Grim Sleeper: Misgivings before a young woman’s disappearance

Elizabeth and Leo Anderson distinctly remember when Debra Jackson walked out of their home on the evening of Aug. 10, 1985. It was the last time they would see their friend, the first known victim of a South Los Angeles serial killer who came to be known as the Grim Sleeper.

Elizabeth Anderson was in the kitchen cooking chicken for dinner when Jackson told her she needed to run an errand: meet up with someone to repay a loan.

For five years, the Andersons had taken in Jackson, a trained beautician who was working as a waitress at the time. She had moved into the Willlowbrook home with the married couple and their four children in 1981, not long after losing custody of her own children while living with an aunt in South Los Angeles.

Elizabeth did not understand why Jackson needed to go right then. The memory has remained vivid for 25 years, made more so by the recent arrest of Lonnie Franklin Jr., who has been charged with Jackson’s slaying and the killings of nine other women over a span of more than two decades in the South Los Angeles area.

“I told her, ‘You can wait and pay them in the morning,’” she recalled.

Leo remembers chiming in, “I don’t think you should go out there. Wait ‘til tomorrow.”

Jackson said it could not wait; payment had to be made that night.

“There was something about it; it didn’t make sense. She was determined to leave,” Leo said.

Jackson walked out of the house, and Elizabeth followed her.

“You don’t have to take the bus, I’ll drive you,” she said, but Jackson declined.

The two friends embraced. Jackson promised to be home by 10 p.m.

Elizabeth watched Jackson walk down the street until she disappeared.

She still doesn’t know if Jackson made it to the bus stop, but she recalls hours passing with no sight of her.

By midnight, Leo started to pace. “I said, ‘She’s two hours overdue. This ain’t right.’”

The Andersons said that Jackson had a history of being on time — never a second late.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Leo told Elizabeth. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen in the streets. You have to watch your back at all times.”

The couple called police to file a missing persons report but were told they had to wait 24 hours. The Andersons made an official report the next day.

Three days later, they arrived home and found a card on their front door from LAPD’s 77th Division homicide unit, asking the couple to get in touch. They went to the station, where Leo was taken into a separate room and told that Jackson’s body had been found. He needed to identify her.

He was shown a picture of Jackson at the crime scene. She was sitting up with a rug on top of her and wearing Elizabeth’s clothing, a pink sweater with white pearl buttons and ruffled sleeves and collar.

“There was little bruising on her. She was just so swollen, I couldn’t stand to look at her,” Leo said.

Elizabeth walked into the room and saw the photo. She remembered being mad.

“I was hurt. I was upset,” she recalled. “I didn’t understand because she didn’t bother anyone. She was very kind-hearted.”

The Andersons arranged funeral services at Hyde Park Mortuary. Days later, they had a closed casket service, followed by a burial at a nearby cemetery.

Jackson was originally from Ohio and had a sister named Michelle who lived in Inglewood, the Andersons said. Her mother lived back East, but the two were never close.

“It was like her family had a distance,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth met Jackson in 1974 when Elizabeth was visiting her mother-in-law off 98th and Avalon. Her mother-in-law’s neighbor was a friend of Jackson.

“One day we spoke to each other while crossing the street, heading to the dairy,” Elizabeth said. “From then on, we were inseparable. We hit it off. We did everything together.”

Elizabeth described Jackson as a fun person who was constantly laughing. She had attended cosmetology school and was a certified beautician. She ran a beauty shop off Washington and Crenshaw for just over 1 1/2 years before the store changed owners. She then became a waitress at a place called the Name of the Game, where she was employed at the time of her death.

Responding to claims that the Grim Sleeper’s victims were prostitutes and drug users living on the margins of society, Elizabeth said Jackson “wasn’t a prostitute.”

“To my knowledge, she was never arrested,” she said. “She didn’t do drugs. The most any of us ever did was drink Golden Champale on the weekends.

“She didn’t let anything get her upset,” Elizabeth continued. “She stayed in high spirits. The only time I saw her crying was when the police took her kids.”

Elizabeth said Jackson was living with an aunt in South Los Angeles when her two daughters and son were taken by county Child Protective Services.

“Her cousin was living with them and he was on drugs,” Elizabeth said. One day, while Jackson was doing laundry, “the cops made a bust at the house.”

Jackson told the Andersons that because her cousin was bringing drugs into the home, authorities told her it was an unfit environment for her children, and they were placed in foster care. Jackson maintained contact with her children, establishing a relationship with their foster mother so she could take the girls to the salon on weekends to get their hair done.

At the time of her disappearance, Jackson was in the final stages of getting her children back, the Andersons said. She had been scheduled to sign papers with Child Protective Services the day after she went missing, Elizabeth said.

It should have been a momentous time, being reunited with her children. Instead, Elizabeth had to tell the children their mother was dead.

“I told them their mom was beaten up and shot,” she said. “They kept asking who did it, but there was nothing I knew.”

It remained that way for many years.

After their initial meeting with police, the Andersons said, they never heard from them again.

“It was like she was forgotten,” Elizabeth said. “There was no concern. It didn’t take long for it to be a cold case. It really didn’t.”

Years passed, and the Andersons started hearing about women in their area being killed. It wasn’t until 2007, when they saw wanted posters for the Grim Sleeper, that they learned Jackson was part of a series of killings in South L.A.

Leo was watching television July 8 when he heard surprising news.

“Leo said, ‘They caught the guy that killed Debra!’ I felt like I was dreaming,” Elizabeth said. “I wanted to see for sure this is the person.”

Authorities say they have made DNA matches linking Franklin to Jackson’s killing and others, ending with Janecia Peters, 25, whose body was found Jan. 1, 2007, in a Gramercy Park alley. The Andersons say they are enormously relieved knowing that Jackson’s possible killer is no longer on the streets.

“I think of the good times with her,” Elizabeth said. “My husband thinks about her more than I do. Honestly, the more I thought about her, the sadder I’d get.”

“I never stopped thinking about her,” Leo said. “It was like she was with me all the time.”

sarah.ardalani@latimes.com