Hi, I'm Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers. Brit is on vacation today, so I am writing solo. And since we're already breaking form out a little bit, I just want to ask a quick favor. Wherever you are listening or watching this episode right now, please take a quick second to make sure you follow or subscribe to our channel. It is a small thing that you can do that makes a huge difference for us. See, I told you, it would be quick. And now I will jump right into today's story. It starts in 2008 in Portland, Oregon. That's not when the crimes happened, but it's the year that marked the beginning of the end for a man that police call a serial killer. That's when Portland police got a hit on a single fingerprint from a crime scene 24 years before. The print came off an attic crawl-space door in an upstairs bedroom of a vacant house where a 14-year-old girl named Angela Anderson was found murdered. And that fingerprint traced back to a man living less than a mile from where Angela died. And as detectives keep pulling on that thread, they connect that same man to a second murder, then a third, then a fourth. But the evidence against that man, Homer Lee Jackson III, is nowhere near as clean as those headlines made it sound. Some have wondered whether police actually solved all of these murders or just closed them. You need to hear the whole story to decide for yourself. (upbeat music) Homer Lee Jackson III, would have been 23 in September of 1983, when 14-year-old Angela Anderson was found face down on the floor of that vacant house in Portland. Her pants were unzipped, her wrists had been cut, and her black knit top was off, tangled in the window sash cords, which were used to strangle her. When Homer's print is ID'd at the scene, the then 48-year-old had accumulated the kind of history that one might expect for a suspect to have in a case like this. His record includes convictions for burglary and criminal mischief, but more on the nose were the assault charges that he faced from two separate attacks that took place just before Angela's murder. In one, a teenage girl reported that he had held her against her will and tried to sexually assault her. Then just weeks later, he was accused of kidnapping a woman and sexually assaulting her with a screwdriver. Both cases were ultimately dismissed, though. The teen moved away, and the adult was too afraid to pursue it. In a world with automated fingerprint databases, Angela's case would have connected to Homer's prior arrests almost immediately, but those databases didn't exist in the '80s. So it's not until 2008 that her case gets picked up and brought into the modern era. That's when the cold case unit starts revisiting a whole host of murders like Angela's. Black girls and women found stabbed or strangled, sometimes with their clothing pulled out of place. Like Angela, many had been trafficked or did sex work along North East Union Avenue, the street that is now called Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Now, maybe it's because they're looking at so many cases, or maybe because one print in a vacant house felt like a loose connection. But either way, detectives don't go talk to Homer right away when they make this connection. Instead, they try to see if there are other ways that they can connect him to the scene. And they have a little bit of DNA evidence from Angela's scene to work with. It's off a cigarette butt that was found in the same room as Angela's body. So in June 2009, detectives surreptitiously collect a sample from a cigarette that Homer had discarded. And sure enough, it's another match. More proof of Homer spending time at the crime scene. But for reasons I can't quite understand, they still don't bring Homer in at this point. And they won't for years. Investigators wouldn't talk to us for this episode, so I can't tell you why that was. I have a strong suspicion that they were probably waiting till they had more testing back from those other cases they were looking into. Thinking maybe more could be connected to this same man. But depending on what you believe about Homer, leaving him out in the world, while you gather evidence, could be a dangerous gamble. But they do make additional connections. In late 2014, DNA testing links Homer to another victim on their list, 27-year-old Letanjee Watts. Letanjee was killed a few years after Angela, strangled in March of 1987. And her body turned up in a vacant lot near a pedestrian bridge. And the DNA they had in her case wasn't near her or around her. It was on her, recovered from under her left-hand fingernails. And what do you know? It matches Homer. And you could say, well, you know, that just means that they had contact, maybe even sexual contact, since that was the work she did. But investigators think that the amount of his DNA in that mixture means that he was likely with her within a few hours of her death. Now, a few months after making that connection to Letanjee, detectives get another possible link. This time from evidence collected near the body of 19-year-old Tanya Harry. She was actually found just two months before Angela in July 1983, making her the first of the connected victims we've talked about so far. Tanya had been found face down at the edge of a marshy area in West Delta Park with part of her upper body in the water. Her sweater was pushed up under her arms. Her bra was unfastened, and while her pants were still buttoned, the zipper was broken. She had injuries to her head and face, but her cause of death was listed as traumatic asphyxia. She had inhaled water, and there was a mark running partway around her neck, suggesting that something had been tightened around it. Nearby were pieces of a broken belt that matched with her pants. Detectives believe that someone tried to strangle her with that belt, but it broke during the attack. And when the lab compares Homer's DNA to a partial male profile found on that belt, he can't be ruled out as the person who left it. And you hear that, you might think, well, that can mean anything, right? But I've got the number here, and I do think it's interesting. By the lab's estimate, roughly only one in 1.32 million black people fit that profile. So no, it is