This episode contains graphic language and descriptions of sexual violence that some listeners may find disturbing. There's a handwritten note taped to Corinne Burns apartment door in South Miami. It's 8 a.m. on Thursday, May 30th, 1985.

Corinne's car is in the shop and her friend and coworker Susan is here to pick her up.

The note says, I'm sick and won't make it in today. I'll call you later.

It's odd though because Susan and Korean had been out together until 1130 the night before and Corrine seemed fine.

But Susan is running late so she grabs the note off Corrine's door and heads to work. Behind the door of Apartment 3 is a horrifying and bloody scene.

Corinne is dead. She'd been tied up in her bed with a telephone cord,

apparently sexually assaulted, and brutally murdered.

And in an empty apartment a few doors down, some of her belongings have been stashed, along with a bloody pillowcase. Homicide investigators call Detective Dave Simmons with an alarming possibility.

The clues suggest that Corrine was a victim of the serial rapist Simmons has been hunting for years, but with one terrifying difference.

They called me not knowing whether the pillowcase rapist now had finally killed someone. From the South Florida Sun Sentinel, this is Falonia's Florida.

The podcast that leads you into the dark side of the sunshine state. State.

I'm David Schutz and We're at episode 4 of our six-part series in The Darkness,

the hunt for Florida's pillowcase rapist.

In this episode, we'll unravel the most intense year in the investigation, 1985.

A roller coaster 12 months marked by hopeful leads, violent suspects, and emotional dead ends.

By 1985, the pursuit of the pillowcase rapist was in its fourth year and the cases continued to stack up. Four years ago this month the pillowcase rapist began his spree of sexual

assaults and robberies in date and Broward and last night he claimed his

40th known victim a young woman in the Kendall area near Baptist hospital.

It was clear the Detective Simmons and his team of five investigators weren't nearly enough to break the case.

The higher-ups in the department finally decided we need to assist Simmons and get him

some help because he's been doing a good part of this on his own with the help of his squad. So they set up a task force of about 60 detectives that they drew from specialized students from all of their department. And we ran down hundreds of leads.

The jobs of dozens of officers on the task force would be to pour through every tip.

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