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Kenneth Jackson - Serial Killer Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:06
Speaker 1: On September thirteenth, two thousand and seven, a woman's body
0:10
Speaker 1: was found in the burnt out remains of a stolen
0:13
Speaker 1: van in Hillsborough County, Florida.
0:17
Speaker 2: When she was jogging in the early morning darkness, he
0:20
Speaker 2: abducted her and dragged her into a secluded location just
0:24
Speaker 2: off of a main roadway, where he raped her and
0:27
Speaker 2: stabbed her to death.
0:28
Speaker 3: She did nothing wrong, She was just a victim of
0:31
Speaker 3: an evil person.
0:33
Speaker 1: Investigators were struggling to find any clues, but the killer's
0:37
Speaker 1: loose lips soon led detectives to his door.
0:40
Speaker 4: When the news came on about a body, he seemed
0:44
Speaker 4: to kind of excited about the whole conversation. It was
0:47
Speaker 4: almost as if he had more information than what she
0:49
Speaker 4: even heard on the TV.
0:52
Speaker 1: The man in question was unemployed twenty five year old
0:55
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson.
0:57
Speaker 5: Jackson showed absolutely no rom morphs for what he had done.
1:02
Speaker 5: Is a psychopathic killer.
1:04
Speaker 6: He was so proud of what he'd done that he
1:08
Speaker 6: had to talk about it.
1:10
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson had inadvertently revealed himself as one of the
1:13
Speaker 1: world's most evil killers. On June fifth, twenty thirteen, thirteen
1:43
Speaker 1: year old Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to death after being
1:47
Speaker 1: found guilty of murdering mother of three, Kouktran. He'd ambushed
1:52
Speaker 1: her while she was out on an early morning run
1:55
Speaker 1: in her hometown of Sefna, a small community just outside
1:59
Speaker 1: tam in Florida.
2:01
Speaker 7: We're talking about a very small area of Florida, so
2:05
Speaker 7: you can imagine a murder would send shop waves through
2:08
Speaker 7: that small community. They were literally horrifying.
2:13
Speaker 6: I think the impact only reinforced the notion that women
2:18
Speaker 6: aren't safe running alone in the dark. They're an easy target.
2:24
Speaker 6: No matter how many self defense classes they may take,
2:29
Speaker 6: or they may carry a pepper spray. It's not enough.
2:34
Speaker 6: It's just an element of surprise and the strength of
2:38
Speaker 6: the predators too much for any woman to overcome.
2:43
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson showed no remorse for taking the life of
2:47
Speaker 1: an innocent woman.
2:49
Speaker 3: He had no emotion to the fact that this was
2:53
Speaker 3: a woman with children's school age children that she was
3:00
Speaker 3: working to take care of. He didn't have respect for
3:04
Speaker 3: life in general. He didn't seem to care. Everything was
3:08
Speaker 3: only about himself at our times.
3:14
Speaker 1: This killer story begins on June twenty sixth, nineteen eighty two.
3:19
Speaker 1: Kenneth Ray Jackson was born in Hillsborough County, Florida. He
3:24
Speaker 1: was the product of an inappropriate and unlawful relationship.
3:28
Speaker 7: It's hard to imagine a less satisfactory childhood than Kenny Jackson's.
3:33
Speaker 7: His mother when he was conceived was fourteen, her partner
3:37
Speaker 7: at the time was twenty eight. She gave him up
3:40
Speaker 7: effectively at the age of six months, to her mother,
3:43
Speaker 7: his grandmother, and her boyfriend.
3:46
Speaker 2: Kenny did have a rough upbringing. He was moved around
3:50
Speaker 2: from different family members. He suffered some abuse when he
3:54
Speaker 2: was growing up, physical abuse. He saw a lot of abuse.
3:57
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just at home where Jackson had a
4:00
Speaker 1: difficult time.
4:01
Speaker 7: Probably inevitably, Jackson's school reports reflected that he was aggressive,
4:07
Speaker 7: he was belligerent in casts, he was just a really,
4:11
Speaker 7: really difficult boy.
4:14
Speaker 5: His teachers raised concerns about his behavior, about the way
4:19
Speaker 5: he was turned out when he came to school, and
4:23
Speaker 5: they had huge difficulties finding who his guardians even were.
4:29
Speaker 5: Who it was who was supposed to be looking after
4:31
Speaker 5: this child. I don't think he had any stability in
4:35
Speaker 5: his life, so not surprising that he turned towards criminality.
4:44
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, at the age of twenty one,
4:47
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to five years in prison after
4:51
Speaker 1: a spate of car thefts. He was released four years
4:55
Speaker 1: later on July the twenty six, two thousand and seven,
4:58
Speaker 1: and headed to the small residential community of Sefna in
5:02
Speaker 1: Hillsborough County.
5:05
Speaker 2: When he got out of prison, he ended up moving
5:08
Speaker 2: in with a couple, the O'Neill's, Lenda and Wally O'Neill,
5:13
Speaker 2: and they allowed him to move into the trailer with them.
5:17
Speaker 7: Woolly was Jackson's grandmother's old boyfriend, the boyfriend who had
5:22
Speaker 7: been with his grandmother when he arrived with her at
5:24
Speaker 7: the age of six months. Although they must have had
5:28
Speaker 7: a very strange relationship, it was probably the only place
5:32
Speaker 7: in which Kenny Jackson felt at home.
5:41
Speaker 1: On September thirteenth, two thousand and seven, twelve miles away
5:45
Speaker 1: in the neighboring town of Gibsonton, Hillsborough County, fire rescue
5:50
Speaker 1: were called to a van engulfed in flames at seven
5:53
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. What they discovered when they got
5:56
Speaker 1: there was a scene of unimaginable horror.
6:00
Speaker 3: When the fire department put the vehicle fire out, they
6:03
Speaker 3: discovered a body inside. That of course triggered phone calls
6:09
Speaker 3: to the homicide section and supervisors had detectives respond to
6:13
Speaker 3: the area, so I went down to the Gibsonton area.
