Helen Terry lived a gentle and kind life. She served her country in the military and worked hard after leaving the service to raise her baby, her family said.
That makes it unimaginable for family to reckon with her brutal end on Aug. 28, 1980.
Terry desperately fought her assailant at her apartment in Sacramento’s Valley Hi / North Laguna neighborhood, police theorized at the time. Furniture overturned and blood was spattered while her baby watched his mother suffer 13 stab wounds during the assault, according to The Sacramento Bee’s previous reporting. A suspect had scrawled a racial slur over the bathroom door and vanity mirror, authorities said. Terry was Black.
“We just don’t have any words,” said John Mays, Terry’s brother. They have a large family, consisting of 12 brothers and sisters including Helen.
Mays spoke Thursday outside downtown Sacramento County Main Jail after attending the arraignment of Terry’s alleged killer: her husband, Robert Lee Terry. He was arrested last week after the investigation languished for 44 years, the Sacramento Police Department said in a news release Wednesday announcing the arrest.