Jacqueline Faye Jackie Travis, a 49-year-old white woman, was found dead on December 8, 2000, in her east Merced apartment. A roommate discovered her body on a mattress on the bedroom floor, covered with a quilt. She had been beaten, stabbed and ultimately strangled; blood was found throughout the apartment and authorities believed she had been sexually assaulted. Jackie’s right leg had been amputated below the knee.

DNA from the crime scene was entered into a database in 2005 and matched material tied to another murder, linking both cases to Ronald James Ward Jr., a transient already serving a life sentence in Montana. In September 2008 Ward pled guilty in Merced County Superior Court to Jackie Travis’s murder and to the murder of 33-year-old Shela Polly; the pleas resulted in two life sentences without parole, to be served consecutively to his existing sentences. Officials have urged agencies to review cold cases for possible connections to Ward.

If anyone knew Jackie, her routines, visitors, or has information about that December 2000 period in east Merced, please come forward.