6:19
Speaker 3: At that point I was assigned to be the lead
6:22
Speaker 3: detective on the case.
6:25
Speaker 7: The body was charged beyond recognition.
6:29
Speaker 8: It was literally a mess.
6:32
Speaker 1: With no identification to be found on the charred remains.
6:36
Speaker 1: Detectives turned their attention to the burnt out car.
6:39
Speaker 3: I was told at the time that they had recovered
6:42
Speaker 3: a license plate off of the vehicle, and of course
6:45
Speaker 3: that was a start. We were able to make contact
6:50
Speaker 3: with the owner. We learned that the vehicle had been
6:53
Speaker 3: listed at the Gentleman's job site as for sale. It
6:58
Speaker 3: had been parked in the parking lot there. He worked
7:00
Speaker 3: part time at an autoparts store repairing it to sell it.
7:05
Speaker 3: He had a sign for sale in the window. After
7:09
Speaker 3: we determined that this vehicle must have been stolen, we
7:13
Speaker 3: had the van taken back to our crime scene offices
7:16
Speaker 3: at the Sheriff's office. But during this time, during the
7:19
Speaker 3: course of the day, there were other events unfolding that
7:23
Speaker 3: I wasn't immediately aware of.
7:27
Speaker 1: In a seemingly unrelated incident, twelve miles north of the
7:31
Speaker 1: torch Car, a discovery had been made in the grounds
7:34
Speaker 1: of a church in Cefna.
7:36
Speaker 4: The sergeant was notified that there were some clothing items, shoes,
7:41
Speaker 4: and some blood that had been located in front of
7:46
Speaker 4: the Saint Francis Church on five point seventy nine north
7:50
Speaker 4: of MLK.
7:53
Speaker 3: There had been a yard crew and they had actually
7:58
Speaker 3: been mowing the lawns found this bloody clothing and a
8:03
Speaker 3: Sheriff's Office deputy had gone out there and they had
8:06
Speaker 3: recovered some of that clothing and items that were left behind.
8:11
Speaker 1: At this stage, police were unsure about whether these two
8:14
Speaker 1: events were connected until a panicked young man contacted them
8:18
Speaker 1: for help.
8:22
Speaker 3: Three in the afternoon or so, I received a call
8:25
Speaker 3: from my dispatch saying there was a young man there
8:30
Speaker 3: who was looking for his mother and she'd been missing,
8:32
Speaker 3: that she had left early in the morning and had
8:36
Speaker 3: never came back. We had this person that we believed
8:42
Speaker 3: was a female and could not identify. At that point,
8:46
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, we need to check this out.
8:51
Speaker 4: Where they were calling in from was just north of
8:53
Speaker 4: where that Saint Francis church was and where the clothes
8:57
Speaker 4: and the blood was located. I went up there and
9:00
Speaker 4: I looked at the area, and that was when it
9:03
Speaker 4: was very evident that it was not a little bit
9:06
Speaker 4: of wood. Somebody had somebody had died there.
9:11
Speaker 1: The missing woman was fifty year old Vietnamese immigrant Kouk Chran. Meanwhile,
9:17
Speaker 1: more information was coming through about the unidentified body found
9:21
Speaker 1: in the van. It was becoming increasingly likely that the
9:25
Speaker 1: missing person's report and the body were connected.
9:29
Speaker 3: It appeared she had Asian features, and in learning that
9:34
Speaker 3: this was a Asian male that was reporting his missing
9:39
Speaker 3: Asian mother, of course everyone is starting to think this
9:42
Speaker 3: is our woman. I asked for some details about some
9:48
Speaker 3: particular jewelry, because this body that was burned up in
9:52
Speaker 3: the van still had lots of jewelry on.
9:55
Speaker 4: They were able to link jewelry from pictures in the
9:58
Speaker 4: house to what was on her person. So at that's
10:02
Speaker 4: point in time, we were pretty positive that Kuktran was
10:05
Speaker 4: our victim.
10:07
Speaker 1: The small community of Sefna was left in shock. Detectives
10:11
Speaker 1: had no clue who had committed this terrible crime, but
10:15
Speaker 1: the killer was about to make a huge mistake that
10:18
Speaker 1: would lead police straight to his door. On the morning
10:33
Speaker 1: of September thirteenth, two thousand and seven, in Hillsborough County, Florida,
10:38
Speaker 1: a pile of blooded clothes had been discovered in the
10:41
Speaker 1: grounds of a church. Twelve miles away, the charred remains
10:45
Speaker 1: of a woman had been found inside a burning van.
10:48
Speaker 1: Detectives believed her to be fifty year old Vietnamese immigrant
10:52
Speaker 1: Kuktran from the town of Sefna.
10:55
Speaker 3: She was a mother of three. She had an older
10:59
Speaker 3: son who was off at college, a sixteen year old
11:03
Speaker 3: that was going to high school, and a ten year old.
11:07
Speaker 2: She worked a full time job as a nail technician.
11:11
Speaker 2: She lived at home in a trailer park, and she
11:14
Speaker 2: would get up very early in the morning to try
11:17
Speaker 2: to find a little bit of time for herself to
11:20
Speaker 2: go for a walk or a jog to try to
11:23
Speaker 2: take care of herself.
11:25
Speaker 1: Cook John had settled in Hillsborough County after leaving her
11:29
Speaker 1: homeland in search of a better life.
11:32
Speaker 2: Her and her husband were part of the exodus from
11:35
Speaker 2: Vietnam in the seventies and eighties after the Communists took
11:40
Speaker 2: over South Vietnam after the Vietnam War.
11:44
Speaker 6: It sounded like a pretty horrific struggle after the war
11:48
Speaker 6: for her and her children and her husband to come
11:52
Speaker 6: here for the missus. Trying to leave a war zone
11:56
Speaker 6: and come to the United States. We as an example
11:59
Speaker 6: of the American dream. She was escaping violence of the
12:04
Speaker 6: war and come into a country where people are believed
12:07
Speaker 6: to be safe and give an opportunity.
