On September 22, 1983, 14-year-old Angela Anderson, an African American girl living in foster care, was found dead in an upstairs room of a vacant, locked house at 416 NE Going Street in Portland, Oregon. A prospective homebuyer discovered her; the property still had a for-sale sign and a lockbox on the door. The Oregon State Medical Examiner ruled her death ligature asphyxiation.

Friends believed Angela had recently been drawn into sex trafficking, a pattern later noted across related cases. The killing remained unsolved for decades until October 2015, when Portland police arrested Homer Lee Jackson and a grand jury returned a 12-count indictment linking him to four 1980s killings, including Angela Anderson’s. A 2019 superseding indictment added a fifth victim and again named Angela.

Pretrial litigation focused on what evidence could be used at trial, including a two-day police interrogation and whether evidence from different scenes could be cross-admitted. In January 2022 Jackson accepted a plea, pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide in four cases, including Angela Anderson, and received a sentence of six years and three months satisfied by time already served and followed by probation. Jackson was found dead at home in July 2023; police said no foul play was suspected.

Did anyone in Portland in the early 1980s have information about Angela’s movements or the vacant house on Northeast Going Street?