not a perfect match, but it is much more narrow than I think can't be ruled out might suggest. And it's compelling to investigators as they look at the three cases together. Three victims, with similar causes of death, signs of a struggle at each scene. Each of them were found with breasts exposed and their pants a skew, yet no semen found on any of their bodies. Police find it hard to believe that this is all a coincidence. Yet still, they don't bring Homer in just yet. They keep watching him, building their case. That July, an undercover cop gets him chatting at a supermarket about like a sale on pork chops. And I bet you didn't have grocery store stakeout on your crime junkie Bingo Kart today. But this is what they do, and I think they do this to make sure that Homer is coherent. Because by now, they have learned a lot about Homer, who is 55 at this point. He had heart trouble and high blood pressure. He takes medication for both along with an antidepressant and a sleep aid, and he's been treated for schizophrenia. But based on this pork chop convo, they say Homer is alert and can follow a conversation. So then, on Thursday, October 15, they make their move. They show up at his apartment with a warrant for another DNA sample, and he agrees to go to the station, where he sits down with cold case detectives, Jim Lawrence, and Meredith Hopper. Eventually, the conversation turns to Homer's life in the '80s, including whether he ever paid for sex, which he admits to. And they then spread out pictures of the victims on the interview table, telling him that all of them had been murdered, and that DNA evidence connects him to each one. But here's Homer's response. And I'll let you hear it directly from him. And remember this is-- I ain't enough of ringing any kind of a bell, like I said, I don't go around murdering people. Detectives Lawrence and Hopper aren't buying it. They ask him, if it's hard to look at the crime scene photos, they think it would be hard for most people. But Homer says no, not for him. and Detective Lawrence tells him.
that's because he did it. He says the physical evidence is a done deal and the only question left is not if Homer killed them. But why? I know that you've seen them before and you're trying to find either the way to say you got nothing to do with it or they're trying to find a way to explain it. It doesn't expose to us the other things that we already know you're responsible for. And I think that's what we're trying to help you with today in all honesty. I can't impress upon you enough that this train is moving down the tracks and when I say this train I mean this case. This case includes a lot of dead women. And I would rather see you as a passenger then get run over by it because as a passenger you still have some control over your future. They say admitting what happened is the only way to help the victims families and himself and eventually Homer starts offering an account slowly but another hour into his interrogation he starts talking about the girl in the house which is how detectives Lawrence and Hopper have been referring to Angela so he knows who they mean. Who met at the park and she was the one that recommended the house you know because I guess she lived by there or you know she knew because she knew but door was open and whatnot. So I don't know what said me off that I still don't know but I know I didn't kill her. I think I strangled her. I think that's what I do. Do you remember how wonderful was my head? 32 years ago. Sure. You know I have I still have dreams about her. And it's like I've been telling myself one day you know I'm not going to come to you though. Well I'm glad I got it off my chest. You know at least that's taken care. Now all it is trying to do with all these other ones. The other ones. Across about 10 hours of questioning over two consecutive days detective Lawrence says that Homer makes admissions in multiple murders not just Angela's. I don't know what number she is. She could be number 25. I know I don't know. You know I don't know who's first, second, third, you know I don't know. I wouldn't keep in no scorecard. The second day of questioning wraps around 10 30 in the morning and by the end of that day a grand jury has indicted Homer on 12 counts of aggravated murder across four cases. Angela, Tanya, Latange and one I haven't even told you about that of 23 year old SE Jackson. No relation to Homer Jackson. She was another young black woman who had been doing sex work around Union Avenue back in the early 80s and like the other victims when her body was found down a steep embankment in North Portland's overlook park her sweater was pushed up to her chest her pants were down around her feet and the medical examiner determined that she'd been strangled. Now she'd been missing for weeks before her badly decomposed body was found in March of 1983. So her murder is now the earliest of the four he's charged with. We've got SE Jackson in March of 1983. Tanya Harry in July of 83. Angela Anderson September 83 and Latange Watts in March 1987. Now when you take a step back there is something notable I think most crime junkies will pick up on. There are three murders almost back to back in 1983. March July September. Then a three and a half year gap until the next one in 1987. I mean that seems like an odd pattern or at least hard to make sense of but detectives are gonna try and when they announce his arrest they ask people who know Homer to help fill in his past including anyone who has experienced his violence firsthand and right away the calls start coming in not just from people who knew him but from women who say that they survived him. Some of what investigators were hearing about Homer wasn't new. According to Oregonian reporter Maxine Bernstein his longtime ex-girlfriend had filed more than one restraining order against him over the years alleging physical abuse but the details of those incidents and information from other women who say they had encounters with him painted a damning picture. When detectives interviewed that ex she described more of what she says happened during their relationship that Homer had threatened her with knives choked her burned her with cigarettes and tied her