On March 18, 1987, the body of Latanga Lee Watts, a 29-year-old Black/African American woman, was discovered in a grassy area near a pedestrian bridge on North Concord Avenue by the Going Street pedestrian bridge in Portland, Oregon. A mother of three, Watts was known to be a victim of sex trafficking. Investigators who processed the scene determined that her body had been moved after her death, suggesting an attempt by her killer to conceal the crime.
For years, Latanga's case remained
cold, one of several unsolved homicides of women in the Portland area during that era. The break in the case came decades later, connecting her death to a string of similar slayings. Investigators linked her murder to Homer Lee Jackson, a man suspected of being a serial killer who targeted prostitutes in Portland throughout the 1980s. Forensic evidence played a crucial role in solidifying this connection. A forensic examination in December 2014 found a mixture of DNA from two individuals under her left fingernail, with one of the profiles matching Jackson. This breakthrough, along with other investigative information, tied him to the murders of at least three other women: Essie Jackson, Tonja Harry, and Angela Anderson.
In October 2015, Homer Lee Jackson was arrested and charged with four counts of aggravated murder. However, the path to justice was not straightforward. The case against him was complicated by procedural errors during the investigation, including illegal questioning by detectives. A significant setback for the prosecution came with a state Supreme Court ruling that prevented them from presenting certain crime scene evidence. Faced with these legal challenges and the high probability that Jackson might be acquitted on some of the charges, the prosecutor's office offered him a plea deal.
In a controversial resolution, Jackson pleaded guilty to the criminally negligent homicides of Watts, Harry, and Anderson. In January 2022, he was sentenced to time served for the six-and-a-half years he had already spent in jail, followed by three years of probation, and was subsequently released. Homer Lee Jackson died in July 2023 from a reported illness, closing the legal chapter on the case. Despite the plea deal, authorities still believe he may have been responsible for other unsolved deaths.