12:11
Speaker 1: For Kuktran. However, the United States was far from the
12:15
Speaker 1: safe haven she'd hope for, and her life had been
12:18
Speaker 1: cut short in the most brutal way. With no immediate suspects.
12:25
Speaker 1: Police started to look into Kuktran's life for clues.
12:30
Speaker 3: There were some issues with her marriage. They weren't necessarily
12:35
Speaker 3: living together, but they were still good friends. Both parents
12:39
Speaker 3: were still very much focused on taking care of the kids.
12:44
Speaker 3: She would get up do some exercise. Her husband would
12:49
Speaker 3: come by in the mornings help get the kids ready
12:51
Speaker 3: for school.
12:52
Speaker 8: She would get back.
12:53
Speaker 3: From her morning exercise routine and she would get them
12:56
Speaker 3: to school, and then she would go to work. A
13:00
Speaker 3: responsible employee, got along well with everyone. She was evidently
13:05
Speaker 3: well liked by her customers. She did nothing wrong. She
13:11
Speaker 3: was just a victim of an evil person.
13:15
Speaker 1: Kuk trans daily morning run would take her past in
13:19
Speaker 1: Francis Church in Sefna.
13:21
Speaker 3: It was a very large church property where it had
13:24
Speaker 3: quite a bit of open land between the roadway and
13:27
Speaker 3: the church itself.
13:30
Speaker 4: If a car was going by at five in the morning,
13:33
Speaker 4: it wouldn't see you down there.
13:35
Speaker 1: Detectives started working on the theory that kook Tran was
13:39
Speaker 1: ambushed by her killer while she was out on her
13:42
Speaker 1: morning run.
13:43
Speaker 6: She had a routine she would run at five am
13:47
Speaker 6: and a morning before work. This was her only free time.
13:51
Speaker 6: It was really the only time she had to herself,
13:55
Speaker 6: which was even more tragic. That's all she had and
14:00
Speaker 6: dream that there was this predator.
14:02
Speaker 8: Waiting there for her.
14:05
Speaker 5: This isn't an area where there'll be lots of women
14:08
Speaker 5: to choose from, so this person had probably gone to
14:11
Speaker 5: that area before, checked it out, waited around, seeing how
14:16
Speaker 5: many people were around, whether they were likely to get caught.
14:22
Speaker 5: I don't think that this was opportunistic. I think this
14:25
Speaker 5: was targeted.
14:28
Speaker 8: We wanted to get the guy.
14:30
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the whole goal, right, you want to
14:32
Speaker 3: solve this thing.
14:34
Speaker 1: Detectives were convinced that Kuktran was killed in the grounds
14:38
Speaker 1: of the church and then her body driven away in
14:41
Speaker 1: the van that was found on fire twelve miles away.
14:45
Speaker 1: The autopsy confirmed the horrific circumstances of her death.
14:49
Speaker 3: The medical examiner was able to determine there were multiple
14:53
Speaker 3: stab wounds in the neck. The crotid artery had been cut.
14:58
Speaker 2: One of the stab wounds had cut through the victim's
15:02
Speaker 2: windpipe and would have probably prevented sufficient air from being
15:06
Speaker 2: able to go through the vocal cords so that she
15:08
Speaker 2: could vocalize.
15:10
Speaker 3: She was dead before the fire ever started. There was
15:14
Speaker 3: no soot in the windpipe or current looxide in the blood.
15:22
Speaker 1: The autopsy also discovered a possible motive for the crime.
15:27
Speaker 8: She had been raped.
15:30
Speaker 3: The medical examiner had collected blood slides and the vaginal
15:34
Speaker 3: swabs off for DNA, but we didn't have any comparisons
15:38
Speaker 3: at that point.
15:41
Speaker 5: Usually when people use fire to destroy a body, it's
15:45
Speaker 5: because they want to eliminate any forensic evidence at all.
15:52
Speaker 5: They think, I'm never going to get caught because I
15:56
Speaker 5: have destroyed every single piece of evidence. Well, fired doesn't
16:00
Speaker 5: always destroy every piece of evidence. This would have been
16:05
Speaker 5: an overconfidence, I think in that person.
16:10
Speaker 1: Desperate to find cook, trans killer detectives started to hand
16:14
Speaker 1: out flyers in the trailer park where she'd lived, appealing
16:18
Speaker 1: for information from her neighbors.
16:20
Speaker 8: There was probably one hundred or so trailers in this
16:23
Speaker 8: trailer park.
16:24
Speaker 4: We went house to house, handing the flyers out, talking
16:27
Speaker 4: to neighbors.
16:29
Speaker 8: There was one trailer.
16:30
Speaker 4: That I actually stopped at which was with an eyeshot
16:34
Speaker 4: of where the victim's house was her trailer, and it
16:38
Speaker 4: was a elderly individual that was their man, who was
16:43
Speaker 4: very inquisitive as to why I was there. So I
16:47
Speaker 4: finished walking through. It was extremely hot out that day.
16:51
Speaker 4: I was thirsty, so I decided to go to the
16:54
Speaker 4: gas station at the corner of MLK in five point
16:56
Speaker 4: seventy nine, which is just to the south of where
16:58
Speaker 4: Saint Francis Church was, And I walk in, I get
17:03
Speaker 4: my drink and I'm soaking with I've got a shirt tie.
17:07
Speaker 4: I walk up, I pay, and all of a sudden
17:09
Speaker 4: something hit me of saying, you know what, I'm gonna
17:13
Speaker 4: go get a flyer.
17:14
Speaker 8: I come back. I give the flyer to the clerk.
17:17
Speaker 4: As I started talking to her, she starts explaining how
17:20
Speaker 4: there was this individual who was in the store and
17:25
Speaker 4: when the news came on about a body and an investigation.
17:30
Speaker 8: He seemed to kind of excited.
17:31
Speaker 4: About the whole conversation and the subject matter and everything
17:35
Speaker 4: that was being said, but also it was almost as
17:37
Speaker 4: if he had more information than what she even heard being.
17:40
Speaker 8: Said on the TV.
