Loretta Williams / Cheryl Ross

Vicksburg, Mississippi, with its historic charm and misty riverbanks, hold more secrets than those who drift through ever realize. Among its winding streets and antebellum homes, two women, separated 7 months in time, crossed paths with the same man -- and never had the chance to walk away.

In December of 1986, just a week before Christmas, the town of Vicksburg was struck by tragedy when a mother of four vanished from a busy stretch of road after her car broke down -- and within days, her body was found, turning a case of car trouble into a chilling homicide.

Loretta Williams, a hard working mother, was driving home from her job at Delta Point River Restaurant on Tuesday, December 16, 1986 when her car began to give out near the Dairy Queen on Clay Street. It was late -- around 10:30 p.m. -- and the Dairy Queen was closing. So Loretta, determined and resourceful, walked down the street to the nearby County Market to borrow a phone.

There, she called a friend, hoping she could reach a friend who could come and help out. All she had in mind was making it back home to her children -- aged 5 to 13 -- who were home waiting on her. She would not make it home that night.

By Wednesday afternoon, her children, alarmed and alone, reported her missing.

Witnesses told police they had seen Loretta getting into a black car with Florida plates, driven by a heavyset Black man with a beard who had approached her, seemingly offering help. It was the last time she was seen alive.

As the search intensified, officers focused on the area where she was last seen and where her car had broken down. But by the time police had spoken with witnesses, they were unable to organize a full search and darkness had fallen over Vicksburg. The search would be carried out the following day.

On Thursday, December 18th, just ten minutes into the renewed search, Loretta Williams' body was discovered partially nude behind the County Market grocery store.

The site was quickly roped off. Investigators from the Mississippi Crime Lab in Jackson were called in to process the scene. Whatever happened to Loretta in those lost hours between her call for help and her death would remain a mystery for some time.

Loretta Williams

On Christmas Eve of 1986, less than a week after the body of Loretta Williams was discovered in the brushy lot behind the County Market on Clay Street, police made an arrest.

On Friday, December 26, 1986, 23-year-old Michael Freeman, stood silent in a Vicksburg courtroom as Municipal Court Judge Vicki Roach Barnes read the charge aloud: capital murder.

Freeman made no statement. No plea was entered during the arraignment. The charge itself said plenty.

Under Mississippi law, capital murder can be pursued when a killing occurs alongside another felony. In this case, that felony was kidnapping.

Vicksburg Police Chief A.J. "Buddy" Holliday confirmed that Freeman had been questioned from the start -- the same day Williams' body was found. He was already known to local law enforcement due to previous contact with police, which quickly put him on their radar as a suspect.

Upon the department's recommendation, Judge Barnes declined to set bond for Freeman. His case was scheduled to go before the Warren County Grand Jury in February.

Loretta's last known movements were heartbreaking in their simplicity. The scene in which her partially clad body was found was grim. The details, unsettling. And though police had a suspect in custody, questions still hung heavy in the air.

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When the February 1987 Grand Jury trial arrived, the jury did not believe there was enough evidence against Freeman to take him to court. He was released from custody that day. This would not be the last time Vicksburg, Mississippi would hear the name Michael Freeman.

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On June 26th, 1987, Cheryl Ross vanished from the home she shared with her brother, mother and grandmother at 1319 Locust Street in Vicksburg. Described by her family as a quiet, private person, Cheryl had never disappeared or behaved like this before so when her grandmother woke that morning to find Cheryl was gone, she was perplexed. Cheryl had never even spent the night out anywhere, let alone several nights in a row. When the weekend had come and gone with no sign of Cheryl, her family reported her missing on Tuesday, June 30th.

On the night before she disappeared, she had joined her brother, Clarence, at The Zoo, a local bar on Washington Street. Clarence had one of his friends walk Cheryl home. When she arrived home, she and her grandmother got into an argument because Cheryl said she wanted to go back out. Cheryl's grandmother expressed her concerns about Cheryl's safety and went to bed shortly after. She believed that Cheryl had done the same because she didn't hear anything unusual after going to bed and didn't hear Cheryl leave the home. When she awoke the next morning and couldn't find Cheryl, she wasn't sure whether or not the young lady had been upset and needed to blow off some steam. As each day passed, she became more worried because she knew it was not in Cheryl's character to stay away from home.

Cheryl Ross

Her family described Cheryl as introverted and gentle--someone who kept to herself and avoided the spotlight. She was an accomplished young woman who graduated as a top 10 graduate of Vicksburg High School's Class of 1979. She had completed two years of studies at Hinds Junior College and was a co-op worker at the Waterways Experiment Station. Cheryl had lived in England for two years with relatives before settling back home with her mother, brother, and grandmother.

When they exhausted their efforts speaking with friends, the Ross family decided to report Cheryl missing. What made her disappearance even more chilling was that Cheryl didn't take anything with her -- no purse, no money, and not even her I.D. She had simply vanished.

Despite search efforts and media attention, no trace of Cheryl Ross was found. The case eventually went cold. No leads. No answers. Just silence.

Missing Poster for Cheryl Ross

On August 29, 1987, Freeman was detained and interrogated for an attack on woman. During that interrogation, Freeman dropped a bomb on investigators when he confessed to the killing of Loretta Williams in December of 1986. He also confessed to killing Cheryl Ross. He later rode out to the Bovina Cut-Off Road, just off of Mississippi 27, and walked police officers and sheriff deputies where he had left Ross's body. Her body was found in a grassy section between the gravel roadbed and a ditch used to drain a nearby lake.

