The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office has officially closed its oldest cold case murder, announcing that the 1979 killing of 12-year-old Alicia Michelle Jackson has been solved through advanced DNA technology, bringing a long-awaited resolution to a case that haunted investigators and a community for more than four decades. The suspect, Gerald Dwight Casey, was already executed in 2002 for a separate murder, but authorities confirmed through modern forensic testing that he was the man responsible for Jackson’s brutal death, a revelation that came as a bittersweet victory for her family and the detectives who never gave up hope.
On September 7, 1979, Alicia Jackson, a bright student at Washington Junior High known for her trademark light blue-rimmed glasses, went to Wildwood Lake near Conroe, Texas, with her two older brothers and friends for a day of swimming. The afternoon was filled with laughter and play, but as sunset approached around 7 p. m.
, the group decided to head home. Alicia, however, was having too much fun and refused to leave, so her brothers and friends left her at the swimming area, assuming she would follow shortly. When she did not return home, her stepfather, Charles Hirsch, walked back to the lake to find her, but she was gone.
The family immediately reported Alicia missing to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, and Deputy L. B. Robinson took the case.
A friend named Bobby Hill, who was the last to see Alicia, told investigators he saw her sitting on a pier in a pink swimsuit with a white or yellow shirt and blue shorts with red trim. He also reported that a brown Monte Carlo had driven past the group several times, nearly hitting them, raising immediate suspicions of abduction. The search expanded rapidly, with community members and nearly two dozen volunteers from the local fire department joining the effort, but no trace of Alicia was found that night.
The next day, Alicia’s stepbrother, Kirk Hirsch, discovered her damaged black glasses on Creekwood Street, two blocks from the lake. The family confirmed they belonged to her through her optometrist, and the grim reality set in that something terrible had happened. On September 13, an Exxon employee named James Wiley Dawson was sent to fix a pipeline on Exxon Road, half a mile from the lake, and was overwhelmed by the smell of decomposition.
He found the 𝓷𝓾𝓭𝓮, heavily decomposed body of a young girl, and police confirmed through clothing and later DNA testing that it was Alicia Jackson.
The autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, with semen found on her shirt and her gold butterfly necklace still around her neck. The case quickly gained momentum when a tip led police to a Vietnam veteran and known heroin addict who allegedly confessed to the murder, claiming he had an accomplice. Red fibers found in their homes matched those on Alicia’s shorts, and a written confession was obtained.
However, the suspects later claimed police coercion and brutality, and the FBI investigation led to the evidence being thrown out, resulting in both men being released. The case went cold for decades.
In 2006, Detective Tommy DeRoy, a former schoolmate of Alicia’s, joined the Cold Case Squad alongside Detective Terence Greenwood, determined to bring closure. They resubmitted DNA evidence from Alicia’s clothing, but initial tests using standard methods failed to yield a match in the FBI’s CODIS database. Witnesses had moved away or died, and the family had left Texas to escape the painful memories.
The case seemed hopeless until 2018, when reporter Courtney Fisher of ABC 13 reignited public interest, highlighting advances in forensic technology that could crack the case.
In 2021, the Montgomery County Cold Case Homicide Squad employed a cutting-edge technique called MVAC, which uses a DNA-free buffer sprayed onto surfaces under vacuum pressure to collect superior samples. This method was applied to Alicia’s shirt, and in October 2021, a DNA profile was finally obtained. The sample was entered into CODIS and returned a 100 percent match to Gerald Dwight Casey, a known felon with convictions for burglary, assault, and 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 possession, and who had been executed by lethal injection in 2002 for a separate capital murder committed in 1989.
Investigators confirmed the match by comparing the DNA to a blood sample taken from Casey before his execution.
Casey, who was 47 at the time of his execution, declined to share any last words, showing no remorse for his crimes. He had never been charged for Alicia’s murder, and the secret of her killing died with him, but the DNA evidence proved his guilt beyond any doubt. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office declared the case closed, marking it as the oldest cold case murder ever solved by the department.
Alicia’s family, who have remained mostly private, expressed gratitude to the police for their relentless pursuit of justice, though they declined to speak publicly about the outcome.
The resolution of this case underscores the power of modern forensic science and the dogged determination of investigators who refused to let a child’s murder go unpunished. While Casey escaped earthly justice for his attack on Alicia, his execution for another murder ensured he could never harm anyone again. The community of Conroe, which had rallied around the Jackson family in 1979, can now find some peace knowing that the monster who took a young girl’s life was held accountable, even if it took 43 years and the help of technology that did not exist when Alicia’s body was found.
This case serves as a beacon of hope for other cold cases, proving that time does not erase the truth when science and dedication align.
