Henry Vila and his wife Edith Vila were murdered on November 22, 1981, during a nighttime burglary at their home in the Albany hills. The case stood as the only double murder in Albany's history and remained unsolved for nearly two decades until DNA evidence provided a breakthrough.
In 1999, DNA testing linked Charles 'Junior' Jackson, a 62-year-old former Oakland handyman, to the murders of the Vila couple.
Jackson was already serving a life sentence at Folsom prison for a different murder when this connection was established. The DNA evidence, which wasn't available when the murders were initially committed, conclusively tied Jackson to the Vila murders according to Albany Police Lt. Bill Palmini.
The case was reopened with assistance from Alameda County prosecutor Rockne Harmon, a nationally recognized DNA expert. At the time of the DNA discovery, prosecutors delayed charging Jackson for the Vila murders as they were investigating his potential connection to several other unsolved killings in the area. Jackson's criminal history dated back to 1953, with multiple imprisonments for burglary, rape, assault, and child molesting.
The investigation revealed Jackson was already serving a life sentence for the January 1982 murder of Joan Stewart, a San Francisco City College biology professor, whom he raped, strangled, and stabbed in Oakland's Montclair District. Additionally, court records from his 1982 trial indicated that prosecutors believed Jackson was connected to several other unsolved murders, including the 1975 murders of Ann Johnson and Marian Kiteas, as well as the 1978 murder of Gladys Fielding, though these connections couldn't be proven at the time.
