Latest / Shades of Murder / 65: Did She or Didn't She? - The Mysterious Case of Noura Jackson

Transcript

65: Did She or Didn't She? - The Mysterious Case of Noura Jackson · Shades of Murder

• 0:01
  On June 5th, 2005 in Memphis, TN, a 39 year old mother was
• 0:06
  discovered in her bedroom with countless stab wounds and a
• 0:09
  Wicker basket covering her head. The investigation would lead the
• 0:14
  police to a very unusual suspect and result in a conviction that
• 0:20
  some claim was an injustice. Who was this victim and who was
• 0:25
  the monster who brutally murdered her inside her home?
• 1:04
  Hello and welcome to Shades of Murder.
• 1:07
  I am your host, Alita Caldwell. In this podcast, I discuss cases
• 1:12
  of murder from around the world and throughout history,
• 1:16
  attempting to unravel the layers of darkness that hell make
• 1:20
  humans and monsters. Please be forewarned that each
• 1:25
  episode contains specific and at times very graphic and
• 1:29
  disturbing details of the case. This show is not intended for
• 1:32
  all audiences and listener discretion is strongly advised.
• 1:38
  Early Sunday morning, around 5:00 AM in Memphis, TN, Josiah
• 1:42
  Cock and his wife were abruptly awakened by a loud banging at
• 1:46
  their door. They were met with an unexpected
• 1:49
  but known visitor. It was Nora Jackson, their teen
• 1:53
  neighbor from across the street. She was in a panic, yelling.
• 1:56
  My mom, my mom, somebody's breaking into my house.
• 2:00
  Mr. Cock grabbed his pistol and returned with Nora to the
• 2:03
  Jackson residence. Meanwhile, Missus Cock called
• 2:06
  911 about the incident. Once inside the house, Nora ran
• 2:10
  to the back and also called 911. When Josiah Cock asked Nora
• 2:15
  where her mother was, through hysterical tears she told him
• 2:17
  she was in the bedroom. The woman was lying on the floor
• 2:20
  between the end of the bed and the wall.
• 2:23
  She was nude and covered in blood.
• 2:26
  Her bed was also sprayed with blood.
• 2:29
  Mr. Cock ran back to his residence, screaming to his wife
• 2:32
  that Missus Jackson had been murdered.
• 2:36
  They both returned to the Jacksons residence where they
• 2:38
  found Nora in the sunroom. She was rocking and wailing,
• 2:42
  curled up on the floor, holding the phone in her lap.
• 2:46
  Missus Cock gently took the phone from the girl and spoke to
• 2:49
  the 911 operator. Josiah Cock noticed that Nora's
• 2:53
  vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee, was parked in the driveway.
• 2:56
  The weekend before the murder, Miss Jackson and her daughter
• 3:00
  had asked him to keep an eye out on their house while they were
• 3:03
  out of town. He witnessed between 20 to 40
• 3:08
  teenagers venture into their backyard with beer.
• 3:11
  He contacted the police to check on the residence, but at the
• 3:14
  time, no one answered the door and they were unable to open the
• 3:18
  backyard gate. The police watched the teens
• 3:22
  flee the scene, jumping over the fence and across the street.
• 3:26
  Once the police left, the teenagers returned, but only for
• 3:30
  a little while longer. Her instructions by the 911
• 3:33
  dispatcher, Missus Cock went inside the victim's room to
• 3:36
  perform CPR, but upon entering the bedroom and seeing the
• 3:40
  bloody state she was in, she knew that it was already too
• 3:45
  late. The woman was motionless and her
• 3:49
  expression was fixed. Missus Cock returned to the
• 3:52
  phone and told the 911 operator that the victim appeared to be
• 3:56
  deceased and for quite some time.
• 3:58
  She told them that she saw bloody footprints in the hallway
• 4:02
  that led to Miss Jackson's bedroom.
• 4:06
  Around 5:15 AM, Officer Russell Tinkeresley of the Memphis
• 4:09
  Police Department first arrived at the scene of what was claimed
• 4:13
  to be a home burglary. Upon entry to the Jackson
• 4:17
  residence, he observed blood in the hallway.
• 4:20
  In the doorway of the victim's bedroom was a pool of blood.
• 4:23
  The bed was also covered in blood.
• 4:25
  The woman was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed.
• 4:29
  At that moment, her daughter Nora rushed into the house
• 4:31
  screaming. My mom, my mom.
• 4:34
  He requested that one of the other officers take the
• 4:37
  hysterical young woman outside. Officer Tin carelessly noted
• 4:41
  that although it was abnormally hot and humid that morning,
• 4:44
  around 90 to 95° already, the daughter wore a sweatshirt or
• 4:49
  fleece type jacket. The officer observed a set of
• 4:52
  shoe prints on the bloodied kitchen floor.