17:42
Speaker 2: But really what stuck out to her was he was
17:44
Speaker 2: telling her he had seen couchtron jogging and the only
17:48
Speaker 2: time she did that was very early in the morning,
17:51
Speaker 2: right around five five point thirty in the morning, and
17:53
Speaker 2: that's when she was abducted. So that was pretty critical.
17:58
Speaker 1: The stranger's story confirmed the police already knew about kop
18:02
Speaker 1: Trad's morning routine, but it wasn't information they'd released to
18:06
Speaker 1: the public.
18:07
Speaker 3: This guy's talking and he's saying things that really haven't
18:10
Speaker 3: been publicly made. So that's a clue that that was
18:16
Speaker 3: a very strong Okay, we need to jump on this,
18:21
Speaker 3: and that started the ball rolling.
18:26
Speaker 4: I started asking her questions, well, you know who is
18:28
Speaker 4: this individual, you know where he lives, and she proceeds
18:32
Speaker 4: to tell me that his name's Kenny and he had
18:38
Speaker 4: just gotten released from prison. So I asked her what
18:41
Speaker 4: did he go to prison for?
18:42
Speaker 8: Do you know? And she said, I think grand theft.
18:45
Speaker 6: Daughter.
18:47
Speaker 8: At this point in time, now in the investigation.
18:50
Speaker 4: We know that the van that was burned with our
18:53
Speaker 4: victim in it was stolen from the Advanced Auto Parts
18:56
Speaker 4: literally two blocks from where I was standing at the
18:59
Speaker 4: guest and just south of where the victim was murtined.
19:05
Speaker 4: I said, where's he lived? Do you know anything about him?
19:07
Speaker 4: She said, yeah, he lives in the trailer park north
19:10
Speaker 4: of here.
19:12
Speaker 7: It turned out that this man, Kenny, lived in exactly
19:16
Speaker 7: the same trailer park as cook.
19:18
Speaker 1: Trap detectives finally had a breakthrough in the case, but
19:22
Speaker 1: all they had to go on was a single name, Kenny.
19:26
Speaker 1: They knew they had to find this man and fast
19:29
Speaker 1: before he killed again. On September nineteenth, two thousand and seven,
19:43
Speaker 1: six days after the murder of fifty year old Kuktran
19:46
Speaker 1: in Hillsborough County, Florida, detectives had their first lead. A
19:52
Speaker 1: man called Kenny, who'd aroused the suspicion of a gas
19:55
Speaker 1: station clerk when talking to her about the murder, lived
19:59
Speaker 1: in the same trailer park as the victim. Troy was
20:03
Speaker 1: reminded of a strangely inquisitive man he'd interviewed at the
20:06
Speaker 1: trailer park.
20:08
Speaker 4: Now, all of a sudden, the red flags start going
20:10
Speaker 4: off even more because now I realized, wait a minute,
20:13
Speaker 4: I wonder if this Kenny guy is the guy that
20:16
Speaker 4: I was sitting there asking myself. This guy's awful nosy,
20:19
Speaker 4: He's asking like a lot of detailed questions.
20:22
Speaker 1: Troy made his way back to the trailer park. The
20:25
Speaker 1: man he'd previously spoken to was Wally O'Neill, who'd once
20:30
Speaker 1: been in a relationship with Kenny's grandmother. While he confirmed
20:34
Speaker 1: that Kenny was in fact twenty five year old Kenneth Jackson,
20:40
Speaker 1: police discovered this wasn't the first time he'd been on
20:43
Speaker 1: the radar of law enforcement.
20:47
Speaker 3: He had had several arrests in the past. He had
20:51
Speaker 3: recently gotten out of prison. He hadn't been in an
20:54
Speaker 3: area long.
20:57
Speaker 6: While.
20:58
Speaker 1: He confirmed that Jackson had been living with him, but
21:01
Speaker 1: told Troy that he'd left town just two days before.
21:05
Speaker 3: We learned that at the time of the murder and
21:08
Speaker 3: the vehicle being burned, that he was not at home,
21:13
Speaker 3: so they couldn't give an alibi as to his whereabouts,
21:17
Speaker 3: but they did know for a fact that he did
21:19
Speaker 3: happen to be in the area where the burned van was.
21:23
Speaker 3: We haven't made contact with our person of interest yet,
21:26
Speaker 3: but we are getting verification that he's in the right
21:29
Speaker 3: place at the right times to be associated to it.
21:35
Speaker 1: Detectives that Kenneth Jackson had gone to live with his
21:39
Speaker 1: girlfriend in North Florida. On September twentieth, a week after
21:44
Speaker 1: the murder, they drove upstate to find him.
21:48
Speaker 3: We went up there and asked if he was willing
21:50
Speaker 3: to speak with us. He rode with us in the
21:53
Speaker 3: car over to the Carabelle Police Department office where we
21:58
Speaker 3: could sit down and do an audio recording and try
22:01
Speaker 3: and find out what he might know.
22:07
Speaker 1: While collecting DNA samples from Jackson. The detectives got a
22:12
Speaker 1: lucky break.
22:13
Speaker 3: During the course of this conversation. We got around to
22:16
Speaker 3: the clothes that he was wearing and he said, you know,
22:19
Speaker 3: I think this is what I was wearing that day.
22:22
Speaker 3: It's like, can we get that for you know, testing?
22:26
Speaker 3: And he said, well, I don't have anything else. I said,
22:29
Speaker 3: we'll take you to go buy clothes. We went and
22:32
Speaker 3: we bought them new shoes, new shirt. So he gave
22:36
Speaker 3: us permission to take his clothes.
22:39
Speaker 6: He considered himself smarter than the police, so that made
22:44
Speaker 6: him so careless.
22:46
Speaker 1: It was time for investigators to sit down and interview
22:50
Speaker 1: their prime suspect. They were certain of Jackson's movements on
22:54
Speaker 1: the day of the murder, but they wanted to hear
22:56
Speaker 1: it from the horse's mouth.
