Sandra Jackson was a **21‑year‑old** **Black** woman from Miami, Florida when she was tragically found dead on **April 16, 1989**. She and another young woman, **20‑year‑old** **Hispanic** Brenda Hernandez, had been seen together the night of their deaths with **Charles Henry Williams**, a Miami man with an extensive criminal record. Williams was arrested in **April 1989**, days after the women were discovered dead, after being seen in their company.
Although officials initially charged him only with rape, he was subsequently indicted on additional counts that included rape and murder from earlier crimes against women.
According to law enforcement sources, Williams had been jailed multiple times in the years leading up to the homicides— at least five times between **May 1987 and March 1989**—on various sexual assault charges. Following the April 1989 arrest, authorities disclosed that Williams had been seen with Jackson and Hernandez shortly before they were killed.
A grand jury later indicted Williams for a 1984 rape and homicide case. While the indictment in that case did not directly name Jackson and Hernandez, prosecutors expressed hope that it might be expanded to cover them as suspects investigated a similar modus operandi. Williams had also admitted to police that he had been with another victim, **Sharmanita Grays**, in a motel just hours before her 1988 death. The Chief Medical Examiner determined that Grays and at least 13 other victims had been **asphyxiated**, leading to suspicion that Williams might be part of a broader pattern of sexual homicides.
No public record confirms a formal murder charge for Jackson’s death at the time; reports indicate Williams was at least indicted on one rape-homicide case from 1984, and prosecutors hoped to extend those charges. He was already serving a **40‑year** sentence for another rape from a case involving a forced dragging into a junkyard; that sentence was under appeal at the Florida Supreme Court.
In summary:
* **Victim**: Sandra Jackson, **21‑year‑old Black female** from Miami, FL, killed on **April 16, 1989**.
* In the same incident, **20‑year‑old Hispanic female** Brenda Hernandez was also slain.
* **Suspect**: Charles Henry Williams – multiple prior rape convictions, arrested in April 1989 when seen with Jackson and Hernandez.
* Williams was charged with rape, later indicted in a 1984 rape‑homicide, and suspected in a string of asphyxiation murders.
* No confirmed public record of a separate murder charge specific to Jackson, but investigations continued under Williams’s indictment.
As of available sources, Williams remained the sole person publicly linked to the crimes. No other suspects or arrests are documented in connection with Sandra Jackson’s death.
