Debra Jackson, the woman called Orange Socks
A man was sentenced to death for her murder before anyone knew her name. Her sister finally recognized her in 2019, and the sheriff still lists the case as unsolved.
- When
- Found October 31, 1979
- Where
- Interstate 35, north of Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
- Status
- Unsolved
Content note murder, sexual violence. No graphic images.
In brief
On Halloween 1979, the body of a young woman was found in a concrete culvert beside Interstate 35 north of Georgetown, Texas, wearing only a pair of orange socks. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Nobody knew her name, so she was called Orange Socks and buried under a marker for an unidentified woman. In 1983 the drifter Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to hundreds of killings, confessed to hers. In 1984 a Williamson County jury convicted him of capital murder and sentenced him to death, though work records placed him in Florida around the time she died. Most of his confessions were later discredited, and in 1998 Governor George W. Bush commuted the sentence to life, citing doubts about his guilt. In 2019 her sister saw a new forensic sketch on the news, and DNA confirmed she was Debra Jackson, 23, of Abilene. Lucas's conviction still stands, but the Williamson County Sheriff's Office lists her murder as a cold case.
Turning pointIn 2019 a woman who had recently moved to Georgetown saw the newest sketch of Orange Socks on the news and called the sheriff's office. It was her sister.
- Victim
- Debra Louise Jackson, 23, of Abilene, Texas
- Known for 40 years as
- Orange Socks
- Found
- Halloween 1979, in a culvert beside I-35 north of Georgetown
- Convicted
- Henry Lee Lucas, 1984; death sentence commuted to life in 1998
- Identified
- August 2019, after her sister recognized a forensic sketch; confirmed by DNA
- Status
- Listed by the Williamson County Sheriff's Office as a cold case
Timeline
1977
Debra Jackson leaves her family's home in Abilene and does not return. Because she had left before, her family does not report her missing.
1978
She works at a Ramada Inn off Interstate 40 in Amarillo, one of the few points investigators have been able to establish in the two years before her death.
October 31, 1979
Her body is found face down in a concrete culvert beside I-35 north of Georgetown, nude except for orange socks. She has been sexually assaulted and strangled.
1979
Unidentified, she is buried in Georgetown's Odd Fellows Cemetery under a marker for an unidentified woman, and becomes known as Orange Socks.
1983
After his arrest in Texas, Henry Lee Lucas begins confessing to hundreds of killings, including this one.
1984
A Williamson County jury convicts Lucas of capital murder and sentences him to death. His conviction rests on his confession; he has since recanted.
April 1986
A report by Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox finds that many of Lucas's confessions conflict with evidence of where he was, and that some cases appear to have been cleared just to close them.
June 26, 1998
On the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Governor George W. Bush commutes Lucas's death sentence to life, citing doubts about his guilt. It is the only commutation of his governorship.
March 12, 2001
Henry Lee Lucas dies in prison in Huntsville.
2016
The sheriff's office releases a new forensic sketch of Orange Socks.
August 7, 2019
Sheriff Robert Chody announces that Orange Socks is Debra Jackson. Her sister had called after seeing the sketch on the news, and DNA testing with the help of the DNA Doe Project confirmed the match.
October 2025
Forty-six years on, Williamson County investigators say her killer has never been identified and ask anyone who knew her between 1977 and 1979 to come forward.
The full story
Orange Socks
On Halloween 1979, a young woman’s body was found in a concrete culvert beside Interstate 35, north of Georgetown, Texas. She was face down and naked except for a pair of orange socks. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. There was no wallet and no identification, and nobody came forward to say she was missing.
Investigators called her Orange Socks. She was buried in Georgetown under a marker for an unidentified woman.
The confession
In 1983 a drifter named Henry Lee Lucas began confessing to murders, eventually claiming hundreds of them across the country, and Orange Socks was one. In 1984 a Williamson County jury convicted him of capital murder and sentenced him to death, largely on his confession, which he later took back. Records from a roofing company in Jacksonville, Florida, suggested he had been working there around the time she was killed and cashed a paycheck the next day.
Two years later, a report by the Texas attorney general found that many of Lucas’s confessions could not be true, and that some officials had used them to close cases. In 1998, two days before his scheduled execution, Governor George W. Bush commuted his sentence to life, citing doubts about whether he killed her. Lucas died in prison in 2001. His conviction for her murder was never overturned.
A name
She still had no name. In 2016 the sheriff’s office released a new forensic sketch. DNA testing on her socks turned up genetic material from two or more men. In August 2019, a woman who had recently moved to Georgetown from Abilene saw the sketch on the news and called the sheriff’s office: she thought it was her sister. With help from the DNA Doe Project, a DNA comparison confirmed it.
Orange Socks was Debra Jackson, 23, of Abilene. She had left home in 1977. Her family hadn’t reported her missing because she had left before. Since the identification, investigators have placed her at a Ramada Inn in Amarillo in 1978 and found records of her working near Fort Worth. How she ended up in that culvert remains unknown.
