Lawauna Triplet

Lawauna Triplet was a 29-year-old Black woman in Portland, Oregon. Public records and reporting identify her by name and confirm that she died on June 15, 1993. While a detailed personal obituary has not been located in available public archives, the record of her life indicates she was a real person known to family, friends, and neighbors in Portland’s communities.

Because published remembrances are not available, what can respectfully be said centers on Lawauna as a person rather than on the circumstances of her death. She lived in Portland during the early 1990s and, like countless others, carried relationships and a private life that extended beyond public notice. At 29, she was in the years when hopes, responsibilities, friendships, and future plans often intersect; those who loved her knew her in ways that public records do not capture. Her identity as Lawauna — remembered today by name in official records and reporting — affirms that she mattered.

Public sources indicate investigators later described Lawauna as among the women targeted in a series of violent crimes that stretched across years in Portland. Decades after her death, law enforcement identified a suspect in her killing as part of a broader review of cold cases. These developments brought renewed attention to her name and to the need for recognition of victims whose lives were cut short. Even when details about everyday life, work, friendships, or family are sparse in public records, those facts do not lessen the reality of the person who lived.

This remembrance holds to the simple but important truth that Lawauna Triplet was a person whose life had meaning to others. Though public documentation about her life is limited, naming her and recording the date she died preserves her presence in the public memory. She is not merely an entry in an investigative file; she was a neighbor, a friend, and an individual whose life is worth honoring. May this brief tribute acknowledge her humanity and the loss felt by those who knew her.