Hello, listeners. I'm your host, Amora, and this is Black Girl Gone, a true crime podcast.

In 1986, six women disappeared into a basement in Philadelphia. For months, they were held captive beneath an ordinary rowhouse while the city carried on just above them.

By the time police uncovered the truth, two women had been killed, and the survivors would expose one of the most horrifying crimes

Philadelphia had ever seen.

On this episode of Black Girl Gone,

I tell the story of the six women,

Josefina Rivera, Sandra Lindsay,

Lisa Thomas, Deborah Dudley, and Agnes Adams,

who were kidnapped and imprisoned inside a North Philadelphia

home, and the courage that ultimately brought one of America's most notorious killers to justice.

This is the story of the women that Gary Heidnick tried to erase.

Before anyone knew what was happening inside the house on Marshall Street, there were six

women living six different lives, but none of their lives were easy.

Like so many people, they were navigating poverty, unstable housing, difficult relationships,

and just trying to survive

one day at a time. And one of the most persistent myths about the case is that Gary Heidnick chose

women who no one would miss, but that simply wasn't true. The women he targeted were vulnerable,

but they were not invisible. They had families who loved them,

hopes for their futures, and lives that mattered long before they ever cross paths with Gary Hydeck.

To understand what happened inside that basement, we have to understand the world that these women were living in.

Philadelphia in the mid-1980s was a city of stark

contrasts, while parts of the city were experiencing redevelopment and growth. Many neighborhoods,

...