22:58
Speaker 4: During a course of our investigation, we put him down
23:01
Speaker 4: there where the van was burned. That was huge because
23:04
Speaker 4: he had a family member that identified him being down
23:07
Speaker 4: in Gibsonson. Why he lives in Sefner, Why would you
23:11
Speaker 4: be down in Gibsonson. So everything just started falling in.
23:16
Speaker 4: So we wanted to get him locked into a timeline
23:18
Speaker 4: as to where were you at, what were you doing,
23:21
Speaker 4: And we were able to do that, But we were
23:23
Speaker 4: also able to get him to give too many inconsistencies
23:26
Speaker 4: in his interviews. They could prove that he was lying,
23:28
Speaker 4: and he could not stick with the solid alibi because
23:31
Speaker 4: he didn't have one.
23:35
Speaker 2: Then all of the lies that he told law enforcement,
23:38
Speaker 2: the one thing he was consistent on was that he
23:41
Speaker 2: did not know kuk Trond, and they showed him photographs
23:44
Speaker 2: of her that were very good depictions of her in
23:47
Speaker 2: the year or two before her death, and he insisted,
23:51
Speaker 2: I don't know her, I don't know anything about her.
23:53
Speaker 2: I've never seen her before, even though she lived about
23:57
Speaker 2: five trailers down from his, and you could step out
24:01
Speaker 2: from the doors of those trailers and see the other
24:04
Speaker 2: trailer is how close he lived. Everybody insisted he'd never
24:07
Speaker 2: seen her before.
24:11
Speaker 6: It all as always going to I don't know nothing
24:14
Speaker 6: about this lady I ain't.
24:16
Speaker 4: Never seen before.
24:18
Speaker 5: He was obviously super confident that he'd obliterated all of
24:22
Speaker 5: the evidence and that he could sit and play games
24:25
Speaker 5: with the police, almost because they were never going to
24:28
Speaker 5: pin this one on him.
24:31
Speaker 3: We both believed that we had our guy after that
24:35
Speaker 3: first interview. We had our DNA that he gave us,
24:38
Speaker 3: We had the clothing that he gave us, and Troy
24:42
Speaker 3: and I got in the car and we drove from Carabelle, Florida,
24:45
Speaker 3: back to just north of Gainesville to meet up with
24:48
Speaker 3: one of the detectives from Pillsborough here who was meeting
24:51
Speaker 3: us halfway, so we could pass that off so they
24:53
Speaker 3: could immediately get that back to FDL the next day
24:56
Speaker 3: to start the DNA comparisons.
25:01
Speaker 1: Six days later, on September twenty six, the DNA reports
25:05
Speaker 1: came back from FDLA, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
25:12
Speaker 3: I received a phone call from FDLA stating that they
25:15
Speaker 3: had just gotten the report from their DNA analysis that
25:20
Speaker 3: said that the samples collected from Kenneth Jackson did match
25:26
Speaker 3: the seamen that was collected from the medical examiner during
25:30
Speaker 3: the autopsy of Cooktran.
25:32
Speaker 8: At that moment, it's like relief.
25:34
Speaker 4: You realize, Okay, we knew we were on point, we
25:37
Speaker 4: knew we had our guy.
25:40
Speaker 1: Jackson had lied to detectives, but the evidence gave away
25:44
Speaker 1: the truth.
25:45
Speaker 3: We had dealt with Kenneth Jackson for hours, and he
25:48
Speaker 3: said that he didn't know this person. He had never
25:51
Speaker 3: met this person, didn't even know that she was a
25:53
Speaker 3: neighbor in his trailer park. And now we have his
25:57
Speaker 3: semen in her.
25:59
Speaker 8: That is an to.
26:00
Speaker 3: Get an a restaurant.
26:02
Speaker 7: As soon as the DNA samples come back and they
26:06
Speaker 7: are confirmed as being Kenneth Jackson's, the police fly by
26:10
Speaker 7: helicopter to his new abode in North Florida to find him.
26:15
Speaker 7: But when they get there, he's not there.
26:19
Speaker 3: We had the sheriff's office up there and the local
26:23
Speaker 3: township PD and also the girlfriend's mother's assistants. She had
26:29
Speaker 3: some ideas and she thought, now, maybe they're over this
26:32
Speaker 3: one place fishing, and they were, in fact, so this
26:35
Speaker 3: was like one in the morning, but they were both
26:38
Speaker 3: up there sitting at the dock.
26:40
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson's luck was about to run out.
26:44
Speaker 3: I talked with Kenny and said, we've got some new
26:47
Speaker 3: information we need to talk to you about. Would you
26:50
Speaker 3: mind coming with us back to the station to talk
26:52
Speaker 3: about it.
26:55
Speaker 4: No matter what it was that we talked to him about,
26:57
Speaker 4: he was very obsentate against anything that we said. Even
27:02
Speaker 4: when we could point out his inconsistencies, it didn't matter.
27:07
Speaker 4: He just was like it was like water off a
27:09
Speaker 4: duck's back, you know, he just didn't care.
27:13
Speaker 1: But this time investigated is well armed with a smoking gun.
27:17
Speaker 3: I focused on the point of DNA again because I
27:20
Speaker 3: had asked him at the first interview, will your DNA
27:24
Speaker 3: show up on this lady at any point? And he
27:26
Speaker 3: was like, no, no, no, I've never met her. There's
27:28
Speaker 3: no way possible. He knew he had burned up this
27:32
Speaker 3: victim in a van. He believed he had absolutely nothing
27:36
Speaker 3: to worry about because that was all burned up and
27:40
Speaker 3: there was nothing to be found. He felt that he
27:43
Speaker 3: was safe. Well, in fact, your DNA is on her, Kenny,
27:48
Speaker 3: how did that happen? Denial denial, denial.
27:52
Speaker 2: So that your DNA just miracticusly just appeared on this woman,
27:56
Speaker 2: on this dead woman.
27:57
Speaker 4: He just appeared and someone who you've never met before.
28:01
Speaker 3: Eat someone who you don't know who it is, And
28:03
Speaker 3: you're going to sing here and tell us that you
28:05
Speaker 3: don't know how on top of the other lies you
28:07
Speaker 3: told us, and you're going.
