When the governor of New York State essentially closed down the city, thirty-six-year-old Katie Tierney found herself furloughed from her public relations firm, a job she loved. Yesterday afternoon, Ms. Tierney’s body was found in her apartment. She had been strangled and police believe that this is likely the work of the West Side Strangler, making her victim number six.

Like so many other young women, Ms. Tierney had come to the Big Apple from Pennsylvania to begin her career. Joining Wilner PR nearly seven years ago, she was considered a key member of their executive team. Wilner PR specializes in high-end restaurants and when the pandemic hit, almost all restaurant dining stopped. With no one eating out or taking clients out for expensive dinners, Wilner PR’s clients, which consisted of an assortment of four- and five-star restaurants across the United States, had put a hold on all public relations efforts. While their clients didn’t sever ties with the company, all promotional plans had been delayed—indefinitely.

Like so many other small business owners, with no money coming in, founder Nancy Wilner valiantly tried to keep her team of forty on the payroll. As weeks wore on she had to let some employees go and kept only a skeleton crew at fifty percent of their original salary. Like so many other Americans, Katie Tierney lost her job in the first round of cuts at the end of March 2020 through no fault of her own.

According to friends, Ms. Tierney’s job loss caused her significant financial difficulty. With no hiring going on due to the pandemic, her bills were overdue and piling up. “She told me she was willing to take anything, but there were simply no jobs,” said her former room-mate who moved back in with her parents in Colorado when the pandemic started. “I know Katie reached out to her parents for help, and they gave her what they could but I don’t think they had a lot of extra cash.”

According to former Wilner colleague Anne Fitzpatrick, Ms. Tierney only left her apartment on West 100th Street to get food or go for a walk. “Katie spent every waking hour applying for jobs online. She never went anywhere and was so afraid of getting sick because she had lost her health insurance. She mostly job-hunted online and watched movies on Netflix, that’s about it.” Friends reiterated that Ms. Tierney had recently been optimistic about a few job prospects. During the last two weeks of April she interviewed via Zoom for a public relations position with the City of New York where she was one of two final candidates. “She was desperate to get that job. I had my fingers crossed for her every day,” said Ms. Fitzpatrick. “Katie wasn’t stupid. She knew about the Strangler. We talked about it. She wouldn’t have let a stranger into her apartment.”

May 15 was damp and chilly and Katie Tierney had closed all the windows in her third-floor walk-up which may have accounted for no one hearing any noise during the attack. “An examination of the crime scene showed there had been a significant struggle in her apartment,” said Detective Daryl Williams, head of the NYPD task force. “It appears Ms. Tierney fought back and held her own for a while. From the looks of the apartment, she put up a good fight.” A letter was found on the floor next to her body and according to the victim’s parents who flew in from Pittsburgh, it was a job offer. Katie was to start on June 1 as a new public relations manager for the City of New York.