Twenty-one years after her death, the case of Gladys “Faye” Beauchamp is still cold in the Anne Arundel County Police Department. Baltimore resident Beauchamp was 37 years old when a teenager bicycling near Maryland Route 100 and Crain Highway in Glen Burnie found her body on Oct. 11, 1989. Beauchamp was in the woods, 20 feet off the bicycle trail.
Police have never divulged details of her death, saying they would only be known to the killer.
“Obviously, it’s something pretty unique,” police spokesman Sgt. Joseph Bisesi told the Washington Post in 1989.
The day that she was killed, Beauchamp was on her way to work as a housekeeper at the North Arundel Convalescent Center. As she did every work day, she boarded the 6 a.m. No. 14 MTA bus at the corner of Patapsco Avenue and Hanover Street and took it to the intersection of Crain Highway and Aquahart Road. She typically then walked on the sidewalk to the Hardee’s before turning onto Hospital Drive at the Southgate shopping center. It was during this routine walk to work that she was abducted, police believe at 6:10 a.m., and ultimately killed.
Soon after the slaying, police reportedly said that a woman who regularly saw the victim walking to work saw her on the day of her slaying, followed by a 6-foot-tall man wearing a green Army jacket, jeans, yellow knit hat and a scarf.
The description roughly matched that of a serial rape suspect. In the month leading up to Beauchamp’s death, four women — a woman and her daughter on Sept. 29, another woman four days later at a liquor store, and a 26-year-old on Oct. 23 — were sexually assaulted and robbed. The mother-daughter pair were assaulted on Old Stage Road, just blocks from where Beauchamp was killed. The suspect was a young man with a scar on his face.
Police did not say whether Beauchamp was sexually assaulted.
Anyone with information in the case is encouraged to call the Anne Arundel County Police Department Sgt. Keith Clark of the homicide unit at 410-222-3456. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call the toll-free Metro Crime Stoppers like at 866-7LOCKUP (756-2587), text “MCS” plus the tip to 274637 or visittipsubmit.com.
