On the night of November 22, 1981, Edith Vila, 59, and her husband Henry Vila, 62, were attacked in their Albany Hill home in Albany, California during a nighttime burglary. Henry was stabbed to death after confronting the intruder. Edith was sexually assaulted and fatally stabbed in her bed; the house had been ransacked and the phone ripped from the wall, suggesting she may have been trying to call for help.

The case remained unsolved until DNA testing in 1999 matched evidence from the scene to Charles Junior Jackson, a former Oakland handyman with a criminal history dating back to 1953 and already serving a life term for the 1982 rape and murder of Joan Stewart. Jackson, known as The East Bay Slayer, had been suspected in multiple Bay Area murders from 1975 to 1982. He died of a heart attack in Folsom State Prison in 2002 at age 65 and was not charged in the Vila killings.

Anyone with memories of Albany Hill in 1981 or information about the Vilas’ last months is asked to come forward.