19th Tacoma Homicide of 2022: Odessa Easterlin
The Candy Market convenience store is on the corner of South 9th and Market. It’s an area that often has homeless individuals hanging around. One such individual was 37-year-old Odessa Easterlin. Odessa often slept near the store. People who lived and worked in the area were familiar with Odessa. If they ever went inside the convenience store, they’d recognize the man behind the counter.
Witnesses say that on the evening of April 30, 2022 at a little past 7:30pm, Odessa was sitting down in front of the convenience store when the 54-year-old clerk came out with what they thought was a stick and began beating Odessa. He then went back inside and came out again a few moments later hitting her again. When authorities arrived they found Odessa dead and that the ‘stick’ had actually been a samurai style sword. Odessa Easterlin is the 19th Tacoma homicide of 2022.
Directly after the incident, the clerk got in a car with a friend and went to a restaurant where the man convinced him to turn himself in. It would later be revealed that this man was a diagnosed schizophrenic who in 2004 stabbed his pregnant wife and daughter and was held at Western State until they determined he was competent at which point he served seven and a half years in prison. He is now, again claiming mental incapacity after this latest attack.
Odessa had her own brushes with mental illness, but was getting help. She’d also recently gotten her driver’s license and was doing what she could to get off the streets. She was known to be a giving and generous person despite the fact that she didn’t have much. Her friends and family say that she occupied a space in their lives that no one else can replace.
This murder exemplifies two issues that repeatedly come up when writing about homicides: mental health issues and homelessness. There is a common thought some people have that those who are homeless somehow ‘deserve’ to not have a home. There are even some who see homelessness as a status that effectively makes your life somehow less than another person’s life. The killing of homeless people is a relatively common occurrence in Tacoma. And of course it shouldn’t be. What Odessa ‘deserved’ was to have the opportunity to make something more of herself and live her life until its natural end. Unfortunately the mental health care system and the justice system failed Odessa’s killer resulting in his having the opportunity to harm others again.
As always I ask that you only leave a comment if you were related to or friends with Odessa Easterlin.
- Jack Cameron
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