down. She also said he once warned her I'm gonna choke you and do you like I did her. She didn't know who he was talking about but she says that he had also abused his ex-wife although it's not clear how she knows that the ex-wife would have been the woman he was with during the 1983 murders so police were eager to talk to her but when they got her on the phone she didn't want to meet said that she just wanted to forget that part of her life but another ex-partner of Homer's did talk. Homer's former fiancé told detectives that she called off their engagement after he grabbed her by the throat during an argument. Now those were all women with established relationships and contact with Homer but some of the calls that police were receiving were from other women who believed that they may have survived an attack by him. One told police that she was jumped in the early 80s by a stranger who looped a Walkman headphone cord around her neck beat her and tried to drag her into a car. After seeing Homer on the news she believes that he was that man. Another caller tells detectives that in the late 80s he lured her to a dark after hours place pulled a fanny pack strap tight across her throat and started squeezing. She luckily had a knife on her for protection and she says that she was able to stab him fight him off and escape. Taken together the allegations paint an ugly picture and they're piling up just as Homer's life is on the line literally. Latange's murder in 1987 happened after Oregon brought back the death penalty which means he could be facing it. So he gets assigned an attorney who specializes in those cases. Connor Hughes be who at the time heads the death penalty defense unit at Metropolitan Public Defender. And as Connor told our reporter Nina at first he thought that this was going to be quick. His new client supposedly confessed so there's got to be a mountain of evidence. But he also knows how bad Homer's health is and he doubts the state will push to execute him. So he figures they'll end up striking a deal that keeps him off death row. But as he starts getting into the actual files and evidence the less clear cut it all looks. I mean reading the old police reports he is struck by how little effort went into these cases as they were actually happening. obvious suspects weren't pursued and some were cleared for reasons that make no sense. Now he's not the first to notice that the victims didn't get the attention they deserved. Black residents had been saying for years that law enforcement wasn't doing enough to keep their neighborhood safe. And in the eighties advocates were asking why the killings of young black women weren't getting more attention. I can't imagine it help that they were trying to be heard in one of America's widest big cities in a state that once had laws specifically meant to keep black people from settling there. Plus the way Connor sees it once forensic testing started giving detectives answers. He says they relied on that without trying to fill in the gaps left by original investigators. But that might be the biggest gap of all. Because every single one of these crime scenes has DNA or fingerprints from someone other than Homer. Starting with Angela's crime scene. Homer's left thumbprint was on the crawl space door. But so was an unidentified male palm print. Investigators never identified that. A fingerprint on the bedroom window frame is from another man named Jacob who also goes by Anthony. When detectives tracked him down he was living in a residential mental health facility. They got DNA swabs from him and tried asking him about Angela's murder but they couldn't get coherent answers. So that went nowhere kind of makes you wonder what might have happened with Homer if he had been confused about work jobs. And listen I'm not saying that Homer's prints there should be ignored not by a long shot. Because I don't know what you're picturing but it's not like this was some boarded up abandoned house. It was vacant at the time but it was on the market and in good shape very clean. So I think it makes the possible number of people who come in and out of that house a lot smaller making the discovery of any prints inside of it a lot more significant. But prints aside for a second because the
The real problem Connor had was with the DNA that had been found on the very cord used to strangle Angela. The test picked up multiple DNA profiles. Now some of them weren't good enough to compare to anyone. We can't say if those are homers or not, but at least two male profiles were able to be isolated and neither of those belonged to Homer or that Jacob guy. His body suit also had DNA from multiple men too, and there was male DNA on her sock. But every one of those profiles were unidentified. And listen, there are a lot of unidentified DNA samples in this episode. So rather than saying it 100 more times, if we actually know who it belongs to, I promise I'll tell you. Anyway, if a clean empty house left them with that many strangers, imagine a park. Tanya Harry's scene was also crowded with unknown samples, and it's just a reminder she was killed about two months before Angela. In about 30 feet from Tanya's body, investigators found wadded up paper towels stained with semen. That semen and hair were covered from the towels belonged to an unidentified man. Again, not Homer. Meanwhile two cigarette butts nearby, which looked like they'd been smoked recently, came back to yet another unidentified man. Then there's litangie. Remember, we've got Homer's DNA under her left hand fingernails. But under her right hand nails, there's a minimum of three men. And on the scarf that was still around her neck, at least five. But all of those, the ones under her right nails and the scarf, they were all mixtures that were too muddled to sort out. But Homer is cleared from the saliva that was found near her body. That belongs to three other men. Plus, when she was found, a big, clear plastic bag had been laid over her face and chest. But the prints on that don't match Homer. So that's Angela, Tanya, and litangie. Homer's DNA isn't everywhere, but he does keep turning up in the forensic evidence across all three, which is what police find so compelling. That brings