Daisy Calabria Robertson

One girl disappears, then another, then another, and another.

Police didn't realize this polite, pleasant young man was systematically murdering young Black women.

And I'm Daisy Calabria Robertson, a columnist at NJ.com reporting on diverse communities.

For the last year, we've been digging into this case.

And as a woman of color, this story hits so close to my heart.

The great police work in this story wasn't done by cops, but by the victims' friends, their families, and even the one woman who survived.

They were the heroes who eventually brought this killer down.

And it pisses me off because it shouldn't have been that way.

They didn't even believe her.

I feel like they should be demoted.

And he crept into my nightmares too and was sometimes stuck in my head as I put my kids to bed at night.

Some of the new details we uncovered about this killer were that disturbing.

I wanted to know what was going on in this guy's head, but he never spoke to any journalists.

If you would have known, you wouldn't have helped him.

So am I, and I live right across the bay.

Newark's a city of about 300,000 and just outside Manhattan.

But for Janisha Jackson and her friends, it was just home.

And on that Tuesday in October, it was her first day back in school at Eastside High, after Columbus Day weekend.

She's thinking, what did I do now?

But when she gets to the office, Janisha sees a police officer and her stomach drops.