• 4:54
  The window that led to the kitchen door from the garage was
• 4:57
  broken and there was shattered glass on the floor.
• 5:01
  Michelle Helbert, A firefighter and paramedic, along with four
• 5:04
  other firefighters responded to the call.
• 5:08
  She discovered the victim nude on the floor.
• 5:10
  The woman had multiple stab wounds to her chest, neck and
• 5:14
  head. Strangely, her body, in
• 5:16
  particular her head, neck and upper chest region, was
• 5:20
  partially covered with a Wicker basket.
• 5:23
  Her mouth was oozing with blood and she was no longer breathing.
• 5:26
  The woman's heart was also confirmed to have stopped
• 5:29
  beating. The victim's body felt cool to
• 5:31
  the touch, but at the time she didn't take the core
• 5:34
  temperature. Miss Jackson was pronounced
• 5:37
  officially deceased at 5:18 AM. Meanwhile, officer set with the
• 5:42
  victim's teenage daughter outside, wanting to make sure
• 5:45
  she was all right and trying to figure out who could have been
• 5:48
  behind this grisly scene. Nora Jackson told investigators
• 5:54
  about Mark Irvin, her mother's on again off again boyfriend.
• 5:58
  The couple had heated arguments, but it had never escalated to
• 6:02
  anything physical, much less abusive or violent.
• 6:06
  At the time of her mother's murder, they had been separated.
• 6:10
  Nora told them that her mother's boyfriend was an asshole, but he
• 6:13
  wouldn't do something like this. The police officer observed that
• 6:16
  the girl was strangely calm. She didn't appear to be in shock
• 6:20
  and wasn't overly emotional. She was also dressed oddly,
• 6:24
  wearing a large long sleeve Gray sweatshirt and a denim skirt
• 6:28
  with tennis shoes. It had been an extremely hot and
• 6:31
  humid June morning, already around 90°.
• 6:35
  A crime scene investigator with the Memphis Police, Officer
• 6:39
  David Payment, arrived at the residence around 5:45 AM.
• 6:43
  His first process was to walk the perimeter of the home.
• 6:46
  He knows there were multiple vehicles in the driveway.
• 6:50
  Blood appeared to be on the front door and the porch when he
• 6:54
  entered the victim's bedroom. Officer Payment was taken aback
• 6:58
  by the disturbing sight. The woman was lying deceased on
• 7:02
  the floor, her body blood soaked from what appeared to be
• 7:05
  multiple stab wounds. On the upper left corner of the
• 7:08
  bottom sheet there was what appeared to be a bloody shoe
• 7:11
  print. One of the pillows had multiple
• 7:14
  patterns of blood. There were smears, possible
• 7:17
  pulling and blood spatter within.
• 7:19
  The victim's hands were too long.
• 7:21
  Blonde strands of hair. Based on the log, 22 individuals
• 7:26
  enter the crime scene from the time Officer Payment arrived at
• 7:29
  5:45 AM until he left the residence at 3:00 PM Officer
• 7:34
  Payment, along with Officers Davison and Turnmeyer, worked
• 7:37
  the homicide scene. Davison was responsible for
• 7:40
  taking photographs. Upon arrival, Officer Davison
• 7:44
  noticed that there were no signs of forced entry into the
• 7:46
  residence and all doors and windows were locked.
• 7:50
  Thomas Heldorfer, lead homicide investigator, was in charge of
• 7:54
  the crime scene. Upon arrival, he observed what
• 7:57
  appeared to be blood on the front porch and door.
• 8:00
  When he entered the residence, he observed blood in the
• 8:02
  kitchen, hallway, hallway, bathroom, in the foyer, and the
• 8:07
  victim's bedroom. The tub, shower, and sink of the
• 8:10
  hallway bathroom were also wet. There appeared to be droplets of
• 8:14
  blood on the floor. During the investigation, 810
• 8:18
  photographs in addition to a videotape were made.
• 8:22
  The video recording of the house, which was an uncommon
• 8:25
  police procedure to gather evidence, was done in an attempt
• 8:29
  to show what they consider to be an unusual scene.
• 8:34
  The Jackson residents had so many things inside that some
• 8:37
  rooms were relatively put together where others were a
• 8:41
  chaotic mess. Jennifer Jackson's family later
• 8:45
  referred to her as a pack rat. In addition to images of the
• 8:49
  victim's body, several pictures were captured of a knife next to
• 8:53
  the sink, another knife and a Golf Club on a countertop, and a
• 8:57
  knife block which showed 2 empty slots.