me to the fourth victim, S.C. And it is her case that is the hardest to understand, because there's no physical evidence connecting Homer at all. The blood on her jeans belonged to one guy, some chewing gum at the scene is a second man, and two hairs recovered from her sweater are described as Caucasian. Homer is black. Seemingly, the only thing connecting Homer to her murder is his own statements. But his defense team takes issue with those two. They accuse Detective Lawrence of misrepresenting what Homer said, and they think a skewed version made its way to the grand jury. Prosecutors push back on all of that. But either way, Homer's statements were supposed to help anchor this case against him. Instead, as Connor watches the interrogation video, all of it, he realizes it might be the thing that actually sinks the case. Because while Homer did say that he killed Angela, he also told the two investigators he had no memory of doing it. He couldn't really explain how it all went down, and when they asked for details, he guessed. Sometimes wrong. As we've gone over, Angela wasn't killed with a knife, she had been strangled. But if you recall from the very beginning of this episode, Horace had been cut. But the cuts were superficial. Not to mention, Homer didn't bring up the knife, Detective Hopper did. Now she'd warned him earlier not to assume anything from the question she asked. But this is part of what bothered Connor about the interrogation. Investigators kept giving Homer details, then circling back as if he gave the info to them. When he can't answer or says something that doesn't fit, they just steer him somewhere else. Do you know what that is around her? A necklace? Well, it's not a necklace. It's a rounder neck. Do you know what it is? There's another picture of it. It's a little bit better right here. It looks like a cord, but iron cord or something. It is a cord. Because you said that you believed you strangled her, thought you used your hands, yeah. I can tell you that it was this cord and they sure were used to strangle her. Even when Homer gets something wrong, they suggest he's just mixing up one murder with another, or that there have been too many to keep straight. Of the four cases, Angela is the closest Homer comes to a straightforward admission. This is the one that he said he had nightmares about, said he knew they'd come for him one day. But when you actually listen to the interrogation, the three other so-called admissions are much murkier. Pressed about Latange, Tanya, and Essie, his answers are full of maybe. A lot of if I did it, or I think this happened. Homer recognizes places in the photos, tries to imagine what he would have done, but he also keeps saying he doesn't remember. But you acknowledge you've killed more than one woman. I acknowledge that he was one woman, I'd be at that, you acknowledge you killed more than one. So how many women do you think you killed? I don't think there's any other than this one right here. Homer was referring to a picture of Angela. As Homer's defense watched video file after video file of this 10-hour interrogation, one huge sticking point for them became the tactics that police used throughout. How do you think this is going to play out for you, Homer? Let's think about a year and a half from now when we're all sitting in a courtroom and we're showing these pictures, and the jurors are listening to your words, say, "Oh, sorry, I don't know if it's Tanya," it just really doesn't ring a bell. It just doesn't ring a bell, sorry, it doesn't ring a bell, because you're being confronted with several different cases of murdering women, so you know what that makes a person think on the outside? He really doesn't remember, because he's killed so many of them. I don't care if you killed three women, I don't kill 30 women, it's the same thing. We know you did it. So if you're hung up on the details about exactly when and where and how, maybe you don't remember, maybe because there's been so many, but you can't tell me, you don't remember this. You're right here. Well, if you didn't do it, I'm off to my friend, and you deserve what's coming to you, and I hope you get every bit of it. Toward the end of the second warning of questioning, please still seem to feel certain about something Homer says he isn't. Can I go to the families of the woman that overlooked the woman by the school and the woman by the bridge and tell them that you acknowledge your responsible for their loved ones' death, you just don't remember it. Can I go to heaven and say that? No. No. Why? Because I'm still in that certain, and that would be sort of sounding like I am certain and I did do it. And I'm not certain. I'm just saying, if I did something, this would be like, or this is how it would be. Homer's defense argues that he was a man coerced into confessions that are shaky at best. So before trial, they asked the judge to throw out everything Homer admitted to. They say detectives crossed a line during interrogation, pushing Homer for hours, telling him confessing would help him, warning him what could happen if he didn't, and delaying contact with his family while the questioning continued. The county prosecutors, including then deputy DA Kirsten Snowden, see it differently. They argue that Homer understood his rights and chose to talk. He was given food, medication, and cigarette breaks. And he wasn't just blindly agreeing with whatever detective said. He admitted to some things and denied others. And sure, Homer claimed he couldn't remember a lot of stuff. Should everyone just take him at his word? He was able to recall other details from his early life. Prosecutors think that he was playing up the gaps and the blackouts he blamed on drugs to avoid taking full responsibility. But the judge sides with the defense. And just like that, Homer's incriminating statements are off the table. Prosecutors appeal, and it's close, but in late 2018, the Oregon Supreme Court lands in the same place, especially troubled by the promises and threats detectives made and how they kept stalling on letting Homer reach his family. All things considered, the court says there's a real concern that he started telling them what they wanted to hear.
