Joey Laron Jackson:1977, Duncan, Oklahoma

   

  Joey Laron Jackson was born on February 19th, 1965 in Duncan, Oklahoma. 

  Duncan, Oklahoma is a very small town east of Lawton, Oklahoma and northeast of Wichita Falls, Texas. Joey Laron Jackson lived there with his grandparents. Mrs Mary Williams was his grandmother. 

  On December 14th, 1977, Joey left his grandparents a note saying he was going outside to play football “if it’s okay with you”. He was a sweet and polite kid. He did not want to worry them. 

  He never came home from playing outside that day. Locals assumed that he had run away. It is hard to imagine a child running away before Christmas. It was just a couple of weeks away. 

  12 year old Joey was found on December 28th, 1977 near the railroad tracks in Duncan, Oklahoma. He was only a few blocks from his home. A business owner found him out in back of his business at 508 South 7th Street. He had been stabbed once in the abdomen. A knife was found near his body but no useable prints were discovered on it. 

   My first impression is that he was killed by another child or teen. He had been stabbed only once and it was not reported that he was sexually assaulted. I also wondered about a racially motivated attack. I wondered if Duncan was a predominantly white town. That doesn’t appear to be the case. Joey lived on the south side of town. There is a street there named for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and that makes me think that there’s a larger population of African Americans in town. Not that a white person could not have killed Joey anyway. 

   But within the article about the discovery of Joey’s body a member of law enforcement said that they did not think this murder was related to the other stabbing of a child along the tracks in Vinita, Oklahoma. I was immediately looking up the details of that other murder. 

   Michael Martinez was a first grader living in Vinita, Oklahoma. Just a few weeks before Joey’s disappearance, Michael was attacked. He was stabbed dozens of times and his body was placed on the tracks afterward. He was only found when the train ran over his body. 

 Vinita is across the state but it is along the same stretch of railroad tracks. 

  I immediately thought of Angel Maturino Resendiz. He became known as The Railroad Killer in the late 1990’s. He was suspected of killing multiple victims along the railroads in Texas, Florida, California, New Mexico and Illinois. He would enter a home and kill the victims usually by blunt force trauma. He would often stay in the home with the victims and eat, rest and go through their things. He was briefly on the FBI’s most wanted list but was captured in 1999. He was tried and convicted. Angel Maturino Resendiz was sentenced to the death penalty and died by lethal injection in Texas in 2006. 

  Angel Maturino Resendiz would have been 18 in 1977. He was a small man. If Joey and Michael were his first victims, it would make sense that he would choose children that he could overpower. It would also make sense that Resendiz would carry a knife if he was a small man riding the rails. He would need some form of personal protection. 

  I think it is very logical to look at Angel Maturino Resendiz for these two murders. 

  Joey and Michael were just kids. They had their whole lives stolen from them. Their families suffered immensely from their losses. Joey Laron Jackson and Michael Martinez should still be here with us. 

  If you have information about the murder of Joey Laron Jackson please call the Duncan Oklahoma Police Department at 580-252-0250.

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