Homer Jackson

Homer Lee Jackson III (December 18, 1959 – July 18, 2023) was an American serial killer who killed at least three women and one teenager in Portland, Oregon from 1983 to 1993. The killings remained unsolved until forensic evidence led to his arrest in 2015.

Jackson's arrest, mental status, and murder trial have been the subject of controversy, culminating with a plea deal that let him off with time served, which was greatly criticized by the family members of his victims.

Jackson was found deceased at his home on July 18, 2023.

Early life Homer Lee Jackson III was born on December 18, 1959, in Berkeley, California. Little is known about his early life, but in the early 1970s, his family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Jackson would remain for the rest of his life. Early on in childhood, he suffered from a variety of health issues, including congestive heart failure, as well as anterograde amnesia. The latter greatly affected his ability to learn, leading to Jackson dropping out of school after the 10th grade.

From 1978 to 1983, Jackson was repeatedly arrested for burglary, but each time got off with minor prison sentences. By the early 1980s, he began to spend a lot of time in the company of pimps and prostitutes where, by his own admission, he developed an addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine. In the mid-1980s, he suffered a gunshot wound during a fight, for which he had to undergo a surgery that removed one of his lungs. These were the following: 23-year-old Essie Carrie Jackson (no relation), found on the west edge of Overlook Park in North Portland on March 23, 1983; 19-year-old Tonja Nannette Harry, found on July 9, 1983, in West Delta Park; 14-year-old Angela Dina Anderson, whose body was found in a room of a vacant house on September 22, 1983; and 29-year-old Latanga Lee Watts, whose body was found in some grass near a pedestrian bridge on March 18, 1987. Shortly after his arrest, his lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Judge Michael A. Greenlick said the inducements and threats from the investigators created a risk of inaccurate testimony and a potential miscarriage of justice, prompting an objection from the District Attorney's Office, who claimed that no such thing had occurred. In its decision, the Supreme Court justices stated that Jackson's schizophrenia, severe memory problems and the fact that he provided inaccurate testimony indicated that he was susceptible to suggestibility. Due to this, his upcoming trial was postponed until the spring of 2019. They instead charged with another murder, that of 29-year-old Lawauna Janelle Triplet, whose body was found in a neighborhood in North Portland on June 15, 1993. She had been beaten and strangled to death, and like most of Jackson's other suspected victims, she was a prostitute. Due to this new charge, his trial date was moved back to January 2020. Judge Greenlick made the decision after conducting numerous hearings and reviewing more than 1,400 pages of case files, arguing in his decision that there were way too many substantial differences in the murders: that one victim was a teenager and another was an adult; that each sustained different types of injuries from different weapons; that two of the bodies were found in the same location six years apart, and that virtually all of them were killed across the city.

At that time, Jackson's attorneys filed a motion for their client to be placed under house arrest at his mother's home, as they feared he might contract COVID-19 due to his physical ailments, as he had already spent several days in an ICU with a high fever. He was subsequently diagnosed with pneumonia, but the defense motion was denied.

The District Attorney's Office, dissatisfied with Judge Greenlick's decision, appealed the ruling to the Oregon Supreme Court, leading to an indefinite postponement of his trial date. In November 2021, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, after which a trial date was set for March 2022. As per the deal's terms, Jackson pleaded guilty to the criminally negligent homicides of Harry, Anderson, Watts and Triplet. He was sentenced to 6 years and 3 months imprisonment on January 31, 2022, and was released with time served. The decision took into account his mental illness, health issues, low credibility of his confession and the statute of limitations on the crimes. The verdict was heavily criticized by the victims' family members, who said that Jackson should have received a harsher punishment for his crimes.