This morning I was watching “True Hollywood Story”about the Laci Peterson murder when I was struck with memories of arecently solved mystery that had haunted my consciousness for over20 years.

The year was 1983. “Cabbage Patch dolls” were inevery little girl’s lap, Nancy Reagan was promoting her”Just Say No” to drugs campaign and camcorders madetheir debut. I was a 22-year-old kid living out my post high schoolnightmare, mired in light drug use, soaked in beer, half committedto college and trying to raise a daughter whose mother I had datedfor about 3 months before she got pregnant. 1983 was also the yearand the name of a song that artist John Mayer would(romanticize/reminisce) in 2004. I was enrolled in a creativewriting class at Sac State as part of the continuing educationprogram for adult students while I worked various jobs and tried tofigure things out.

By contrast, Teresa Hightower was a Sac State Senior from SanDiego working her way through college and just months fromgraduation. Once her degree was completed, Teresa planned to returnto San Diego and become a college counselor. She was fluent inSpanish, knew sign language and according to her mother, she wasfriendly and trusting, even with strangers.

I remember her as a somewhat wiry, somewhat outspoken, openlyfriendly and mildly spunky. Twenty years of brain edits and memoryloss reveal her in my mind’s eye as possessing a small frameand thick curly brown hair. Her skin was a light olive tone perhapsbelying my perception of her as from either Spanish or Portuguesedescent. After all this time, I could be wrong.

Memory continues to fail me slightly, but I recall that the newsmust have come on a Wednesday night in November of that year. Theevening was cold and drizzly and typical for an early Sacramentorainstorm. The streets were slick and shiny like seal skin,illuminated by the bright moon that shone down through the fastmoving cumulus. Professor Bankowsky started class late that night,he looked slightly weary, certainly more worn than usual. The classwas not large, perhaps 10 or 12 students in all, so everyone kneweach other to some degree and friendships developed rathereasily.

Professor Bankowsky positioned himself at the end of theconference table, fists clenched on the table to steady himselfwhile he delivered the horrible news. One of our classmates, TeresaHightower had been murdered two nights previous and a detective maybe coming into class to talk to us about the murder. His wordssucked the air right from the room, the collective gasp an awfulchorus.

Oddly, no detective ever did show up and the only account I hadever read about the murder was a cursory piece in the SacramentoBee with a brief description of her stabbing and the fact that shelived Downtown. And no suspects. That was it. A few words from aprofessor, a small mention in the newspaper and she was gone. Herswas a life of promise brutally snuffed out almost before it began.Eventually, a man was arrested in the case but released because ofinsufficient evidence. Then, 19 years of silence. Somewhere in thedarkness of our streets lurked the rough beast slouching towardsmore innocent victims.

I would think about her often, somehow reliving in mymind’s eye the awful film noir scene that played out in herDowntown apartment. Her murder was brutal. She was bound, gagged,sexually assaulted and stabbed in the throat. It’s the kindof scene that gets worse when you close your eyes to elude it.

In June of 2002, Teresa’s family was relieved by the newsthat the original suspect in the case was positively linked to thecase through DNA evidence found at the scene from the suspect afterhis original arrest. Some might consider this old news, but TeresaHightower deserves to be remembered by us because she made aconscious choice to attend Sac State.

Had she made another choice, gone to school closer to home,things surely would have turned out different for her. The courseof her life was sure to help others through her counseling job, thelanguages, and the sign language that she learned. Her familydeserves to know that Teresa is remembered in some way by thecollege and the city that she chose to pursue the beginnings of hercareer.