Essie Jackson was 23 when her partially clothed body was found on the western edge of Overlook Park in North Portland, Oregon, on March 23, 1983. She was a mother and had been a victim of sex trafficking. An autopsy determined she had been sexually assaulted and that the cause of death was homicide by asphyxiation via strangulation. Investigators estimated she had been dead about a week before discovery, and identification took two days.

The murder remained unsolved for decades and was one of several similar cases from that period. In 2015 authorities arrested Homer Lee Jackson III and charged him with multiple counts of aggravated murder in connection with at least four 1980s killings, including Essie’s. DNA recovered from Essie’s scene did not match him, and the charges against him for her death were dropped in 2019; no other suspects have been publicly named.

Did anyone in the Portland area during the early 1980s know Essie’s movements or the people she associated with who might help investigators?