In the late summer of 2016, in Essex county New Jersey, women began showing up in abandoned houses, dead. These women had their faces covered eyes to chin in duct tape, they had been sexually assaulted, then strangled with an article of clothing and left to disappear into the ether.
These crimes all had a direct but circumstantial trail back to a clean cut, twenty year old, orange county man named Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, but, his victims were sex workers who lived in the most depressed parts of town. We've seen this before, so it should come as no surprise to any of us that the police did not pursue Khalil based on his clean cut and harmless appearance, and let the deaths of these women fall between the cracks in turn, based on theirs.
But that's not the end of our story this week. When authorities failed to solve this case, the women effected by it, did. In a time when we all feel helpless, and at the mercy of our circumstances, this story shows that with a little ingenuity even the most seemingly impossible justice can be served.
Click to learn moreNorthJersey.com 's excellent coverage of this case. Our primary source.
Video coverage featuring interviews with Family Members and survivor Tiffany Taylor
Insight on this case and "the absence of sympathy for black women" By Raven J. James
WWBD Merch
Buy your WWBD swag here!
Join the Conversation
Based on a Fictional Story 2 (Scary Stories to tell in the Dark)
Murder House (The Los Feliz Murder Mansion)
Drink Me (Black Widow Stacey Castor)
Based on a True Story 2 (Five Nights at Freddy’s)
Bristol’s Angel (The Murder of Becky Watts)
Two Truths and a Lie
Mother’s In The Attic (John List)
Dungeons and Dragons and the Devil (Satanic Panic)
In The Pines (The Jersey Devil)
Not a Runaway (The Disappearance of Katelin Akens)
Blaze of Glory (The Murder of Blaze Bernstein)
Missing Pieces (The Murder of Kitty Genovese)
The Worst Love Story (The Richardson Family Murders)
Beautiful Cigar Girl (Mary Rogers)
Nightmare Fuel 2.0 (Cursed Objects Part 2)
New moon, Who Dis? (30 Minute Twilight: New Moon)
Girls Don’t Hitchhike (The Highway Of Tears)
Halfoween 3 (Revenge of the Hosts)
Fly on the Wall (The murder of Annie Le)
Again or Never (The Disappearance of Daniel Robinson)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Ghosts of Dallas
Mortal Musings Podcast
True Crime Investigators UK
Scaredycast
Dateline NBC
Crime Junkie