Taming the 'Big Easy': is Jackie Davis the best homicide detective in New Orleans' history? Raised by a prostitute, policewoman beats the odds with 97 percent arrest rate

Ebony, May, 1991 by Roxanne Brown

At 5'3", pint-sized Jackie Davis, clad in pumps and office attire, could be mistaken for a secretary or an administrator as she makes her way through New Orleans Police Headquarters. But keeping an office running smoothly is not her bag. This petite, rather soft-spoken woman is a tough-spirited police officer who has been called the best homicide detective in New Orleans' history.

She is the first woman to work as a detective in the NOPD homicide division, and at 34, her life is full of the stuff that movies with a bite are made of. There is no glamor or glitz - just a record that nobody dares to ignore. Of 82 cases assigned to her, she has made arrests in all but two. Behind her back, male colleagues, both Black and White, quickly point out that those numbers are for arrests, not convictions. In front of her face, they keep their mouths shut because, as anybody who has ever worked homicide knows, a detective has done a day's work once he makes an arrest.

"My job is to cover all avenues of the investigation, to make sure I have the right person," says Davis. "Once I present my package to the district attorney, he or she has the obligation to do the best that they can to present the case."

Observing Davis at work presents a clue as to what makes her so good at solving murders. She is driven to the point of mania. If a lead on a suspect pops up just as she is about to bump off of her day shift, she'll work through the night. Her platoon commander, Sgt. Davis Morales, says he as seen her sit for hours at a computer terminal searching for a lead with just a nickname, like "Big Red."

Perhaps it is a need for recognition that accounts in part of Davis' addiction to her job. One thing is certain, even though she has received 10 letters of commendation for going above and beyond the call of duty, Davis is not out to be anybody's hero. Like other homicide detectives, she thinks every time she attempts an arrest, that this might be the suspect who would prefer to go out in "amazing grace" (by killing a police officer) rather than go to prison.

Davis' most frightening encounter happened off-duty when a would-be rapist trailed her home one night. He drew a gun on her as she emerged from her car with an armload of groceries. "I used to laugh when people would say, |All I saw the gun,' but it's true - that was all I saw," recalls Davis. "I retreated back and screame as loud as I could. Then after a couple of seconds, I thought to myself, |Who do I think I am?'" Remembering that she was a police officer, she pursued that suspect. He fired several shots, one of which hit her in the leg, and resulted in her being hospitalized for three weeks. Weeks later, he was arrested and is serving time on a rape conviction.

With the danger of her job gnawing at the back of her mind, Davis pushes herself to solve every homicide case. Is it an abhorrence of murderers that makes her work so hard or is she just a workaholic? After all, she worked vice and rape, and was no slouch in either unit. For two years in the rape unit she solved 100 percent of her cases.)

To understand what drives this dynamo is to know her painful history - a past life that she finds amazingly easy to share. It is from the personal side of Davis that the grittiest drama surfaces.

After her father died in an auto accident that left her mother injured, Davis and her younger brother, Samuel, went to New Orleans to live with their mother's great aunt and uncle.

The aunt was a prostitute who ran a boarding house for merchant marines. She was also married to a seaman who was home for just a few weeks out of the year. Davis says she was about eight years old when, on one of his trips home, her uncle started to sexually abuse her. The nightmare didn't end until he died when Davis was about 14. To ad to her torment, she was raped by a boarder when she was nine or 10. "I enclose all the guilt," recalls Davis. She didn't confide in her aunt, who had tried to provide a normal lifestyle for her and Samuel. "We didn't want for anything," says Davis, recalling the happy side of her childhood. "She taught us to respect people, she always turned out for school functions, and she was very strict. I couldn't date until I was 16; I had to study and I had to clean house."

Davis' aunt died when she was 17. By this time, she had a baby and was struggling to finish high school. Davis was also attempting to come to grips with her painful childhood, the resurfacing of a mother who had neglected her, and the loss of her teenhood. A fighter, Davis completed high school, landed a job as a transit clerk, and enrolled in college. She had her eye on a higher paying civil service job, but had failed the civil service exam four times. "One day, I said, |Oh heck, let me try one more time,' and I passed."

Davis entered the police academy in 1979, determined to earn a better living for herself and her daughter, Christina. She started as a patrolwoman and later worked as an undercover officer in vice before joining the rape squad. Though Davis was smart enough to seek counseling for some of the emotional baggage she carried, it quickly became apparent that nothing was more therapeutic for her than putting bad guys behind bars. "Each rape case was like a counseling session for me," says Davis. "It made me stronger and able to deal with what happened to me."