Two small central Indiana cities are honoring a woman whose killing nearly 50 years ago left a community branded as racist over her long-unsolved death.
An event Wednesday will put Carol Jenkins-Davis' name on a city park in her hometown of Rushville. A Thursday ceremony is planned to dedicate a memory stone outside City Hall in Martinsville, where the 21-year-old black woman was killed while selling encyclopedias in 1968.
Rushville Mayor Mike Pavey says the redesigned park will recognize Jenkins-Davis' life and help teach the value of inclusion and diversity.
Prosecutors in 2002 charged a 70-year-old white man from Indianapolis with murder after his daughter told investigators that at age 7 she saw him stab Jenkins-Davis while yelling racial slurs. Kenneth C. Richmond died of cancer months after being charged.