Jerry Dean Thomas, a 43-year-old white woman, was found strangled in the basement of her Cleveland home on January 23, 1981. The cord of a hairdryer was used as the murder weapon. She was the mother of a 12-year-old girl who had been the target of an attempted rape by a neighbor, Reginald Perkins, in December 1980, and Thomas is believed to have recently discovered that assault — a possible motive noted at the time.

Reginald Perkins, a convicted sex offender who lived in the neighborhood, was suspected in Thomas’s killing and in the murders of two other local women, but investigators did not have sufficient evidence then to charge him in these cases. The Thomas case remained unsolved for many years despite those suspicions.

Anyone who knew Jerry Dean Thomas, her family, or who has information about the neighborhood in late 1980 and early 1981 is asked to come forward with tips.