• 9:00
  None of the knives were processed for fingerprints,
• 9:03
  although some photographs indicated an impression left
• 9:06
  behind on the dirt in front of the gate that led to the
• 9:09
  backyard. No casts or lifts were taken.
• 9:13
  The house was thoroughly tested for fingerprints, but none were
• 9:16
  complete enough to be identifiable.
• 9:18
  Shoe prints were lifted from the hallway.
• 9:21
  One of the photographs showed what looked like a broken wooden
• 9:25
  crate lodged underneath the bed. Evidence and areas of the
• 9:29
  residence were sprayed with a chemical product that was new to
• 9:32
  the department. Hungarian Red or Chrome Lassie
• 9:34
  Blue is a chemical that clings to biological fluid, in this
• 9:38
  case, possible blood samples O It can be photographed and
• 9:42
  applied with the gel lift to reserve as evidence.
• 9:46
  Besides the bed mattress, comforter, sheets, and pillows,
• 9:49
  multiple items were gathered for evidence.
• 9:52
  Several items at the crime scene were sprayed, including a pair
• 9:55
  of shoes, the Wicker basket, a wooden foot stool, and a light
• 9:59
  switch cover from the bedroom. There was also an envelope that
• 10:02
  contained a piece of blue plastic and a piece of an
• 10:05
  envelope that held possible hair, in addition to a condom
• 10:09
  wrapper found next to the victim's bed on the floor, the
• 10:13
  closet doors were sprayed as well as broken pieces of glass
• 10:16
  from the kitchen and a silver colored knife.
• 10:20
  Upon returning to the victim's house, Sergeant William D
• 10:23
  Merritt located additional condoms inside a table in the
• 10:27
  victim's bedroom and in a box in the daughter's room.
• 10:30
  Sergeant Merritt neglected to submit the found condom wrapper
• 10:33
  for DNA analysis since it had a plastic type surface, and
• 10:38
  instead opted to have it tested for fingerprint analysis since
• 10:41
  the database was more expensive. Sergeant Connie Justice of the
• 10:45
  Memphis Police Department Homicide Unit transported the
• 10:48
  daughter, Nora Jackson, to the homicide office to obtain a
• 10:51
  witness statement. Nora Jackson rode in the front
• 10:54
  seat of her unmarked police cruiser.
• 10:57
  The young woman passed out for about 14 minutes, which was the
• 11:00
  total duration of the drive. Sergeant Justice had to shake
• 11:04
  the teenage girl awake when they arrived.
• 11:08
  According to Nora Jackson, on the night before the incident
• 11:11
  occurred, she had attended the Italian Festival, then went to
• 11:14
  her friend Carter Kobach's house, a party in Germantown,
• 11:17
  and then ended the evening at her friend Perry Brasfield's.
• 11:21
  While at Perry's place, she had called her mother at 12:10 AM.
• 11:27
  Nora hung out at Perry Brasfield's for about 1/2 hour
• 11:30
  longer, and then her three friends, Richard, Sophia and
• 11:32
  Brooke drove her back to her own vehicle.
• 11:35
  Nora headed to the convenience store to purchase cigarettes and
• 11:38
  then pick up something to eat at Taco Bell.
• 11:40
  But then she suddenly realized she didn't have her wallet.
• 11:44
  She called Perry and asked him to check his house for it.
• 11:48
  Nora next drove back to Carter's house where she found her
• 11:51
  wallet. Then she purchased gas and
• 11:54
  headed to Eric Whitaker's residence in Cordova.
• 11:58
  She spoke with her friend Andrew Hammock, who said he wanted to
• 12:01
  come see her kitten at her house.
• 12:04
  But when Nora returned home, she never got a chance to call
• 12:07
  Andrew. It was somewhere between 4:00
• 12:10
  and 5:00 AM. Nora claimed to have entered her
• 12:13
  home through the front door with her key.
• 12:15
  She walked into the kitchen to get her kitten when she stepped
• 12:18
  on something that cracked. There was shattered glass all
• 12:22
  over the kitchen floor. Nora said she recalled turning
• 12:26
  on the hallway light, but she couldn't remember whether or not
• 12:29
  she turned on the light in her mother's bedroom.
• 12:32
  She saw that the bathroom light inside her mother's bedroom was
• 12:35
  on, and the door was open. Nora found this peculiar since
• 12:39
  her mother usually kept the door closed when she slept.
• 12:43
  She said she was the only person in the house.
• 12:47
  When Nora went to her mother's bedroom, she saw her on the
• 12:50
  floor with the Wicker basket on her head.
• 12:53
  She pulled it off and attempted to talk to her, but her mother
• 12:56
  said nothing. Nora checked her pulse and shook
• 13:00
  her over and over again, but still there was no response.
