Francine Laverne Davis was a 30-year-old Black woman who was killed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in October 1984. Her death remained unsolved for decades, and the identity of her killer was unknown as the case went cold.

Investigators later received a break when Jerry Marcus, already imprisoned in Mississippi for a 1987 murder, began confessing to other killings and included Francine Davis among them. Marcus had lived in Knoxville from 1975 to 1984 and played football at Knoxville College in the late 1970s. His admission prompted the Knox County Sheriff’s Office to reopen the cold case and to review unsolved murders and disappearances of Black females in Knoxville and nearby counties from that period.

Marcus’s confession gave Francine’s family a name tied to her killing and renewed appeals for information. If anyone knew Francine or has information about missing Black women in the Knoxville area between 1975 and 1984, please come forward.