28:08
Speaker 4: To tell us that you don't know how that happened,
28:09
Speaker 4: and you want us to just believe that, Rightwardson, we.
28:14
Speaker 6: Know what we're believing.
28:15
Speaker 3: Forensic evidence has proven to us. And he finally said, well,
28:19
Speaker 3: if you have such good information, why don't you arrest me?
28:21
Speaker 8: Then it's like, okay, we will do that.
28:29
Speaker 1: On September twenty seventh, two thousand and seven, two weeks
28:33
Speaker 1: after the murder of Kuktran, Kenneth Jackson was formally arrested.
28:38
Speaker 1: Despite his constant denial, detectives were convinced he was a
28:42
Speaker 1: dangerous predator.
28:44
Speaker 4: He planned that entire event. He stole the van from
28:48
Speaker 4: the Advanced Auto Parts, left it parked where he knew
28:51
Speaker 4: he could ambush Cooktran because he knows she walks runs
28:55
Speaker 4: in the mornings.
28:57
Speaker 8: And he targeted her. And it is as evil as
28:59
Speaker 8: it gets.
29:01
Speaker 5: This type of attack, a stranger in the dark jumps
29:05
Speaker 5: out of the bushes to attack you, is the nightmare
29:11
Speaker 5: that sits in the head of every single woman, and
29:15
Speaker 5: if it actually happens to you, all of those nightmares
29:20
Speaker 5: come to life at once. So for kop Chan, that
29:25
Speaker 5: must have been the most terrifying moment that she had
29:30
Speaker 5: ever experienced.
29:33
Speaker 4: He thought everything through all the way up until the getaway,
29:37
Speaker 4: Like once he burned the van. He didn't have a
29:39
Speaker 4: plan of what he was going to do after that,
29:42
Speaker 4: But I am convinced that he would have killed again
29:45
Speaker 4: given the opportunity. Had we not have caught him, he
29:48
Speaker 4: would have killed again.
29:52
Speaker 1: After he was arrested, information on Kenneth Jackson continued to
29:56
Speaker 1: come in.
29:58
Speaker 7: One of the other significant pieces evidence that the police
30:01
Speaker 7: received was from a relative of Jackson's who gave them
30:05
Speaker 7: a DVD which he apparently habitually watched. It was a
30:10
Speaker 7: pornographic DVD which included in particularly Asian women, and also
30:17
Speaker 7: had elements of bondage.
30:19
Speaker 8: Everything lines up that he's living out his fantasy.
30:22
Speaker 5: To me, Jackson appears to be on his first outing
30:26
Speaker 5: as a potential serial killer. He wasn't responding to some provocation.
30:32
Speaker 5: He was acting to please himself, and I think the
30:37
Speaker 5: violence pleased him, The fire pleased him. The cat and
30:41
Speaker 5: mouse he thought he was going to have with the
30:43
Speaker 5: police excited him. This is a really dangerous individual.
30:49
Speaker 1: Prosecutors felt they had enough evidence to charge Kenneth Jackson
30:54
Speaker 1: with murder.
30:55
Speaker 2: He was charged with first degree premeditated murder. He was
30:59
Speaker 2: charged with sexual battery with a deadly weapon, and he
31:04
Speaker 2: was charged with the grand theft motor vehicle of the
31:06
Speaker 2: van that he stole so that he could dispose of
31:09
Speaker 2: Miss Tron's body.
31:11
Speaker 1: Despite denying everything to detectives, Kenneth Jackson suddenly rediscovered the
31:17
Speaker 1: loose lips that had put him on the police's radar
31:20
Speaker 1: in the first place.
31:21
Speaker 3: While he was in custody for all that time. Again,
31:26
Speaker 3: that man talked. He ran his mouth to everybody. He
31:32
Speaker 3: did discuss about how he raped the woman, he killed
31:35
Speaker 3: the woman, he burned her up in the van. But
31:38
Speaker 3: one of the common threads from each of these statements
31:41
Speaker 3: we got was that he never was talking in remorse.
31:46
Speaker 3: He was bragging about it. He was so proud of.
31:50
Speaker 8: What he'd done that he had to talk about it.
31:55
Speaker 1: But if Jackson thought his fellow inmates would listen to
31:58
Speaker 1: his secrets in confidence, he was gravely mistaken.
32:02
Speaker 3: Multiple inmates came forward with all the stories Kenny was
32:05
Speaker 3: talking about.
32:06
Speaker 2: There were two of them that were in federal custody,
32:09
Speaker 2: being held in the local jail on federal charges. He
32:13
Speaker 2: made statements to each of them independently where he talked
32:16
Speaker 2: about the fact that he had seen her running, had
32:19
Speaker 2: seen her jogging, had determined that he was going to
32:22
Speaker 2: abduct her. He gave descriptions of the murder and how
32:27
Speaker 2: he went about stabbing her and what was going on,
32:30
Speaker 2: how she was reacting to him. He used a pretty
32:34
Speaker 2: offensive pejorative and describing how he sexually assaulted her. So
32:39
Speaker 2: it was pretty compelling evidence to have that in front
32:43
Speaker 2: of the jury.
32:45
Speaker 4: Getting those leads and that information from other prisoners saying
32:49
Speaker 4: that he's bragging about what he did, only boost in
32:53
Speaker 4: our case.
32:55
Speaker 1: With the trial on the horizon. Prosecutors in Hillsborough County
32:59
Speaker 1: had DNA evidence, witness statements, and jailhouse informants. But would
33:04
Speaker 1: the jury find Kenneth Jackson guilty or would he be
33:07
Speaker 1: able to outsmart everyone and get away with murder. In
33:21
Speaker 1: October twenty twelve, five years after the death of fifty
33:25
Speaker 1: year old mother of three, Kouktran, Kenneth Jackson, the man
33:29
Speaker 1: accused of her rape and murder, stood trial in Florida.
