43-Year-Old Clothing

In the early fall of 1979, a young girl named Lesia Michell Jackson was on her way home from the neighborhood swimming pool in Montgomery County, Texas. She never made it. Her glasses were found the next day, and her body was found six days later in a local wooded area. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered. Several leads were followed up on, but the case went cold. Efforts were made over the years, but to no avail. Then in the fall of 2021, investigators borrowed an M-Vac^® machine from a nearby county and tried using the M-Vac^® on Lesia's 43-year-old clothing. And they got a hit! They put the male profile in CODIS and found a match, to a local man named Gerald Dewight Casey. A little further research revealed that Casey had been involved in another murder in 1989, and had been executed in 2002.

Picture Credits:

Lesia - Montgomery County Sheriff

Casey - TDCJ/txexecutions.org

Sources:

Montgomery County Sheriff's Office Press Release: https://www.mctxsheriff.org/news_detail_T6_R904.php

WFAA-TV in Dallas: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/mcso-solves-1979-cold-case-lesia-jackson/285-00fb44be-4ffc-4997-b30d-3803667a59f9

People Magazine: https://people.com/crime/lesia-mitchell-jackson-cold-case-murder-solved/

nbcnews.com: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/12-year-old-texas-girls-1979-murder-just-solved-killer-was-executed-20-rcna37759

Forensic Magazine: https://www.forensicmag.com/588086-M-Vac-Helps-Solve-1979-Murder-of-12-Year-Old-Girl/