His Friend Managed to Run. Willie Couldn’t: The Unsolved Murder of Willie James Jackson

His friend managed to run. Willie couldn’t.

On the evening of October 14, 2009, Willie James Jackson, 24, and a friend had just left Sam’s Food Shop in the 7000 block of North Main Street in Jacksonville when they were approached from behind and shot. His friend ran for his life. Willie was found bleeding and unresponsive near East 61st and Main.

That was more than seventeen years ago. Every lead was exhausted. His killers are still out there.

October 14, 2009

It was a little before 11 p.m. Willie and his friend had just walked out of Sam’s Food Shop — an ordinary errand on an ordinary night, on a street Willie had grown up on. They were approached from behind by two men. Jackson was shot multiple times. His friend managed to run away.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded to an area near the intersection of East 61st and Main streets and found Jackson, 24, bleeding and unresponsive.

His mother, Lydia Seabrook, remembers the call that came the next morning as if it were yesterday.

“My husband and I were out late that night. The phone rang at 2 a.m. It was Willie’s girlfriend,” Seabrook said. “She was in hysterics. She was calling to tell me that Willie was murdered. In shock, I immediately dropped the phone.”

At the time, sheriff’s officers were still searching the area.

The investigation

“We canvassed the area and people did hear gunshots and there were numerous leads,” said JSO Detective R.A. McClain.

The early investigation produced what cold cases often produce at the start: activity, and then nothing that holds. One person volunteered a DNA swab but was later determined not involved in the murder. A photo lineup was shown to witnesses, however they were unable to positively identify the suspects.

All leads were eventually exhausted, and the assailant who killed Jackson is still at large.

The case has been passed on to Richelle Starling, a retired narcotics officer and current Logistical Technical Service Officer with JSO. She works with detectives who are working to solve cold cases.

Starling said because more than one assailant was involved, at some point more information about the case could materialize and lead to an arrest.

No motive has been publicly established for Willie’s murder. No suspect has been publicly named. No one has been charged. Those are the facts as they stand in the public record — and they have stood that way for more than seventeen years.

Who Willie was

What his mother wants people to know is the Jackson who loved dogs, singing, pears, banana pudding, spaghetti, and playing his trumpet.

“Everybody loved him,” she said.

Seabrook said her son was a devoted and loving father to his two children, Liquauiyon and Kaniyah Jackson, who were 13 and 14 when Project: Cold Case told his story in 2018. Her son had no known enemies, she said.

Jackson’s aunt, Louemma Wyche, said her nephew was special.

“Willie had a heart of gold,” said Wyche. “He had so much love inside of him and he gave so much of that love.”

His love for others was evident by the crowd at his funeral. Wyche said there were so many people at the Rosa Glover Holmes Memorial Chapel that it could hardly hold everyone.

“It did not surprise me that people of all colors were there. Willie’s love was the glue that kept this family together,” said Wyche.

Both Seabrook and Wyche agree there will be no peace until his killers are caught. Wyche implores those responsible for killing him to turn themselves in. “I pray for their souls because they will answer to our father God,” said Wyche.

Jackson’s mother believes someone — somewhere — has the key to solving Jackson’s murder.

Seventeen years

Seventeen years is long enough for a case to go quiet. It is long enough for witnesses to move, for memories to blur, for a street to change beyond recognition. It is also long enough for the people who know something to have carried it for nearly half a lifetime — and long enough for a mother to have gone back to the place where her son was killed, looking for clues, for surveillance cameras, for anything that might help solve his murder. That is what Lydia Seabrook did. She went back to the area of Willie’s murder herself.

Cases like this one do not solve because the file gets thicker on its own. They solve because someone who was there, or who heard something then, or who has known something all along, finally decides to speak. More than one person was involved in what happened to Willie that night. That means more than one person knows. Starling’s point stands: with more than one assailant involved, more information could still materialize — and lead to an arrest.

Willie James Jackson was 24 years old. He loved dogs, singing, and playing his trumpet. He was a devoted father of two. He had no known enemies. He walked out of a food shop on North Main Street a little before 11 p.m. on October 14, 2009, and he never came home.

If you know anything

If you know anything about the murder of Willie James Jackson, contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS. Tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous.

Someone knows. Willie’s family has waited more than seventeen years.

Case facts verified against Project: Cold Case, “Willie James Jackson,” by Steven Thompson, July 16, 2018 (projectcoldcase.org/2018/07/16/willie-james-jackson/), re-verified November 12, 2026. Photo: Project: Cold Case • projectcoldcase.org.