James Edward Armstrong: Houston Murder Case and Questions About Serial Killer Classification
Overview
James Edward Armstrong was a 37-year-old man arrested in Houston, Texas, in June 1991 and charged with the murder of 32-year-old Sally Joyce Smith. Contemporary reporting establishes that Smith was strangled and left in an abandoned bathtub outside a room at the Alamo Motel near downtown Houston. Armstrong was taken into custody shortly after the discovery and charged with her murder.
Although James Edward Armstrong has sometimes been identified or listed as a serial killer, available reliable records do not establish that the Houston defendant was convicted of, confessed to, or was officially linked to multiple murders. Only the homicide of Sally Joyce Smith could be reliably connected to him during a review of contemporary reporting. For that reason, additional victims should not be attributed to Armstrong without further documentary evidence.
The Murder of Sally Joyce Smith
During the early morning hours of Saturday, June 1, 1991, a maintenance worker at the Alamo Motel, located at 5809 Washington Avenue in Houston, discovered the body of Sally Joyce Smith. The 32-year-old Houston woman had been placed in an abandoned bathtub outside one of the motel rooms. Police were called at approximately 7:40 a.m.
Smith was fully clothed when she was discovered. A plastic bag had been wrapped around her head, immediately creating concern that she had been deliberately suffocated or strangled. Investigators initially estimated that she had been dead for several hours before the maintenance worker found her, placing the killing sometime late Friday night, May 31, or during the early morning hours of June 1.
An examination by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office determined that Smith died from asphyxia caused by external compression of the neck. In other words, pressure had been deliberately applied to her neck until she could no longer breathe. The findings confirmed that her death was a homicide rather than an accidental suffocation.
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