Freeway Phantom, a Jay Ellis-produced podcast investigating the 1970s serial murders of six Black girls in Washington, D.C., is set to premiere Wednesday. 

In a show clip shared with Blavity exclusively, bestselling author and host Celeste Headlee sits down with Romaine Jenkins, a Washington native who worked the case, to uncover lost details about the incidents, hoping they will lead to the killer.

Between 1971 and 1972, six Black girls ranging in age from 10 to 18 — Carol Spinks, Darlenia Johnson, Brenda Crockett, Nenomoshia Yates, Brenda Woodard and Diane Williams — went missing in the D.C. area, and the killer later discarded their bodies alongside local highways. The culprit didn’t exactly hide in the shadows following the incidents. Instead, they teased and taunted police and the victims’ families with harrowing notes and phone calls claiming responsibility for the crimes.

It’s been over 50 years since the young girls’ deaths, and authorities still haven’t brought their killer to justice.

Freeway Phantom aims to change that. The 10-part series will share the stories of each victim and explore newfound evidence that may play a key role in holding someone accountable for the deaths. Jenkins will play an integral role in the series. In the clip, Headlee explains the retired detective has the “largest collection of documents on the Freeway Phantom case.”

“The amount of information we came across was astounding,” Headlee declares. “She had crime scene photos, original police reports, suspect lists — most of this we had never seen before.”

Additionally, we can exclusively reveal that podcast producers iHeartMedia and Tenderfoot TV are doubling the existing reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murders, matching the previous amount of up to $150,000 offered by the Metropolitan Police Department and bringing it up to $300,000.

The podcast will also explore the many factors that contributed to the Freeway Phantom case going cold: racial disparities within the criminal justice system, strategies for solving murders at the time in comparison to now, and a lack of trust between law enforcement and the Black community.

Listen to the exclusive preview clip for the podcast below:

The podcast’s first two episodes will premiere Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app and across all podcast platforms. The remaining episodes will be released weekly on Wednesdays.

If you have information about the murders of Carol Spinks, Darlenia Johnson, Brenda Crockett, Nenomoshia Yates, Brenda Woodard, or Diane Williams, please get in touch with the Synchronized Operations Command Center at 202-727-9099 or email unsolved.murder@dc.gov. If you’d like to contact Tenderfoot TV directly, email tips@tenderfoot.tv.