was true or not. So, final answer on the matter. The state has to move forward without the statements that the court threw out. Without Homer's statements, prosecutors are left relying on the forensic evidence. And since there isn't any tying Homer to Essie's case, all of the charges related to her are dropped. Homer is still a suspect, but without his statements, shaky as they were, there's nothing to stand on in court. Instead, they add another woman to take Essie's place. Before Homer Jackson was set to stand trial for the murders of Tonya, Angela, and Latangi. Investigators were also looking hard at another case. The 1993 murder of 29-year-old Lawana Triplett, who had been brutally assaulted and strangled. Now, Lawana was killed about six years after Latangi. So, this is a real gap in time, but not location. Her body was found just about 80 feet from where Latangi's body had been. And some of the scene looked familiar. Like Latangi, Lawana was found with her shirt and braw pushed up, her breasts exposed. But Lawana's case had an element that they didn't see in any of the other cases. Her killer had also sexually tortured her. One of her resulting wounds was a bite mark that had been swabbed at autopsy. So police had asked for additional DNA testing. And sure enough, DNA from that bite mark came back consistent with Homer. But there is an asterisk. The test they were able to run only looks at markers passed from father to son. So Homer would share that profile with his dad or brothers, any male in that paternal line. But the state thinks it carries weight, especially because it came from an injury. It's hard to explain a way of bite as part of a consensual hookup. Except, you can probably guess where this is going. Lawana's case has the same crack running through it as all the others. DNA on a gold chain around her neck belonged to a mystery man, and semen found in her underwear contains a mixture. Some of it is too limited to compare, but two male profiles are clear enough to check against Homer and neither matches him. They were able to put a name to one of the guys though. Johnny Smith of all things. But they couldn't ask him about Lawana because years before they got that hit, he died by suicide during a standoff with police. According to KATU reporter Bob Hi, it happened after he forced his way into his ex-girlfriend's apartment, assaulted her, and threatened her with a gun, which to me is a heck of a loose end. And each case has their own like this. So if you look at them individually, it is understandable to question the charges against Homer. It's when you step back that the bigger picture comes into focus. These victims were in physical contact with a lot of people, many of whom were probably strangers. Of course, there are other men's DNA and fingerprints in the mix. Actually, per Homer's own account, it's not even surprising that his shows up since he admitted that he paid for sex back in the 80s. But for prosecutors, the bigger question is, what are the odds? Homer keeps turning up across all these different murder cases. Each connection makes the next one harder to dismiss. So for prosecutors, the pattern is what ties the cases together. For the defense though, that's exactly why they want these cases separated. Taken together, the cases can reinforce each other. Taken one at a time, each accusation has to stand on its own evidence. And to support their argument for splitting the cases up, the defense points to a Portland police report from 1984. See, back then, investigators had reviewed seven unsolved homicides, including four cases we haven't even talked about, and three that we actually have. Essies, Angela's, and Tanya's. Obviously, Latangi and LaWana weren't in the mix because they were still alive in 1984. Now, there were some similarities among the seven victims they were looking at. And police were trying to determine if all or any were connected to one another. And whether any might be the work of the then unidentified Green River killer who had been praying on women just three hours north around Seattle. But once they dug in, the differences in these Portland cases outweigh the similarities. Detectives could see where maybe one case might overlap with another, but what they couldn't find was a single thread tying all seven to one person or even to one group. And for Homer's team, that report is gold. If investigators couldn't connect these killings back then, his lawyers argue how can prosecutors lean so heavily on the similarities now, especially when those old files list other suspects. And Homer's name is nowhere to be found in them. The defense argues that possible overlap isn't a signature. Plus, no one can place Homer with any of the victims, although he spent time in the same area that they all did around that same stretch of North Portland hanging out at places like the Burger Barn, a popular soul food spot on Union and local discos. Although it's worth mentioning, there was at least one personal connection. Homer's ex-girlfriend knew both Essie and Letanjee. She known Essie when they were younger, and she said she knew Letanjee fairly well, although they weren't close. But after Homer was arrested, she told detectives an interesting story. She was upset when Letanjee was killed and decided to go to her funeral. She said that Homer drove her and her sister without knowing whose service it was, but when they got to the church and he realized he became upset and started to cry. He told her it had nothing to do with Letanjee. He didn't know her. Funerals just did that to him. Now, prosecutors take a firm stance against separating the trials. Their position is that the murders have more than enough in common to be tried together. But in 2020, the judge sides with the defense again and orders separate trials. The judge also