The Homicidal Handyman of Oak Park: Morris Solomon Jr.

As for the grisly discovery of a body on 44th Street, a block south of 4327 Broadway, the coroner’s office identified the skeleton corpse as that of 26-year-old Cherie Loraine Washington. Cherie, a mother of three, court transcripts said, came up missing during the first week in February of 1987 after she failed to return home from a nearby liquor store in Oak Park. Unlike Yolanda Johnson, Angela Polidore, and Marialena “Maria” Apodoca, police said Cherie had no record of prostitution. On the contrary, the short pretty little woman with beautiful brown eyes was good for a five-finger discount in one of Sacramento’s shopping malls or department stores. Cherie, pronounced Sha-ree, had a petty theft charge, though no record of offering sex in exchange for money or drugs. Her husband, 26-year-old *Stanley Jefferson told reporters that he would have known right away if his Cherie was a prostitute. “No, no, I would have known. I was very close to her,” he said. Stanley didn’t deny that Cherie had a problem with drugs. The addiction forced her give up care of her kids, a move that driven her deeper into “guilt and remorse” he said. Her husband said she called at least “20 times” the day she came up missing. Stanley Jefferson said, “It was really bizarre. She called all day long, talking to me. She had deteriorated physically. She was emotional. The drug would do that to her. It was all about her kids. She wanted to make sure that her kids were being taken care of right, what they were eating, this and that. She had lost her kids. She wanted her kids back so bad.” After a series of continuous calls from Cherie, Stanley Jefferson’s phone went silent. He took Cherie’s absence for another drug binge, an activity of hers that he was accustomed to. “I guess she went out to purchase, maybe, I don’t know,” Stanley told reporters. What Stanley did know was that since December, when Cherie moved into her grandfather’s house on 10th Avenue, he was having a difficult time dealing with Cherie’s situation. “My mind has been messed up the last two months and two weeks,” Stanley said. After discovering her identity, finding out how Cherie died was the next step, and it was a step that led to no answers at the current time, said Laura Synhorst, a deputy coroner for Sacramento County. Washington’s autopsy “so far have been basically negative and attempts still are being made to determine how Cherie died,” Synhorst said. “The extreme decomposition of the body is hampering the investigation.” The house on 44th Street was also a place where prostitutes and drug addicts sojourned regularly. Morris, who lived at the residence, basically had an open-door policy for vagrants and some of the neighbors were well aware of it. But in Oak Park, most residents stuck to a code of silence and stayed out of other people’s business. “Everyone knows that place was a drug house and Cherie might have gone there many times,” Cherie’s mother Barbara Williamson told The Sacramento Union newspaper. “The neighbors know there’s some kind of weirdo out there and might even know who it is, but they’re are afraid to talk.” Cherie lived with her sister *Ashlee Monica Kennedy and grandfather Samuel Williams at 4440 10th Avenue in Oak Park, a few blocks from where she was found in a shallow grave on 44th Street. In regards to the investigation of the young women’s deaths, the Sacramento police had a total of six dead bodies — four dug out of shallow graves and two unidentified — but no substantial evidence of how they were murdered or if they were in fact killed intentionally. What the police did have was circumstantial evidence — houses in Oak Park, back yards, makeshift graves, and corpses — that pointed in the direction of Morris Solomon Jr., the home-repair guy who was once diagnosed by as a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender. It turned out be enough facts (including his criminal background, a stint in prison, and time in a California mental institution) to get Morris off the streets, and away from houses in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood. The handyman knew he was under suspicion and so did his neighbors, who said the police had his 21st Avenue address constantly under surveillance around the clock. Morris continued to act normal and made no moves to skip town. “He told me hadn’t hurt anybody,” said Homer “Cosmo” Watkins, a repair contractor who worked with Morris on a variety of assignments. “I asked him who he thought did it. He said he had no idea.” Nearly a month ago, Cosmo bumped into one of the handyman’s former mates. The woman questioned Cosmo about the dead body found in a closet on 4th Avenue and told the repair contractor about a bad experience she had with Morris. “She asked me if I thought he killed the girl in the closet,” Cosmo told a reporter. “I said no, because Morris didn’t seem like that kind of guy to me. But then she said, “When I was living with him, he almost choked me to death. She was really afraid of him,” Cosmo said of the woman. The way the case was shaping up, Sacramento police Chief John “Jack” Kearns wasted no time to declare that Morris “fits the pattern” of a serial killer. Chief Kearns said, “We’re continuing to look for additional victims. Anyone who might have seen him with any of the victims call us.”