Homer Lee Jackson III (December 18, 1959 – July 18, 2023) was an American serial killer who killed at least three women and one teenager in Portland, Oregon from 1983 to 1993.
Jackson's arrest, mental status, and murder trial have been the subject of controversy, culminating with a plea deal that let him off with time served, which was greatly criticized by the family members of his victims.
By the early 1980s, he began to spend a lot of time in the company of pimps and prostitutes where, by his own admission, he developed an addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine.
By the following year, Jackson had made several dozen calls to the local police department, claiming that burglars had attempted to enter his apartment and forced him to fire upon them.
Due to his erratic behavior, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, which concluded that he was unfit to stand trial and instead should be treated at a mental health facility.
[2] In it, he claimed that he was not guilty, but suggested that it was possible he could have murdered someone as, at that time, he had a severe drug addiction which, coupled with his amnesia, led him to blank out in his states of rage.
Later on, however, under pressure from investigators, Jackson changed his testimony, forcibly admitting that he regularly used services from prostitutes in the early 1980s and describing how the incidents had occurred.
The way they did this was to have two detectives convince him that if he admitted to the killings, his mental condition would stabilize, utilizing his deep religious beliefs to make him "atone for his sins".
[4] As for the final victim, Latanga Watts, blood and epithelium particles were also found on her body, but a forensic exam from December 1, 2014, showed that scrapings from her left hand fingernail contained a mixture of DNA from two people, one of which was determined to be Jackson.
[4] His attorney pointed out that during that same procedure, epithelium particles were also found on her scarf, which, upon examination, were revealed to belong to five different men, but again, none matched Jackson.
[4] After reviewing a motion by Jackson's attorneys, the court ruled in October 2017 that his confession was invalid because of Portland police coercion tactics during the initial interrogation.
[5] Judge Michael A. Greenlick said the inducements and threats from the investigators created a risk of inaccurate testimony and a potential miscarriage of justice, prompting an objection from the District Attorney's Office, who claimed that no such thing had occurred.
[6] In its decision, the Supreme Court justices stated that Jackson's schizophrenia, severe memory problems and the fact that he provided inaccurate testimony indicated that he was susceptible to suggestibility.
In his ruling, Judge Greenlick noted that despite similarities in the murders, it was impossible to conclusively determine that they were the work of a singular individual, citing the insufficient evidence of Jackson's possible involvement.
[9] At that time, Jackson's attorneys filed a motion for their client to be placed under house arrest at his mother's home, as they feared he might contract COVID-19 due to his physical ailments, as he had already spent several days in an ICU with a high fever.
The District Attorney's Office, dissatisfied with Judge Greenlick's decision, appealed the ruling to the Oregon Supreme Court, leading to an indefinite postponement of his trial date.