The Scanner: Bay Area woman’s 2010 slaying in Hawaii haunts friends

Friends and family of a former Marin County resident found dead in the wilderness on the Hawaiian island of Kauai are hoping to find new clues about her killer on the ninth anniversary of her death.

Amber Jackson, who previously lived in towns in and around San Rafael, disappeared on June 24, 2010. Jackson, who was 57 at the time, moved to the Kauai area 10 years prior but remained close with friends and a nephew who lived on the mainland. She was scheduled to meet friends for dinner the day she disappeared.

“We would meet for dinner every week like clockwork,” said Teri Ceplo, who was supposed to be one of Jackson’s companions that night. Ceplo said Jackson had just broken up with her boyfriend before her disappearance.

“She was thinking of trying to move back to the Bay Area, mainly to get away from a boyfriend” who lived on her property, said Nancy Murphy, a friend of Jackson.

Jackson worked at the Hawaii State Teachers Association and concerns grew after she failed to report to work, according to the Kauai County prosecuting attorney’s office.

Jackson’s body was found a week and a half later in a remote, wooded area by a hunter’s dogs in Kealia, on the east coast of the island, her friends said. Her car and belongings were left intact at her home in Kapahi, a few miles west.

“An autopsy revealed that she sustained injuries caused by an assault,” officials said.

Kauai police never found her killer, but there are people of interest in her case and it remains an active investigation, said Justin Kollar, the Kauai County prosecuting attorney.

Jackson’s friends are hopeful that posters on the island offering a reward will someday yield a breakthrough. A series on the television network Investigation Discovery, “Breaking Homicide,” is scheduled to explore Jackson’s death in an episode that will air in July.

“The cold case may not be solved, but it definitely sheds light,” Ceplo said.

The Amber Jackson Justice Group is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest. The Kauai County prosecuting attorney’s office can be reached at 808241-1757 and Kauai police at 808-241-1696.

South Bay freeway shootings: Three shootings over a 24-hour period on South Bay freeways had motorists on high alert last week, and the California Highway Patrol is investigating whether the incidents are linked.

Around 10:20 p.m. Monday, a 30-year-old man was shot and killed while driving north on Interstate 680 north of Landess Avenue in Milpitas, authorities said.

Responding officers found Mathew Rios of Milpitas in the driver’s seat of a gray Toyota Camry. He was declared dead at the scene.

The next night, a mother and daughter were traveling south on I-680 near King Road in San Jose when a bullet went through the car’s window, officials said. The bullet did not strike the pair, but shards of glass cut the 12-year-old girl, CHP spokesman Ross Lee said.

Two hours later, around 10 p.m., a man was driving south on Highway 17 near the Highway 85 junction in Los Gatos when he heard a thud on the back of his car, Lee said. “When he got home, he looked in that area and saw what appeared to him to be a bullet hole,” Lee said.

CHP officers confirmed the bullet hole.

The 2010 killing of Amber Jackson, formerly of Marin County, has not been solved.