Do you know who murdered Delores Thompson and Gwendolyn Fulce? On a warm September day in 1973, the life of 24-year-old Delores Thompson, an African-American woman, was brutally cut short in her Portland, Oregon home. On the afternoon of September 8th, the father of Delores's young son, Roy Lee Jernigan, arrived at her residence on North Ivy Street to pick up their child. He found the front door ajar and upon entering, was met with a horrific scene.
Inside the house, Jernigan discovered the bodies of Delores and her close friend, 21-year-old
Gwendolyn Fulce. Both women had been bludgeoned to death. In the midst of this violence, Delores’s two-and-a-half-year-old son was found physically unharmed, lying on a couch near his deceased mother. The brutality of the crime sent shockwaves through the community, leaving friends and family to grapple with an unimaginable loss. The last memory Delores's oldest son, who was seven at the time, has of his mother is of two caskets.
Investigators arrived at a scene with no apparent motive. Gwendolyn, a student at a local beauty college with no criminal record, was simply spending the night at her friend's house. The police interviewed numerous people in the wake of the double homicide but were unable to identify any suspects. No arrests were ever made in the case, and a clear reason for the violent deaths of the two young women has never been established.
For decades, the case of Delores Thompson and Gwendolyn Fulce has remained a painful, unsolved mystery for their families and the city of Portland. Delores's son, who was left alone with the bodies of his mother and her friend, has grown up with the haunting question of why their lives were so violently taken. The passage of time has not diminished the desire for answers, and the case remains an open wound for those who knew and loved them.
