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into the nineties and the humidity turns the air clammy, making it seem even hotter. These dog days, as they’re referred to locally, send adults inside seeking air-conditioning or window fans, and kids searching for swimming pools, broken hydrants, or shaded parks. The southern flank of the city that sits on the Patapsco River benefits from the prevailing breeze skimming off the Chesapeake Bay. But the crowded neighborhoods spiraling around the city to the north feel little relief. Late afternoon thunderstorms sometimes cool the air sending swaths of steam rising from the burning, pervasive asphalt, but the heat soon returns. At times it is unrelenting.
    For the residents of Fontana Village the summer of 1984 was no different from most in regard to the weather. It had been hot and sticky. Folks living in and around that area were taking it easy. Some rose early, as the hours before and after the sun got high were the most bearable. Ladies sat outside on their adjoining front stoops and fanned themselves to feel a breeze. People put off their outdoor projects, waiting for a break in the temperature. Most families felt reasonably safe in Fontana Village. Children played around Bethke’s Pond or on swings shaded by the stands of oaks, maples, and elms that bordered the woods dense with underbrush. Mostly occupied by low-income tenants, the apartments housed plenty of kids and young parents.
    After dark on July 24 of that year, television screens could be seen flickering from some of the apartment windows in Fontana Village. News shows reported that Ronald Reagan and his running mate, George Bush, were likely to win a second term against Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro; the summer Olympics were about to start in Los Angeles; movies like
Beverly Hills Cop
and
Police Academy
were popular in area theaters; a company called Apple had recently introduced a home desktop computercalled the Macintosh; and there was to be a break in the weather: the next day, Wednesday, July 25, 1984, was to be cooler and less humid, with temperatures in the low to mid-eighties, a day to enjoy the outdoors.
    It was around 11 A.M . that Wednesday morning that Dawn Venice Hamilton, a pretty nine-year-old child with sandy bangs and a page-boy haircut, left the apartment in which she was staying to find some friends outside. She stopped by Bethke’s Pond and saw two boys she knew, Christian Shipley and Jackie Poling, fishing for bluegill, and noticed that one had caught a turtle. While she examined the small creature, a man approached and asked her what she was doing. She told him she was looking for her friend Lisa. By one account the man told her that he was playing hide-and-seek with Lisa and asked her if she wanted to play. By another account he simply offered to help her search. She was last seen alive walking into the nearby woods with this strange man. The border of the woods was in shadow. As Christian Shipley and Jackie Poling watched, the figures of the man and little girl traversed a culvert, crossed into this line of shadow, and quickly disappeared.
    When Dawn failed to return home a short while later, Elinor Helmick, who was watching over her, went searching. When her search proved unsuccessful, she called the police. Within ninety minutes, over one hundred Baltimore County police officers and cadets were canvassing the area where Dawn had last been seen. It was around two thirty that afternoon when Dawn’s body was spotted in the woods. She was lying on her stomach, naked from the waist down, her head bloody, her skull crushed. She had been terribly brutalized, sexually assaulted, and murdered. The residents of Fontana Village and its environs were horrified. The police, who suddenly seemed to be everywhere, vowed to find the fiend who could perpetrate such an unthinkable atrocity on a child.
    T ONI H AMILTON , D AWN’S mother, worked as a dancer in a club on North Point Boulevard, something she’d done for a while,