The Murder of Tashauna Jackson (Connecticut)

Previously on Dark Downeast, you heard the story of Denise Hart and her still unsolved homicide in Vermont. I mentioned in that episode the case of another woman who grew up in the same city and around the same people as Denise. So, that’s the story I’m going to tell you in this episode – the story of a young mother who walked out the door and got into a waiting vehicle with someone she and her family thought they knew, only to have her life end in his hands.

Tashauna is Missing

It was around 9 p.m. on the night of Tuesday, August 11, 2015 when 24-year old Tashauna Jackson walked out of her mother’s apartment on Barbour Street in Hartford, Connecticut. She stopped in for only a few minutes, and said she was waiting for a ride. According to reporting by David Owens and Nicholas Rondinone for the Hartford Courant, Tashauna’s mother Tasha Fitch didn’t see the car Tashauna got into that night, or the person picking her driving, but a telltale rumble led her to believe it was a guy named Robert Lee Graham. His truck was recognizably loud when it rolled down Barbour Street.

Where the pair was off to that night, what the plan was for their evening, the only people who know the truth are Tashauna and Robert. What we do know is that Tashauna never returned home.

Tasha was immediately concerned when that Wednesday passed without any sign of her daughter. Tashauna had a 5-year old son, Kah-mari, and she wouldn’t be away from him if she didn’t have to be, certainly not without calling. Her mother waited as long as she could stand it before calling Hartford Police to report Tashauna missing.

As Tasha spoke anxiously into the phone, relaying all the info she could to the officer on the other end, the man whose car Tashauna was last seen getting into was actually there. Robert Lee Graham watched as Tasha described her daughter to police and explained that Tashauna had never done this before, just not come home after a night out. Something had to be very wrong.

The first public reporting about Tashauna’s disappearance wasn’t until three days later on August 15. Nicholas Rondinone writes for the Hartford Courant that Tashauna got into a man’s car on her own free will and police had since spoken with that man and located his vehicle. The media was not publishing the name of the man. Not yet. However, police stated in no uncertain terms that what they learned during the first crucial days of the search for Tashauna left them extremely concerned for her safety.

Search & Discovery

The search for Tashauna Jackson began almost immediately all over Hartford and in neighboring communities. Her family and friends held a vigil on August 17, and the next morning, August 18, exactly a week after Tashauna was last seen, those same family and friends joined law enforcement at the entrance of Keney Park. The boundaries of the park stretch to the top of Barbour Street where Tashauna was last seen, and police said that their investigation and conversations with witnesses so far had directed their search to that area.

Keney Park is one of New England’s largest public parks and the largest in Hartford. Though the landscape is pastoral and green and beautiful, complete with a public golf course and scenic walking paths, it’s also been the setting of several unrelated homicide cases, some of which remain unsolved.

Tasha was there with the search group, scouring the wooded area on foot for any sign that her daughter had been in Keney Park and yet hoping they wouldn’t find her. Tasha was wracked with mixed emotions, praying that she’d soon have answers about where her daughter might be. She maintained hope that she’d once again see her daughter alive, that her grandson would get his mom back, but was preparing for any outcome.

More than a dozen police dogs with their handlers sniffed furiously at the ground, and as the volunteers dispersed throughout the several-hundred acre park, another contingent of searchers moved beyond the park’s borders and walked along Granby Street and into the neighboring town of Bloomfield. The searchers on Granby street spoke to passersby and employees at businesses along the road, telling them they were looking for a 24-year old Black woman with facial piercings and several tattoos, asking if they’d seen anyone who matched that description. Instead of any reported sightings of Tashauna though, the volunteers followed a tip about something unusual behind a live butcher shop.

Ari Mason reports for NBC Connecticut that law enforcement searching in another area responded to the site of the shop, and about 30 feet into a wooded area behind the building they located a badly decomposed mostly nude female body partially concealed beneath some brush. Tashauna’s brother Andrew was at the scene as law enforcement photographed the body. He confirmed that the two tattoos belonged to his sister.

Tashuana Jackson’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

Mentioned in this Episode

The Deck: Linda “LuLu Ree” Ceasar – 9 of Spades, Connecticut