Still open
Her grave now carries her name. The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office still treats her murder as its oldest cold case and is asking anyone who knew her between 1977 and 1979 to call. A man was convicted of her murder, but investigators still don’t know who killed her.
What the video couldn't include
Florida
Records from a Jacksonville, Florida, roofing company indicated Lucas was at work around the time she was killed and cashed a paycheck the next day. Prosecutors argued that a supervisor could have marked an absent worker as present.
Not one man's DNA
In January 2019, before she was named, the sheriff said testing of DNA from her socks had found two or more male contributors. The results have not identified anyone.
The only death sentence
Lucas was convicted of 11 murders, but this was the only one that carried a death sentence. The prosecutor who tried the case later estimated that at least 100 killers went unidentified because of Lucas's false confessions.
A headstone with her name
After she was identified, a monument company donated a headstone with her name to replace the marker that called her an unidentified woman.
Not everyone agreed
When the Mattox report came out, a Texas Ranger and a sheriff publicly defended Lucas's confessions. Netflix's 2019 series The Confession Killer later examined how the confessions were obtained.
The video and the record
The episode tells this case in about 2 minutes with illustrated recreations. Here is how its key moments line up with what is documented.
Debra Jackson was found beside a Texas interstate on Halloween, wearing only orange socks
Documented
Found October 31, 1979. Some records put her date of death as October 30 or 31.
Then Henry Lee Lucas confessed
Compressed
Lucas confessed to hundreds of killings, most of them later shown to be false.
Time sheets marked him at work in Florida the day Debra's body was found
Compressed
Reported as records showing he was working around the time she was killed and cashed a paycheck the next day.
Governor George W. Bush commuted Lucas's death sentence to life because of doubts about his guilt
Documented
June 26, 1998, on the board's recommendation.
Three years later, her sister saw it on television
Documented
The 2016 sketch was re-released in 2019. Her sister had recently moved to Georgetown.
The culvert, the socks, the courtroom, the sketch
Reconstruction
AI-generated illustrations. No photographs of Debra Jackson or the scene are reproduced.
What the four marks mean
- Documented
- Shown as it is recorded in court filings, police statements, or consistent reporting.
- Reconstruction
- A reasonable visual recreation of a documented event. The event happened; the image is illustrative.
- Compressed
- Real events shortened, merged, or reordered to fit the runtime.
- Dramatized
- A storytelling choice (framing, wording, emphasis) that the record does not establish.
Sources
- [1]DNA Doe ProjectOrange Socks Doe
- [2]CBS Austin (KEYE)“Victim in WilCo 'orange socks' murder case identified as Abilene woman”
- [3]Austin American-Statesman“40 years later, 'Orange Socks' homicide victim identified”
- [4]Austin American-Statesman“Sheriff: DNA found from two or more men in 1979 'Orange Socks' killing”
- [5]Austin American-Statesman“Williamson Co. sheriff: New DNA in 1979 'Orange Socks' killing”
- [6]United Press International“Bush commutes Lucas death sentence”
- [7]CBS News“Bush Commutes Death Sentence”
- [8]Houston Chronicle“Henry Lee Lucas remembered for hoax confessions”
- [9]Houston Chronicle (Outlook essay)What I found in the archives: Texas Rangers hid evidence, a killer walked freeAn archival researcher's essay; also quotes the 1986 Texas Attorney General's Lucas Report.
- [10]Houston Chronicle“Notorious Henry Lee Lucas dies in prison”
- [11]United Press International“Henry Lee Lucas dies in Texas prison”
- [12]United Press International“Texas Ranger, sheriff stick behind Lucas confessions”
- [13]The Texas Observer“Genetic Genealogy is Helping Crack Cold Cases”
- [14]Fox News“New sketch released of 'Orange Socks' cold case victim in Texas”
- [15]KVUE (ABC Austin)“'Orange Socks' murder case: Who was Debra Jackson?”
- [16]ABC 7 Amarillo (KVII)“Wilco cold case victim linked to Amarillo”
- [17]KXAN (NBC Austin)“Woman in 40-year-old cold case 'Orange Socks' now identified on her headstone”
- [18]KXAN (NBC Austin)“Mystery of 'Orange Socks' killer haunts detectives 46 years after woman found dead on Halloween”
- [19]NewsNation“'Orange Socks' killer haunts detectives 46 years after woman found dead”
- [20]Netflix (dirs. Robert Kenner and Taki Oldham)The Confession Killer
- [21]Find a GraveDebra Louise "Debra Jackson" Larned (1956–1979)
- [22]Wikipedia“Murder of Debra Jackson”
SourcedFacts in this file come from the reporting listed above. Some details are still waiting on primary records. Last reviewed October 6, 2026. How we check cases
