Eureka Jackson

In the late autumn of 2008, Eureka Jackson, a 38-year-old Black woman, became a victim in a series of brutal killings that haunted Chicago's Far South Side. Her life was taken in November, and her body was discovered inside a boarded-up, abandoned building at 34 E. 120th St. in the West Pullman neighborhood. When authorities found her, a piece of cloth had been tied from her neck to a closet door handle, a grim testament to her final moments. The cause of her death was determined to be strangulation.

The discovery of Jackson was a key point in a much larger and more terrifying investigation. She was one of several women whose deaths bore a chilling resemblance. The victims were all African-American women, often leading what police described as "high-risk" lifestyles, and their bodies were found in vacant buildings concentrated in a small area between 113th and 120th streets, from South Michigan to South Harvard avenues. These derelict properties, as Chicago's police superintendent noted, provided a "safe haven for criminals to commit their heinous acts."

The investigation into this string of strangulations gained momentum and eventually led police to Michael Johnson, a 24-year-old man from the Roseland area. The critical break in the case came not from the tragic discoveries in abandoned buildings, but from the incredible courage of a woman who survived. In early 2010, Johnson attacked another woman, choking her until she lost consciousness and leaving her for dead. She survived the horrific assault and was later able to identify him to investigators.

Following this identification, police arrested Johnson near his home on East 120th Place in May 2010. Detectives collected a DNA swab, which proved to be the definitive link they had been searching for. The sample matched DNA evidence recovered from the scenes of three murders: Eureka Jackson, 30-year-old Siobhan Hampton, and Leslie Brown. Hampton's body had been found in a former fast-food restaurant on South Michigan Avenue in March 2010, and Brown was found deceased in January of that same year. Johnson was subsequently charged with three counts of first-degree murder for their deaths.

In addition to the murder charges, Johnson faced counts of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated criminal sexual assault for the attack on the woman who survived. Investigators also considered him a suspect in the death of 29-year-old Lutelda Hudson, who was found strangled in a vacant building in May 2009, though charges in that specific case were not immediately filed. The families of the victims expressed a profound sense of relief that a suspect was in custody. Maurice Wickliffe, a relative of Leslie Brown, remarked, "She was out in the streets, but she was a human being, and she didn't deserve to die like that."

The legal proceedings against Michael Johnson unfolded over several years. In March 2014, he was convicted for the attack on the survivor who identified him and was sentenced to 90 years in prison. The following year, in September 2015, Johnson received an additional 100-year prison sentence for the murder of Leslie Brown. Prosecutors at the time stated that DNA had conclusively linked him to four murders in total.

While Michael Johnson is serving consecutive, lengthy sentences for his other violent crimes, ensuring he will remain imprisoned for life, court records indicate he has not yet been tried specifically for the murder of Eureka Jackson. The case remains a painful memory for those who knew her and a stark reminder of the violence that took the lives of multiple women on the South Side. As of October 2015, the cases for the other homicides he was linked to, including Eureka's, were still pending.