won't let the state bring an evidence from one case to another. So once again, the state takes the fight to the Oregon Supreme Court and Deja Vu in November 2021, the court sides with the judge and the defense. So prosecutors can't lean on the other murders. They won't get much help from those allegations from other women who survived violence either. Homer's lawyers had found issues with several of those. For example, the headphone court survivor didn't name Homer until she saw a newscast about him being a killer. In fact, police were looking at another suspect back when it happened. And the woman Homer was charged with assaulting in 1983 changed her story not long before his 2015 arrest, adding a weapon and moving the attack from one location to another. So when these cases go to trial, each jury will be looking at one victim's murder without hearing anything about the others. And so I want to do the same. I want to look at each investigation separately. But we can't do all of them justice in a single episode. So today, we're going with Litangies. And I'm going to tell you how a single story might have played out in court with you being the jury. Litangie's body was found around 615 on a drizzly Wednesday morning, March 18, 1987. A man was walking to work near that pedestrian bridge when he spotted a person lying in a grassy lot under a tree. Now he figured this person was drunk or passed out and just kept walking. But something made him double back. Up close, he could see that it was a young woman. She was on her back. That large clear plastic bag was covering her face and chest. And he banged on doors of nearby houses until somebody answered and called police. When officers got there, they saw that her sweater and blouse had been shoved up under her arms. Her bra was still hooked in the back, but torn apart in the front. And her jeans were unbuttoned and partially unzipped. Though her underwear was still on along with her socks, shoes, and a light yellow gauze scarf hanging loosely around her neck. But that scarf wasn't the murder weapon. Police would later learn that she had been manually strangled. But they didn't think she'd been killed there. Dirt in her hair and fresh marks at the edge of the road suggested that she had been dragged from a vehicle into the lot and dumped about five feet from the sidewalk. And it might sound like this is a random spot, but neighbors said that cars often pulled up at night. Sex workers sometimes brought clients there. So somebody stopping in the dark probably wouldn't have turned heads. Latangi had no idea on her. Although her fingerprints were in the system because she had a record for sex work. But behind that record was a whole person with a whole family.
only who was devastated by her death. Latangi had three boys, 12, 9, and a nearly four-month-old baby. The baby lived with his father, and the two oldest lived with Latangi's grandmother, Francis, just a mile and a half away from where her body was found. The boys would see their mother when Latangi came by, but those visits were rare. Francis told police that Latangi was using drugs heavily and working on the streets. She also spent lots of time at the burger barn, and an after-hours place behind it. The last time Francis saw Latangi was when she headed out mid-day on Tuesday, March 17. When she didn't come back that night, her grandmother wasn't worried. I mean, it probably would have been days before she grew concerned, because Latangi had disappeared for days at a time in the past, but it didn't take that long. Latangi's body was found that next morning, in the outfit she left home in, minus a black sweater and her small gray purse. Right away, investigators wondered if a customer picked up Latangi and killed her. But Francis said that someone had actually been looking for Latangi. Robert Johnson Sr., the father of her baby, had phoned twice, once the previous evening, and again at eight in the morning, and both times he wanted to know if she'd come home. Robert told police that he saw Latangi on Tuesday, sometime between noon and two, working on her normal stretch of union avenue. He also mentioned that things between them weren't good. A few weeks earlier, he had taken their son to stay with him at his brother's house, because he didn't think Latangi was taking proper care of the baby. Still, Robert said that when he saw her that day, he tried to get her to come home with him. She told him that she needed to get drugs first and she would be back after dark. He kept pushing and she kept walking. He said he eventually gave up, ran a couple of errands, and spent the rest of the day at his brothers. According to Robert, that noon to two encounter was the last time he saw her. But other people saw her after that. Another friend who worked that same area saw Latangi around 430, talking to two men. And around 615, a patrol officer saw Latangi alone, on union, and told her to go home. But there may have been another encounter with police later that night. You see, Robert wasn't the only person who called Latangi's grandmother before detective showed up. She had also heard from a guy named Jerry, Latangi's ex-boyfriend and the father of at least one of her older kids. He told Francis that he had seen Latangi around 8 p.m. that night, sitting in a cop car. But it doesn't look like investigators ever interviewed Jerry, which is wild because if what he told Francis was accurate, he was one of the last known people to see Latangi alive. Now we tried to get in touch with him, but we couldn't reach him. But Jerry is far from the only ball that they dropped. I mean, take Robert. He said that he spent the rest of the day and night at his brothers, but there is no indication that anyone bothered to check his alibi. And they can't ask him now because he died in 1997. Our