The night of September 5, 1987, changed Talbray Jackson’s life. That was when he learned his older sister, 22-year-old Jamedia Hines, had been found dead.
Talbray told Dateline that he was “blindsided” by the news. “Shock, shock, shock,” he said. “It was this total shock.”
He couldn’t make sense of it. He’d dropped off Jamedia at their mother’s house the day before, and everything had been normal. Talbray says they’d been chit-chatting and cracking jokes, laughing the entire car ride, as usual. He told Jamedia he’d see her later — not realizing that car ride would be the last time he’d see his sister alive.
Jamedia was strangled and beaten to death in Des Moines, Iowa, sometime during the evening of September 4th into the early morning hours of the 5th in 1987. Dateline spoke with Sergeant Paul Parizek, public information officer for the Des Moines Police Department, who said a 7-year-old boy stumbled upon Jamedia’s body in a wooded area behind an apartment building.
“They found her in back of our childhood apartment, which was really crazy,” Talbray said. “We actually had moved — and moved into a different house — but it’s so crazy that she ended up right back there.”
As investigators began to swarm the crime scene, searching for clues, Talbray says he was still stuck in disbelief. He didn’t understand why anybody would kill his sister. He remembers her as spunky with a “huge personality,” a natural leader, an old soul.
Above all, she was a protective big sister. Talbray fondly remembers whenever he got in trouble at school, Jamedia would show up, pretending to be his legal guardian — despite only being four years older — so their mom wouldn’t find out. She was also the one who helped him discover his love of racing by giving him a racetrack for Christmas that he used almost every day until it broke. Talbray grew up to eventually become a professional racer, thanks, he says, to his big sister.
The fierce love she held for him extended to the unexpected moments in life, too. Talbray had his first child with his high school girlfriend, now wife, Rachelle. He told Dateline he remembers that Jamedia was “really supportive” of them, being a young mom herself. By 22, Jamedia had three kids: RaShawnda, Shawndre and Martwea — who was only 33 days old at the time of his mother’s death. RaShawnda Hines, who was 4 at the time of her mother’s murder, told Dateline that, despite being young, she remembers her mother to be a “fun, family person” who always made sure everyone around her was having a good time. She also recalls her mother’s exquisite beauty and love of fashion and singing.
Sergeant Parizek told Dateline the crime scene yielded no fingerprints that would lead to a suspect, and since DNA technology was less advanced then, forensic testing was limited.
Detectives began investigating by canvassing the neighborhood door-by-door, looking for witnesses, interviewing potential suspects, and meticulously searching the neighborhood for physical evidence. Parizek says authorities have not been able to nail down Jamedia’s official last known location, simply because different witnesses remembered seeing her at different places at conflicting times.
During this time, authorities discovered that Jamedia was friends with multiple people involved in the drug trade. Parizek explained that at the time of her murder, the crack cocaine epidemic was spreading throughout Des Moines.
Daughter RaShawnda Hines says she doesn’t like the association of her mother with drugs. “I was actually a little upset that they kind of put her into that situation, because they can’t really say that she was a part of that world,” she said. “The neighborhood that she was found in was definitely a known drug neighborhood, but to just put her in — just to label her in that world was kind of upsetting.”
Parizek agreed with RaShawnda’s viewpoint and clarified that Jamedia wasn’t directly involved in the drug trade herself, but living in that area in 1987 meant a lot of people around her were involved, and “friends that she’d had probably for years got wrapped up in that.” According to the sergeant, this connection probably made people unwilling to be forthcoming with the police.
“When you think about 1987, there were people that were all of a sudden caught up in addiction and caught up in that lifestyle and caught up in the craziness that crack cocaine brought to communities,” Parizek explained. “And, you know, they’re not always thinking real clear. They’re thinking about they don’t want to get themselves in trouble, and they also want to make sure that they can get their next fix that they need.”
Parizek says Jamedia’s case was cold within a year of her murder. “They don’t slow down or become cold because there’s a lack of interest or desire,” he told Dateline. “That happens because there’s a lack of leads, there’s a lack of information coming in, and that’s exactly what happened with this case.”
