Chicago, June 1945. A woman is murdered in her apartment on the North Side of the city — and when they find her, one of her hands is closed around several short black hairs. She fought him. Somebody taped the wounds on her throat closed afterwards and left the tape to dry, rinsed her clothes in the bathtub, and went out the back way, down the fire escape, between noon and one o'clock. Nothing was taken.

Her name was Josephine Ross. She was forty-three years old. She had been married three times and divorced twice, and she had two daughters. The police worked her murder for eight days — one captain, one coroner, and not one other officer we can name. Then it went quiet. Six months later, when the next woman was killed, the city built a task force. It did not go back for Josephine Ross. This is episode one of three, and it is about the woman everybody forgot first.

Everything here is built from the record — the death certificates, the census pages, the coroner's file, and the newspapers of 1945. Every source, photograph and document in the case file is at Section29.com. New to the show? Hit subscribe so the next two episodes find you. And if it was worth your time, a review helps more than you know — Forgotten True Crime is one person doing the research, the writing, the recording and the editing. AI is only used to enhance audio quality of what is recorded.