Mystery of 'Orange Socks' killer haunts detectives 46 years after woman found dead on Halloween

AUSTIN (KXAN) — It's Williamson County's oldest cold case: a woman found dead on Halloween in 1979.

Her body was found in a ditch along Interstate 35 near Georgetown, and she was wearing nothing but a pair of orange socks. With no other way to identify her, the young woman became known as "Orange Socks" to investigators for more than four decades.

Several years into the investigation, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the murder of “Orange Socks,” along with hundreds of other killings across the country — only to later take back that confession.

Forty years after her body was found, Williamson County law enforcement announced a major breakthrough in the case in 2019: they identified the woman as 23-year-old Debra Louise Jackson, also known as Debra Louise Larned, of Abilene, and were able to inscribe her name on her headstone.  

Still, the question of who strangled Jackson and left her on the side of the road lingers. This week on "Unsolved: Central Texas," Avery Travis sits down with Williamson County Sheriff’s Office Det. Mark McKinney to dig into the case that’s haunted investigators for 46 years.

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