33:33
Speaker 6: It was one of the most heinous murder rapes that
33:37
Speaker 6: had occurred that year, so there was a lot of
33:40
Speaker 6: TV there and print media.
33:43
Speaker 2: We had many many witnesses and it went on for
33:46
Speaker 2: several weeks. We were seeking the death penalty in this case.
33:50
Speaker 2: The DNA was direct scientific evidence, but we wanted to
33:55
Speaker 2: give the jury and understanding of how the crime occurred
33:58
Speaker 2: and why it occurred. So we had lots of different
34:01
Speaker 2: types of evidence in this case, from DNA scientific evidence,
34:04
Speaker 2: to jail house snitches, to other witnesses that he had
34:09
Speaker 2: made statements to that connected him to the crime.
34:12
Speaker 4: He planned this entire thing out to the point of
34:14
Speaker 4: stealing a van so that he can then stalk his prey.
34:18
Speaker 2: This was an extremely premeditated murder driven by an extremely
34:24
Speaker 2: evil motivation.
34:27
Speaker 1: Prosecutors were ready to present their case of what they
34:31
Speaker 1: believe happened on the morning of September thirteenth, two thousand
34:35
Speaker 1: and seven.
34:36
Speaker 2: He had seen her jogging in the early morning hours before,
34:39
Speaker 2: he had become obsessed with her, apparently, and with the
34:42
Speaker 2: idea of abducting her. He positioned himself in an area
34:47
Speaker 2: in front of Saint Francis as Sissy Church, where he
34:51
Speaker 2: knew she would be running or jogging, and when she
34:54
Speaker 2: came along in the darkness, he grabbed her, probably put
34:58
Speaker 2: the knife to her throat. Off of the roadway.
35:02
Speaker 6: Missus Trot was surprised by this man leaping out of
35:06
Speaker 6: the darkness. There was no way she could have defended herself,
35:09
Speaker 6: and but she saw it too sudden.
35:11
Speaker 2: He took her down into this little valley which was
35:14
Speaker 2: concealed from view from the roadway, and he forced her
35:17
Speaker 2: down on the ground. He took her clothes off of her,
35:20
Speaker 2: probably ripped them off of her, and he raped her.
35:24
Speaker 2: And when she was screaming or yelling in pain and
35:28
Speaker 2: begging for her life, he began stabber in the throat.
35:35
Speaker 2: He knew he was going to kill her, He knew
35:37
Speaker 2: he was going to rape her. This just speaks to
35:40
Speaker 2: an extremely depraved level of evil.
35:44
Speaker 3: He made the decision to take advantage of someone in
35:50
Speaker 3: the dark that he felt he could overpower. Then, when
35:55
Speaker 3: he was in fear for maybe being found out because
35:59
Speaker 3: they were struggle, they were fighting, they were streaming, decided
36:03
Speaker 3: he could kill them. And then at that point to
36:06
Speaker 3: think that he could make all this go away. By
36:10
Speaker 3: destroying this person, literally, by trying to burn them up,
36:15
Speaker 3: that is evil.
36:20
Speaker 1: On October fifteenth, twenty twelve, Jackson's trial began that the
36:24
Speaker 1: Hillsborough County Circuit Court.
36:27
Speaker 2: In my opening statements, had told the jury he was
36:29
Speaker 2: trying to burn his biological evidence.
36:32
Speaker 8: Out of her body.
36:34
Speaker 2: His intent was to try to destroy her body because
36:37
Speaker 2: her body was evidence of the rape and the murder.
36:40
Speaker 6: It was all pre planned. It was extremely cold blooded, calculated.
36:46
Speaker 6: Stay with me for a long time even today.
36:51
Speaker 1: Jackson, who'd been all too keen to blab about the
36:54
Speaker 1: murder to his fellow inmates, suddenly didn't seem able to
36:58
Speaker 1: speak up in the court.
37:00
Speaker 6: He didn't show any emotion at all throughout the trial.
37:04
Speaker 6: He just was back quietly. It was kind of eerie.
37:08
Speaker 6: He had an eerie presence, this sort of calm, strange
37:14
Speaker 6: demeanor throughout. I thought he didn't mind being caught that much.
37:20
Speaker 6: Watching him, I think he had always wanted from the
37:24
Speaker 6: beginning to be able to boast about it.
37:26
Speaker 2: He appeared to enjoy the attention of the trial. He
37:30
Speaker 2: seemed to be very immature. He smiled a lot, but
37:34
Speaker 2: he just didn't seem like he was taking the whole
37:37
Speaker 2: process seriously.
37:40
Speaker 5: He has got all eyes on him. This is his
37:43
Speaker 5: moment in the sun. He's not even thinking about what's
37:47
Speaker 5: gonna happen afterwards, He couldn't hide his enjoyment at getting
37:53
Speaker 5: so much attention.
37:58
Speaker 1: Troy Morgan, the detective who'd made the initial breakthrough in
38:03
Speaker 1: the case, was cold to testify.
38:05
Speaker 4: It's a great pride in being able to get up
38:07
Speaker 4: there and testify, finding out the information that kind of
38:11
Speaker 4: linked everything to him. And that was pretty much all
38:14
Speaker 4: the testimony, you know that I really had to bring
38:16
Speaker 4: to the table was being in the right place at
38:19
Speaker 4: the right time and asking the right question.
38:23
Speaker 1: The gas station attendant who Troy Morgan had spoken to,
38:27
Speaker 1: wasn't the only witness called by the prosecution.
38:30
Speaker 2: There were witnesses who put him near the area where
38:34
Speaker 2: the van was found, and that was in the city
38:37
Speaker 2: of Gibsonton. The murder happened in the city of Sefner,
38:40
Speaker 2: and they are separated by about ten eleven twelve miles,
38:45
Speaker 2: so it's a significant distance. And there were witnesses, one
38:49
Speaker 2: of which knew him, put him walking on foot in
38:52
Speaker 2: Gibsonton that morning, and that really stood out to her,
38:57
Speaker 2: why is Kenny down here in Gibsonton walked? How did
39:00
Speaker 2: he get here? That was significant because he told the
39:04
Speaker 2: detectives and never would come off of the fact that
39:08
Speaker 2: he wrote a bicycle from Sefner down to Gibsonton through
39:11
Speaker 2: the night, and that's why he was in Gibsonton.
