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Blood Ties: The Murder of Tracy Lynn Wilemon
While most of us are taught from an early age to beware of strangers, statistically speaking, danger lies much closer to home than one would think. In reality, 54% of murders are committed by someone known to the victim. Of those, 13% die at the hands of a family member.
On October 23, 2010, police in Clanton, Alabama, were asked to perform a welfare check on forty-four-year-old Tracy Wilemon after her employer became worried when she failed to show up for work and hadn’t answered her phone for over a week.
Upon entering Tracy’s trailer home, officers made a grim discovery. In the bedroom, lying on her stomach in a pool of blood, was the body of a woman who had obviously died a violent death. The victim was subsequently identified as Tracy Wilemon.
An autopsy revealed that she had suffered a number of deep gashes to her throat. She had also been stabbed in the back. Biological fluids found on and inside her remains indicated that she had been subjected to a brutal sexual assault.
Homicide detectives learned that Tracy had relocated to Alabama from California following the breakup of her marriage. With family on both coasts, she decided that the move would be the first step to a fresh start.