Parizek feels personally connected to Jamedia’s case. He graduated from high school the year Jamedia was murdered and remembers hearing about her death. His father worked in the police department at the time of the murder and was “familiar with the case.” Parizek went on to work as a police officer in the neighborhood where Jamedia was killed and says he could see the impact firsthand. But he said the personal determination to solve the case really blossomed when he met RaShawnda Hines. “I had a chance to talk to her and really learn more about the torch the family’s carrying for justice in this case,” he said. “And she became, I mean, I would consider her a friend.”
He highlighted Jamedia’s case during a cold case podcast he runs with his wife and a friend called “Missing in the Metro,” hoping new leads would surface. Parizek told Dateline that over the years, authorities thought they were on the verge of catching a break several times, but nothing panned out.
He has been working on the case with another sergeant and says they are both certain of who killed Jamedia. “We both agree one hundred percent,” he said. “We, in our hearts, know who did this. We just don’t have the evidence... It’s there. It’s right there. This case is solvable. He did it.”
Parizek told Dateline he couldn’t name their suspect, but says it’s someone who has been on police radar since the beginning. He also said the suspect lacks a “bona fide alibi” and is “prominent in the timeline as well.”
“When you look at interviews, and you look at just the way life was being lived at that time, and people who were, you know, some would say notorious in the neighborhood, and notorious in that lifestyle — he’s very prominent in there. And he’s very prominent in this case,” Parizek added.
“There are people out there who have firsthand knowledge that would be the evidence we need,” he continued. “There are people out there who know what happened. They know who did it. You know, somebody has got to come forward and say, ‘This is what we know.’ You get us across that line to where we have enough evidence or enough probable cause to take a person into custody, and then sit them down with our detectives and let our detectives work their interview magic, we could make this case roll.”
While Parizek’s department is hoping someone comes forward with information, they are also hoping for continued advancement in DNA technology. The year Jamedia was murdered was a landmark year for DNA: it was the first time someone in the United States was convicted in a criminal case through DNA. But, as Parizek says, that also meant that DNA technology was only “just starting to emerge in law enforcement as an investigative tool” and authorities weren’t able to work Jamedia’s case the same way they might today. He noted that all the evidence from the crime scene has been tested as DNA technology has evolved, but nothing has yet been found that would lead to an arrest. At this point they need a new piece of evidence or further advancement in DNA technology.
RaShawnda hasn’t given up hope that her mother’s killer will be brought to justice. She’s working hard, keeping in steady communication with the police department and making sure that the public doesn’t forget Jamedia’s case.
After her mother’s death, she and her siblings went to live with their grandmother. RaShawnda says that her grandmother, who passed away from cancer in 2014, bottled up a lot of her grief.
“I watched my grandmother just hurt for years, so that was something that ate her up,” she said. “And I just — I can’t — I can’t leave this world not knowing. I miss my mom, and she mattered.”
Talbray says he still experiences “trauma” and “anxiety” from his sister’s murder. “None of us never got any counseling about this, none of us never did any grief counseling, none of that,” he said. “We just kind of suppressed it because it was just that traumatizing to us... It was just overwhelming.”
Some days are worse than others. “The best way to describe this is basically just get through your day,” Talbray said. “It’s in the back of your mind, because you know life goes on and you got your own family and grandkids and stuff like that to go with. But then... there’s days where it’s like suppressed grief, anger, and suppressed memories and suppressed questions, when it does surface. Mentally, this makes you explode.”
Years after the murder, the little boy who found Jamedia’s body came to the family and spoke with them about that day in tears. He was a grown man by then. To Talbray, the meeting seemed cathartic for the man, giving him a sense of closure.
Talbray hopes to get that sense of closure for himself someday. The whole family does.
They just need someone to come forward with the answer they’ve been waiting for 38 years.
Anyone with information regarding the murder of Jamedia Hines is asked to contact the Des Moines Police Department Detective Bureau at 515-283-4864 or submit an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa.
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