reporter Nina did speak with the brother that he'd been staying with, who doesn't remember ever being questioned. And unsurprisingly, he also doesn't remember where Robert was one Tuesday night 40 years ago. And listen, I don't bring up these gaps to suggest who was or wasn't responsible for Latangi's death. I bring them up to emphasize how little was done to actually try to solve the murder of a young black sex worker in Portland back in 1987. I think investigators might very well be correct in their assumption that a client killed Latangi. But what did they do to find that client? From the looks of it, not much. Even when suspects were basically delivered to them. Like at this. One of the things they learned about Latangi was that in the past she had pulled what they called trick rolls, basically she would take a man's money and run. That could make a lot of enemies, a faceless pool of men who could be furious with her. And on the very day Latangi was last seen alive, a man just like that practically announced himself to police. On Tuesday, March 17, 1987, again, this is the last day Latangi was seen alive. A man walked into the North Portland precinct to report that a sex worker on union had recently stolen his wallet. Officers were busy and the man said that he couldn't wait around so he was told to come back later or call 911. Instead, around seven that night, someone, presumably the same dude, called the precinct and vowed to kill a sex worker every day until he found the woman who took his wallet or got it back. Now, they hadn't gotten a name for the man when he first came in, just a description. White guy early to mid-30s between 5'9" and 5'11", about 180 pounds, with short brown hair and a full face. And a couple of days after Latangi's body was found, officers had a run-in that looked like it might be connected to that call. Two women on union flagged police down, scared. And according to police records, they said a man named Stephen Rossy wouldn't let one of them out of his BMW. He was upset about getting ripped off by other local sex workers several times over the past few weeks. Cops caught up with Stephen, driving around, and they questioned him, sort of. Stephen admitted that he had just been with the women. He was pissed about being ripped off and he mentioned having marital problems. He said a woman calling herself Kelly had taken $20 from him a couple of days earlier. And if he saw her again, he was so angry he didn't know what he'd do. Stephen was white, about 5'10" and 170 pounds with brown hair. Not far off from the man who had visited the precinct. Officers asked if he'd called the precinct, threatening sex workers. He said no, and they sent him on his way. That's where the report ends. It doesn't mention asking him about the incident where the woman said he wouldn't let her out of his car, nothing about letanjee. And I couldn't find anything showing if anyone searched his BMW, or checked where he was Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, or even tried to figure out whether letanjee might have been Kelly. This is another guy that we tried to find, but couldn't. We ran into this same kind of dead end looking for a follow-up on a tip that came in January 1988. Police records show a woman told them that her pimp, Sylvester Lewis, had admitted that he killed a girl behind the niggerbocker motel. She didn't know who he meant, but investigators thought it could be letanjee. That grassy lot she was found in is about two blocks from the motel. And with the way the streets are laid out, it's basically behind it. So what did police do with this name and possible confession? No record of an interview with Sylvester or follow-up with the woman who reported it. Or another sex worker she was with at the time who also supposedly heard it. And there's no going back and asking Sylvester about this now because he died a few years ago. And after that tip in early 1988, the paper trail basically falls off. And everything police and prosecutors have given us. I can't find any real work on letanjee's case for nearly two decades. When cold case detectives finally do pick it back up, a print lifted from the plastic laid over her body gets compared against several people, including Robert and Sylvester, and it doesn't belong to any of them, and then they got that DNA match to Homer. So how do you think that case would have gone over with a jury? These sorts of issues pop up in all of the other victims' case files too. Witness accounts that were never fully run down, suspects cleared on flimsy grounds, or for reasons that turned out to be flat out wrong. I mean, for instance, Tanya's boyfriend/pimp, who was known to be violent toward her, was ruled out because blood found near her body didn't match his blood type. The problem is, years later, testing show that the blood was Tanya's own blood. So by that account, everyone is ruled out. And trust me, the list goes on. And this is why I think Homer's lawyers so fiercely argue the case the way they do. Separately. It's why there is a subset of people who think Homer didn't commit all these crimes. But don't lose sight of the bigger picture. This poor investigation doesn't mean Homer is innocent. What we hear in court is rarely the whole story. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't trust it. It just means that a court case is only as good as the investigation it's built on. It's why everything has to be run down for every victim. Because DNA isn't just going to come in and save the day 40 years later. Every step matters. And if those steps had been taken back then, justice might have come sooner. Or at least, investigators might have had a clearer picture of who was responsible for each of these crimes. Because that's really at the core of the doubts about whether Homer committed all.
