Imagine settling in for a quiet evening at home and watching a Netflix series called The Confession Killer. This documentary details the alleged crimes of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. You get into the second episode, and journalist Hugh Aynesworth details an investigation into Lucas's alibi for the 1979 Orange Socks Case. The case was given this name due to the orange socks that the unidentified female victim was wearing. In 2019, DNA evidence identified the victim as Debra Louise Jackson. In the Netflix show, Aynesworth cues in the video footage that he captured in 1985 while conducting his investigation into Lucas's alibi. This grainy and shaky footage taken from a car window pans down an easily recognizable 200 block of East 10th Street as it appeared in 1985.
You certainly don't expect to see your house shown in a documentary about an alleged serial killer. Perhaps even more shocking is how relatively unchanged this block is. All of the homes are still standing, and the biggest change appears to be the landscaping. The year this film footage was taken, 1985, is significant because 1985 is the year that the architectural resource survey was conducted for Springfield. This survey is the foundation of the majority of research that is conducted in Historic Springfield and included amazing black and white photos of almost every historical resource in the district. This footage presents us with a unique and unprecedented opportunity to see this whole block in living color. It just goes to show that you can find historical resources for your home in the most unlikely of places!