Thera Wilson

Case background and investigation

Thera Wilson was 26 when her body was found on January 14, 1977, in the parking garage of what was then the Statler Hilton Hotel at 10 Ford Street in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. The Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice, which lists the killing among the state's open cold cases, says she had been stabbed to death and that she was also known as Theresa Wilson and Mona Williams. Her first name is spelled Therea in some accounts, including those quoting her family.

According to an account published by the Cold Connecticut newsletter in 2022, Wilson was born in Hartford on January 12, 1951, and had more recently lived in Meriden. The newsletter reports that her body was discovered shortly after 11 a.m. inside a 1976 Cadillac that belonged to a friend, that she had been stabbed 40 to 50 times and beaten about the face, and that investigators believed she had died within about a day of being found. She was buried at Northwood Cemetery in Windsor.

The state's listing notes that Wilson had been engaged in prostitution at the time of her death. It says Hartford police pursued numerous leads during 1977, all with negative results. No suspect has been publicly named.

In March 2006, at the request of the Hartford Police Department, the case was reopened with the assistance of the Cold Case Unit of the Office of the Chief State's Attorney. The state lists a reward of $50,000 in the case. Cold Connecticut reports that the homicide has also been featured in Connecticut's cold case playing cards, decks distributed to generate tips about unsolved crimes.

Relatives have spoken publicly about the case. In a 2023 article in the Chief Advocate, the student newspaper of Nonnewaug High School, Wilson's brother Kevin Wilson said she was found slumped in the rear passenger side of the car and that, by his account, about 36 hours passed before hotel security realized something was wrong. He said he helped create the state's cold case playing cards and that he believed his sister's case received less attention because she was Black. Her son, Ennis Wilson, who was 7 when she died, told the paper that relatives at first said his mother had died in a car accident and that he learned the truth as an adult from an old newspaper clipping.

No arrest has been made. The Cold Case Unit asks anyone with information to call its tip line at 860-548-0606 or 1-866-623-8058.