Due to weather conditions, the length of time Ross was in the flooding area, her skeletal remains were scattered into the ditch and about 100 feet along the ditch bank. Her remains were sent to an anthropologist to try and assess a cause of death.

Freeman came clean about a number of his misdeeds, including over 60 assaults and rapes, some of which had gone unreported. Police Chief Lamar Davidson stated that from the interrogation alone there would be seven or eight charges, possibly more. Investigators set out to gather the evidence needed to support the claims that Freeman made in his confessions.

On October 28, 1987, a Warren County Grand Jury indicted Freeman on two counts of capital murder, four counts of rape, and one charge of aggravated assault. Circuit Court Judge John Ellis ordered Freeman to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before entering his plea.

Four months later, on February 22, 1988, Attorney Paul Loyacono was arrested after he was called to the bench and refused an order by Circuit Court Judge Ellis to defend Michael Freeman. He ordered that Loyacono be held in jail until he decided he would defend him.

Loyacono expressed that he would not represent Freeman because there was mistrust between them based on a previous trial in which he represented Freeman. Loyacono had filed an unsuccessful motion asking Ellis to allow him to withdraw and he appealed Ellis's refusal to the State Supreme Court.

Loyacono was assigned by Ellis to represent Freeman on September 2, in keeping with the standing that rule that attorneys must defend indigent prisoners when ordered to do so by a judge. When Freeman was brought from the jail to the courtroom to be arraigned on his charges, Loyacono was not present in the courtroom. Ellis confirmed through District Attorney Frank Campbell that Loyacono had been notified of the arraignment. Campbell did not comment.

Ellis ordered Warren County deputies to go to Loyacono's office next door to the courthouse and bring him to court. When the deputy showed up to retrieve Loyacono, he told the deputy that he was not going unless he was arrested. The deputy then arrested Loyacono for contempt of court.

Two days later, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered that Loyacono be released from jail.

On Monday, July 18, 1988, Freeman entered pleas of guilty for the murders of Cheryl Ross and Loretta Williams. During that hearing, Circuit Court Judge Ellis asked Freeman if he understood and wanted to do what he was preparing to do in entering those please. Freeman stated that he understood and would like to plead guilty. The judge then asked Freeman if he had anything he wanted to say. Freeman told the courtroom that he should have spoken to someone about the thoughts that drove him to carry out the things he had done but that he didn't trust anyone or believe anyone would understand. The judge brought up the fact that he began dealing with Freeman when the man was only 15 years old, at which time he started his criminal career when he was sent to juvenile detention for robbing teenage girls on the walk home from school. He told Freeman that he had a number of years to seek help but had not done so. Judge Ellis also asked him why he told investigators that he was trying to be like Jack the Ripper. Freeman told him that he had responded to investigators in that way because they wouldn't quit asking him why he had done the things he had done to Loretta Williams and Cheryl Ross. The judge asked if Freeman realized that the things he has been accused of are similar to the acts of Jack the Ripper to which Freeman responded "yes, sir."

Due to his pleas, Michael Freeman was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences. He is currently Inmate #: 39107 and will spend the rest of his natural life in prison.

Michael Freeman (Current Photo)

Sadly, through a number of cases in which the Grand Jury failed to indict Freeman, it would appear that Loretta Williams and Cheryl Ross may very well still be alive today.

Freeman was a repeated visitor to the Vicksburg court system and the Warren County jail. In September of 1984, a Warren County Circuit Court jury found Freeman innocent of aggravated assault after deliberating less than two hours. His father, former Deputy Sheriff Will Harris, hugged his son while he wept and smiled at hearing he was free to go.

Freeman was on trial for the aggravated assault of Juanita Taylor who was attacked by a male with a butcher knife in May of that year while walking near China Street and Adams Street in Vicksburg. She stated that her attacker ran past her, turned around and looked at her, and then drug her into the bushes, cut her arm, and punched her in the mouth so hard it loosened her teeth. She sought medical treatment at Kuhn Memorial Hospital, where Freeman also showed up shortly after. He was seeking medical treatment for lacerations on two of his fingers.

The jury chose not to indict Freeman due to the victim being unable to positively identify him as the suspect. Her description of her attacker also did not match Freeman when he arrived at Kuhn seeking treatment for the cuts to his fingers. She believed her attacker to have a beard and a large Afro hairstyle. When Freeman arrived at the hospital he was clean shaven and his hair was also cut short. The jury did not believe that he could have changed his appearance in the 20 - 30 minutes between the attack and his arrival at the hospital.

Later, Freeman would tell Dr. Margie Lancaster, a psychiatrist with the Mississippi State Mental Hospital at Whitfield, that he had been robbed of $100 by Taylor and another man at which time he was able to take a knife from the male. He said he did run by Taylor to attempt to find the male. He acknowledged that he had not told the police that information.

In November of 1984, Freeman was back in the same court room answering for a concealed weapons charge. He was found to have a .22 caliber pistol and a lock-blade knife on his person as he walked down Holly Street one evening. The judge would find him not guilty on this charge as well.

Would Freeman having to answer for the aggravated assault charges have changed the lives of the Williams and Ross families? Would Cheryl Ross still be alive today had Freeman been charged with the murder of Loretta Williams? Sadly, we will never know.