39:16
Speaker 1: With the overwhelming evidence laid out, the prosecuting attorneys began
39:21
Speaker 1: their closing arguments.
39:23
Speaker 2: I remember arguing to the jury, there is probably no
39:26
Speaker 2: crime that is as personally invasive as a crime where
39:33
Speaker 2: a person is putting part of their body into another
39:36
Speaker 2: person against their will. And I think this may have
39:40
Speaker 2: impacted the women on the jury, And I argued to
39:43
Speaker 2: the jury, the last voice she heard, in the last
39:46
Speaker 2: person's face she saw in her life on this earth
39:49
Speaker 2: was this defendant.
39:51
Speaker 1: The jury took less than a day to reach their verdict.
39:56
Speaker 3: The jury determined that he was guilty for the murder,
40:01
Speaker 3: the sexual battery, the grand theft auto, and the arson.
40:06
Speaker 1: It seemed the jury had no doubt in their minds
40:09
Speaker 1: about Jackson's guilt.
40:11
Speaker 2: When a jury returns a guilty verdict, the defendant is
40:14
Speaker 2: entitled to have the jury pulled a clerk asks each
40:18
Speaker 2: of the individual jurors to confirm that that is their verdict.
40:23
Speaker 2: And I've never heard this before in any case I've tried.
40:26
Speaker 2: Several of the jurors when they responded yes, didn't just
40:30
Speaker 2: say yes, that's my verdict.
40:32
Speaker 8: They said yes.
40:34
Speaker 2: I know two of the women looked directly at the
40:37
Speaker 2: defendant and said it very vehemently like that. So that's
40:42
Speaker 2: what kind of stood out to me was how much
40:46
Speaker 2: they believed in that verdict of guilty.
40:50
Speaker 1: The verdict was exactly the outcome the hard working detectives
40:54
Speaker 1: and hopeful.
40:56
Speaker 8: To be able to get a positive result. It's what
40:58
Speaker 8: you want for every case.
41:00
Speaker 4: This one here just everything just kind of fell right
41:02
Speaker 4: into place, being at the right place at the right time.
41:05
Speaker 8: Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
41:08
Speaker 3: I mean, it's horrible what the people went through and
41:10
Speaker 3: the family is what they've gone through, but it's a
41:13
Speaker 3: huge feeling of satisfaction when you can conclusively say this
41:20
Speaker 3: is what happened, We got the guy. It doesn't change
41:25
Speaker 3: what happened. It's still a tragedy, but this is what
41:30
Speaker 3: we can give you for some sort of closure.
41:37
Speaker 1: A week later, on November one, twenty twelve, the next
41:41
Speaker 1: phase of Kenneth Jackson's trial began.
41:44
Speaker 6: The murder conviction comes first, and then there's basically a
41:48
Speaker 6: second trial with the same jury to consider the death penalty,
41:54
Speaker 6: and then they come back to the same jury and
41:56
Speaker 6: ask for a vote. In this case, it was eleven,
42:00
Speaker 6: which at the time was all that the state needed.
42:05
Speaker 1: On June fifth, twenty thirteen, thirty year old Kenneth Jackson
42:09
Speaker 1: was sentenced to death.
42:12
Speaker 6: When a death penalty was imposed, he had absolutely no reaction.
42:16
Speaker 6: I don't even know that he cared. I couldn't tell.
42:20
Speaker 6: He just looked blankly ahead and he didn't offer any
42:24
Speaker 6: remorse or anything like that.
42:28
Speaker 4: I will say it was very satisfying to find that
42:30
Speaker 4: he was found guilty number one, but number two that
42:32
Speaker 4: he was given the death penalty.
42:39
Speaker 8: That wasn't the.
42:40
Speaker 1: End of Kenneth Jackson's story, however. In twenty sixteen, the
42:44
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court agreed that Florida's capital sentencing scheme
42:49
Speaker 1: was unconstitutional, which led the Florida Supreme Court to abolish
42:54
Speaker 1: the state's existing death penalty law and required that a
42:58
Speaker 1: jury's recommendation for day must be unanimous.
43:02
Speaker 2: Any case where we didn't have a unanimous verdict in
43:04
Speaker 2: the penalty phase was now subject to collateral attack, and
43:08
Speaker 2: that's what happened with mister Jackson's case. The case got
43:12
Speaker 2: reversed because we didn't have a unanimous verdict. The decision
43:16
Speaker 2: was made to allow him to plete the life and
43:18
Speaker 2: that's what happened, and he was resentenced to a life sentence.
43:26
Speaker 3: Whether he does life in prison without parole or whether
43:30
Speaker 3: he does death penalty. Either way, he's off the street.
43:34
Speaker 4: I know for a fact that that person won't be
43:37
Speaker 4: hurting anybody outside of those prison walls, and that's what
43:40
Speaker 4: we're after.
43:42
Speaker 6: This case really haunted me, I think because it was
43:46
Speaker 6: the first time I had encountered what I thought was
43:50
Speaker 6: a true psychopath. I think there was every possibility that
43:54
Speaker 6: Kenneth Jackson, if he had not been caught, would have
43:57
Speaker 6: gone on to kill other women, and that one day
44:02
Speaker 6: he might have been labeled as serial killer.
44:08
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson stalked, raped, and killed fifty year old Kutran,
44:13
Speaker 1: an innocent woman who'd done him no harm. He burned
44:17
Speaker 1: her body in the attempt to destroy any evidence. But
44:20
Speaker 1: he wasn't as clever as he thought, and when his
44:23
Speaker 1: DNA was found on the victim, his fate was sealed.
44:27
Speaker 1: He showed absolutely no remorse for leaving three children without
44:31
Speaker 1: a mother, proving that Kenneth Jackson is one of the
44:35
Speaker 1: world's most evil killers.