who had been on the run for the probation violation, is located and arrested — nearly three years after Turner's death.
• ◦December 2025 — A jury finds Hilliard guilty on all three counts charged, including murder and concealment of a homicide.

Sources: Fox 32 Chicago, "Murder charge filed in strangling of woman found 3 years ago in Chicago trash can" (Jan. 2020); ABC7 Chicago I-Team, "New DNA details in Diamond Turner investigation timeline" (Jan. 31, 2020); ABC7 Chicago, "Man found guilty of killing 21-year-old Diamond Turner, dumping body in Chicago alley in 2017" (Dec. 6, 2025).

The Investigative Failures, By the Numbers

• ◦1 of 51 — the only case in the flagged cluster to result in an arrest, charge, or conviction to date.
• ◦18 of 51 — cases where DNA was ever collected; none cross-matched.
• ◦~3 years — how long Diamond Turner's case took to produce an arrest, despite DNA existing in the system the entire time.
• ◦10 months — how long the first DNA report took to come back from the state crime lab, in 2017–2018 alone.
• ◦1 overlapping homicide — while Turner's case sat open, the same suspect committed and was convicted of concealing a second homicide, served under a year, and was released on probation before his DNA in Turner's case was even confirmed.
• ◦Citizen-led breakthrough — the recorded admission that helped build the case against Hilliard came from the victim's own aunt and a community activist working outside the department, not from a police-led interrogation or wiretap.
• ◦Decentralized case files — the 51 murder books were reportedly scattered across precincts citywide rather than consolidated, complicating the department's own 2019 review.

The Unforgotten Project

In February 2020, Roosevelt University journalism professor John W. Fountain — a former New York Times and Washington Post journalist — launched a project called "Unforgotten" with his students. Over three semesters, they profiled ten of the 51 victims by name, pushing back against coverage that, in Fountain's words, mischaracterized the women as "prostitutes and drug addicts, as if that made them disposable."

Source: Global Investigative Journalism Network, "Unforgotten: Student Journalists Capture the Stories of 51 Women Slain in Chicago" (April 12, 2021).

Why the Evidence Matters Beyond One Case

Diamond Turner's case proves the pattern MAP's algorithm flagged can produce prosecutable evidence when it's pursued: DNA, corroborating witnesses, a documented autopsy, and a suspect with a matching pattern of violence and body concealment. It also shows how long that evidence can sit unacted-on inside the same department that had access to it — and how much of the pressure that eventually moved the case came from family and community members working outside the investigation, not from within it.

At least 51 women are dead. A credible statistical model says their deaths are connected. The department responsible for investigating them says it isn't convinced. Only one arrest — Arthur Hilliard, in the death of Diamond Turner — has ever come from it. Chicago's Unforgotten 51 remains open, unresolved, and in nearly all of these deaths, uncharged.

🎧 Hear the full episode breakdown on this week's episode of The Last Known Moment. Listen here

If you have information related to any of these cases, please contact the Chicago Police Department or Crime Stoppers.

Sources

• ◦Murder Accountability Project (murderdata.org) — "Chicago Police make first arrest among 51 female strangulations" (Feb. 1, 2020) and published case cluster analysis
• ◦WBEZ/Chicago Public Media — "A Serial Killer May Be Preying On Black Women In Chicago" (Apr. 16, 2019)
• ◦Fox 32 Chicago — "Murder charge filed in strangling of woman found 3 years ago in Chicago trash can" (Jan. 2020)
• ◦ABC7 Chicago I-Team — "New DNA details in Diamond Turner investigation timeline" (Jan. 31, 2020)
• ◦ABC7 Chicago — "Man found guilty of killing 21-year-old Diamond Turner, dumping body in Chicago alley in 2017" (Dec. 6, 2025)
• ◦Global Investigative Journalism Network — "Unforgotten: Student Journalists Capture the Stories of 51 Women Slain in Chicago" (Apr. 12, 2021)
• ◦Official statements from the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office

This article is based on publicly available information and is for educational and informational purposes only. NaturalQueen77 TV strives for accuracy but cannot guarantee completeness. All individuals discussed are presumed innocent of any uncharged conduct unless proven otherwise in a court of law.