of these murders because it's not necessarily an all or nothing thing could Homer have been responsible for some of these crimes but not all is there a world where Homer was with a woman as a client and then she died at the hands of someone else police and prosecutors say no they never doubted that they had the right culprit and they became even more sure of it in 2021 that's when a new witness came forward. He's Homer's former jail bunkmate and he claims that three years earlier Homer told him about strangling women he'd pick up along MLK Boulevard. The guy said that he didn't come forward sooner because he was using drugs back then and he needed to get his life together. Now he's out of jail and offering to testify. He said he didn't even want anything in return. He's just afraid that Homer could get out and kill again. Even with the new witness, prosecutors realize what an uphill battle they were facing. So when Homer's lawyers make them an offer they take it. In January 2022 the murder charges are dropped and Homer takes an Alfred plea to four lesser counts of criminally negligent homicide. Basically let's him plead guilty without admitting that he committed the crimes because he doesn't want to take his chances at trial. The deal calls for six years and three months behind bars with credit for time served and Homer has already been locked up longer than that as this whole thing played out. So by the time the judge formally hands down the sentence, he's done serving it. Four women dead and when the gavill strikes Homer gets to go home. The families of the victims don't think that's fair but they also know how risky the trials would have been. At least with this they get to stand up and tell Homer what they lost. Our team reached out to relatives of each of them while reporting this story but we didn't receive a response from some by the time of our recording but most of what we learned about them came from what their loved one shared at sentencing. Angela Anderson was a quiet, sweet and creative girl with a huge smile. She was caring and protective, a phenomenal artist who loved drawing and bright colors. She had also been through a lot in and out of foster care exploited by adults and she never got the chance to grow up which breaks her sister Dondra's heart every day. She loved us. I remember a dog biting me a poodle. He bit me and I hated that scar but I love that scar today because it was my sister when I was crying that can and cleaning my wound and she kissed it and said is it better now? My sister would have been 52 years old. She never had a chance to be a mother. She never had a chance to go to graduate once and she never had a chance to be a, to see her great, her great nieces and nephews. Tanya Harry spent much of her childhood on the sidelines teased by other kids because of a severe skin condition. She was into fashion and drew comparisons to Charlie Chaplin because she had this trademark black umbrella that she used to twirl. A loved one tells the court that when her skin cleared up as a young woman she was eager to experience everything that she had missed but she became trapped in an abusive relationship and she was trafficked which her loved ones believe ultimately led to her crossing paths with Homer. For exactly 38 years, six months and 22 days, our family has waited for Tanya's murder to be solved. How many more lives would be lost and family's hearts destroyed before Homer Jackson III was arrested? Tanya was very humble and kind with a general soul. She was the joy of our lives. Words cannot start to describe what you did to our family when you murdered her. Her dreams and our dreams were her all died on July 1983. LaWanda triplet meant the world to her family. When she was younger she liked playing basketball, one-on-one with her brother. Her kids remember trips to the park and picnics. She was especially close with her aunt and both her mom and her grandmother went to their grave still wondering who killed her. But her cousin Rachel is there to speak for all of them and she wants Homer to know what the loss did to them. She still was a sister, a daughter, a niece, a kind of them, so we love and belong to us and if she didn't belong to you, none of these people belong to you. They belong to their families. You took stuff in prices from their family. I don't think that's fair. Why would you even remotely think it's okay to take somebody's life? You cost so much pain, so much pain in all our families. Rachel told us that on the day of sentencing, they went to the place where LaWanda's body was found and laid down a rose for every year that she'd been gone. They prayed and they cried, angry that Homer was going home. No one from LaTange's family gave a statement. Her people are scattered and hard to reach. The one relative that Nina managed to track down was a half-sister who had only met her once. It was partly why it was her case I picked to share, so her name might be one that gets remembered. What we were able to learn is that LaTange had already lost a lot before she was killed. When she was little, her younger brother was killed, hit by a car according to the local news coverage, then her mom died just as she was becoming an adult. And her own kids were all so young when she was murdered. They were left with a lifetime of things that they would never get to share with her. And even though he didn't give a statement in court, her youngest son did get a message to the man convicted of killing her. Detectives had recorded a video of him and played it during their interrogation, hoping that it would get Homer to open up. And in it, her son talked about a life without her. He only knew her through photos and stories, and he hated Mother's Day. He also shared that some family members had suspected his father, Robert Senior of killing LaTange, because he was the one who had gone out looking for her. As for Homer, he didn't enjoy his freedom for long. I guess his poor health caught up with him because as Fox 12 reported, in July 2023, his sister found him dead at his home. He was 63 years old. We wanted to hear how the detectives who worked this case see it now, but again, they declined to do an interview with us. So here's our island. I think Homer Jackson was a dangerous man, but this ended in a plea deal, not a trial. So none of this evidence was ever tested in front of a jury. Are these four cases closed? Yes. Are all four cases solved? I hope so. But if it were my loved one, I wouldn't want to be left with this many questions. And what about Essie Jackson? Her case was never resolved at all. Plus, prosecutors Snowden told us they thought Homer probably had more victims, maybe even women who went missing and were never found. I can tell you this much. I promise you, there are more cases like these in Portland and in every major city, cases that never got a fair shot the first time around. And this is my encouragement to our law enforcement friends listening to check the cold case files, see what prints you have that have never been run through a database, rerun them, because I have learned that is not a one and done thing. What DNA evidence is available? Check that. But don't rely just on the science. Some of these cases never got the boots on the ground work that they deserve at the time. And time can often be a cold case investigator's best friend. If any of the cases I talked about today ring a bell for you, or you have information to share, reach out, even if it seems small and even if it points to someone else, you can reach our team by emailing
[email protected]. Crime junkie is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve.
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