Benjamin Atkins confessed in August 1992 to strangling 11 women in Detroit and in Highland Park, a city enclosed by Detroit. Their bodies had been found since the previous December in vacant buildings along a stretch of about 1.4 miles near Woodward Avenue. Police said many of the women used crack cocaine and some had worked as prostitutes. He was 23, and police described him as a part-time laborer.
He was arrested after a woman told police that he had tried to attack her a year earlier. Within days he had confessed. In April 1994 two juries, hearing the Detroit and Highland Park cases together, convicted him. He faced mandatory life in prison and received several life terms. He died in 1997 of complications related to AIDS, according to a 2024 release about the identification of one of the women. That release refers to him by the press nickname the Woodward Corridor Killer.
The killings began in December 1991, according to the 2024 release. The first woman to be found was Debbie A. Friday, 31, found in Highland Park on December 14; police later said they believed she was the first of the 11 women to die, according to United Press International. In the weeks that followed, Patricia Cannon George, 36, was found in Detroit on January 3, and Vickie Truelove, 39, was found in Detroit on January 25.
More women were found in Detroit and Highland Park over the following months, UPI reported. Vicki Beasley-Brown, 42, was among the women Atkins later confessed to killing. All of the women, police said, had been strangled, and all were found within the same corridor near Woodward between Highland Park and Detroit, in buildings that stood empty.
Police said many of the women were drug users and prostitutes. The Highland Park public safety director, John Mattox, said after the arrest that Atkins had drawn the women in with crack cocaine.
Four of the women are named in the 1992 reports. Debbie A. Friday was 31. Patricia Cannon George was 36. Vickie Truelove was 39. Vicki Beasley-Brown was 42, according to UPI; her mother spoke to reporters after the arrest.
"We've had enough killings in this city," her mother said. What troubled her most, she said, was the brutality of a man she described as hunting defenseless girls, and the fact that he had chosen women who were small and young.
One of the women found in Highland Park went without a name for more than 30 years. She was finally identified after the Highland Park Police Department reopened the case with genetic genealogists. Her family asked that her name not be published.
In the spring of 1992, as bodies continued to be found, investigators formed a task force. It drew on the Highland Park police, the Detroit Police homicide section, the Michigan State Police and the FBI, UPI reported.
Atkins had already crossed their path. About four months before his arrest, police found him sleeping in a vacant building in the area where several of the bodies had been found. He was ticketed for trespassing, and his name went on the task force's list of suspects. Nothing at that time led to a charge.
The break came from a woman who had survived. She told police that Atkins had tried to assault her about a year earlier. Police picked him up on a Thursday in August 1992, UPI reported on August 22, and held him on a misdemeanor trespassing charge while they questioned him.
When Atkins was convicted in April 1994, the Deseret News reported that prosecutors had relied heavily on the confession he gave after she led police to him.
Questioned in custody, Atkins confessed. Police said he admitted killing 11 women. The confessions came calmly, investigators said, without any emotional collapse. One of the deaths he described had been thought to be a drug overdose. An investigator quoted by the Detroit Free Press, in UPI's account, called him "pretty unassuming." Another member of the task force said there was no question that he was the right man.
Sergeant James Dobson of the Highland Park police said investigators were satisfied, from what Atkins had told them and the details he had given about the crimes, that he was the one. "He's linked to all of them," Dobson said.
In its report of August 22, UPI said investigators had found the body of another woman in Highland Park after the arrest. She had been dead for several months, and Atkins confessed soon after she was found. Whether she was counted among the 11 was never made clear.
Atkins told police he used crack cocaine. Police said they had no record of drug offenses against him.
UPI reported on August 22, 1992, that Atkins had been arraigned that Saturday on three counts of murder, for the deaths of Debbie A. Friday, Patricia Cannon George and Vickie Truelove. One charge was heard in one court and two in the 36th District Court in Detroit. He was ordered held without bond, and a preliminary hearing was set for September 2. Police said more charges would follow. Sergeant Dobson said those would come once investigators had worked "through all the paperwork."
Police also said Atkins had sexually assaulted the women.
UPI described him as a part-time laborer and a drifter. People who lived near him spoke well of him to reporters. One young woman said that everyone in the neighborhood talked to him, and a woman on his block called him pleasant. Another neighbor said that when he had been using crack or drinking he became "different," and other neighbors said he grew volatile and cursed at women when he was high or drunk.
At his trial, his lawyer, Jeffrey Edison, told the court about Atkins's childhood. Edison said that Atkins's mother had abandoned him when he was 2 years old and that he had been abused as a boy while living in a Detroit boys' home, the Deseret News reported.
The Detroit and Highland Park cases were tried together in 1994 before two juries, one drawn for the Detroit cases and one for the Highland Park cases. Three of the killings had taken place in Detroit and eight in Highland Park, according to the Deseret News.
Atkins pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Edison blamed the killings on his client's addiction to crack cocaine and on the childhood he described. Prosecutors relied heavily on Atkins's own words: a confession that ran to 87 pages.
Both juries convicted him. The Deseret News reported the verdicts on April 22, 1994. He faced mandatory life imprisonment. The jurors were not identified, but one of them told reporters afterward: "He was a very diabolical killer, and I think he's going to get exactly what he deserves."
A 2024 release by the genealogy firm that helped identify one of the women says Atkins was convicted in 1994 of rape and homicide and sentenced to several life terms, and that the conviction rested largely on his detailed confession, because little physical evidence linked him to the killings.
Atkins died in 1997, of medical complications related to AIDS, according to the same 2024 release. No date or place of death was given.
For more than three decades, one of the women found in Highland Park in 1992 had no name. By 2023 the Highland Park Police Department was working with Identifinders International, a forensic genetic genealogy company based in Fountain Valley, California, to identify her. A genealogist then with the firm, Linda Doyle, produced the lead. The work was paid for by Gray Hughes Investigates.
The firm announced the identification on January 29, 2024, describing her as the last of Atkins's victims who had not been named. Her family asked that her name be withheld, and the release did not give it.
His age. UPI gave his age as 23 in August 1992. The Deseret News gave it as 25 at his conviction in April 1994.
The count. Police said in 1992 that he confessed to 11 killings, and the 1994 report describes convictions for 11. UPI also reported that the body of another woman was found in Highland Park after his arrest, and whether she was one of the 11 was never made clear.
The sentence. The 1994 report says he faced mandatory life; the 2024 release says several life terms.
His childhood. The account of his early years comes from his lawyer's argument at trial, as the Deseret News reported it. It was offered in support of an insanity defense that the juries did not accept.
December 1991: the killings begin.
December 14: Debbie A. Friday, 31, is found in Highland Park, the first of the women to be found.
January 3: Patricia Cannon George, 36, is found in Detroit.
January 25: Vickie Truelove, 39, is found in Detroit.
December 1991 to August 1992: more women are found near Woodward Avenue in Detroit and Highland Park.
Spring 1992: a task force forms, made up of the Highland Park police, the Detroit Police homicide section, the Michigan State Police and the FBI.
About four months before his arrest: Atkins is found sleeping in a vacant building, ticketed for trespassing and placed on the suspect list.
August 1992: a woman who survived an attack tells police who he is; he is picked up and held on a trespassing charge, and confesses to killing 11 women.
August 1992 (reported August 22): he is arraigned on three murder counts and held without bond.
1994: the Detroit and Highland Park cases are tried together before two juries.
April 1994: both juries convict him; he faces mandatory life and receives several life terms.
1997: he dies of complications related to AIDS.
January 29, 2024: the last unidentified woman is announced as identified; her name is withheld at her family's request.