• 13:05
  That's when Nora ran over to her neighbors for help.
• 13:09
  She said that she touched her mother's face and arms.
• 13:11
  When she discovered her body, she wiped off the blood from her
• 13:15
  hands with some towels in the sunroom.
• 13:18
  There was also blood on her tennis shoes, both of which were
• 13:21
  collected for evidence. When the police inquired about
• 13:25
  anything valuable that someone may have taken from her mother,
• 13:28
  she told them that she had a high tech cell phone and likely
• 13:31
  some cash inside her wallet. Officers confronted Nora about
• 13:35
  known recent arguments between herself and her mother, but she
• 13:38
  insisted they weren't anything outside the normal kind any
• 13:42
  teenager had with her parent. She told the police that her mom
• 13:46
  was very angry because her friend Perry had thrown a party
• 13:49
  at their house recently when they were out of town.
• 13:52
  He had been allowed entry inside the residence to take care of
• 13:55
  their dog. Officers observed that the
• 13:58
  daughter had a cut on her left hand.
• 14:01
  Nora Jackson claims she had cut it on broken beer bottles at the
• 14:04
  festival that Friday night. She had been fully cooperative
• 14:09
  and open with detectives up to this point.
• 14:12
  When asked about the extent of the wound, she appeared
• 14:16
  standoffish and she was not willing to take off her bandage.
• 14:20
  Blood found at the crime scene indicated that the victim's
• 14:23
  assailant may be wounded. Based on the degree of the
• 14:26
  victim's injuries, it was posited that she was unable to
• 14:30
  leave due to the severity and quantity of the stabbings, and
• 14:33
  her killer was injured in the incident, dropping some blood on
• 14:36
  the front porch when they left. When she provided her statement
• 14:40
  to police NOR Jackson didn't appear to be intoxicated or on
• 14:44
  any drugs. She consented to a search of her
• 14:47
  mother's residence and vehicle at 7:51 AM and provided A saliva
• 14:51
  sample. Sergeant Justice took Nora back
• 14:54
  to her home and returned her phone, purse and house keys.
• 14:57
  Her mother's house keys never surfaced.
• 15:00
  A Gray hoodie was found dropped in the yard by another officer
• 15:03
  and handed over to Sergeant Justice.
• 15:05
  When the daughter's Gray sweatshirt was examined, the
• 15:08
  officer found a folded up napkin in the front pocket.
• 15:12
  It had some red spots that looked abnormal, so it was
• 15:14
  submitted for DNA testing. Andrew Hammock, Nora Jackson's
• 15:18
  friend, and Mark Irvin, her mother's on again off again
• 15:21
  boyfriend, were also later interviewed by homicide
• 15:24
  detectives and they both consented to buckle swabs being
• 15:28
  taken. Doctor Karen Chancellor, Chief
• 15:30
  Medical Examiner, performed the autopsy. 39 year old Jennifer
• 15:35
  Jackson had been stabbed approximately 50 times to the
• 15:38
  front and back, her arms and neck, and had multiple cut
• 15:42
  wounds. Her official cause of death was
• 15:45
  from multiple stab wounds. Based on the stab wounds not
• 15:49
  exceeding 6 inches, Doctor Chancellor determined that the
• 15:52
  width of the knife was somewhere between 1/2 and three quarter
• 15:56
  inches, but she couldn't determine the height of the
• 16:00
  perpetrator. Chief Medical Examiner Dr.
• 16:02
  Chancellor could not determine in what order the victim's
• 16:06
  injuries were inflicted, so instead she grouped them
• 16:09
  according to their location on the body.
• 16:11
  Two stab wounds made to the chest area pass through the
• 16:14
  right ventricle of the heart and another through the left side.
• 16:18
  She opined that the wounds to Miss Jackson's chest were done
• 16:21
  with the knife held at a 90° angle to the body.
• 16:23
  The wounds inflicted to the abdomen included the liver,
• 16:27
  aorta and the victim's stomach. The stabbings made to the front
• 16:30
  of the right shoulder wounded her right lung.
• 16:33
  There were 7 to 8 stab wounds on her neck that were made side to
• 16:37
  side, one which went through the cricoid cartilage which is the
• 16:41
  cartilage of the larynx. When she examined the victim's
• 16:44
  face, she noticed a sharp force injury to the forehead that
• 16:47
  reached the bone. There was another similar injury
• 16:51
  made to her cheek but with AV shaped end and a cut on her chin
• 16:55
  that appeared to be made with a knife or another sharp
• 16:59
  instrument that had a serrated edge.
• 17:01
  There were also stab wounds made to Jennifer Jackson's left
• 17:04
  shoulder, both of her hands, her right arm and wrist cuts, to the
• 17:09
  back of her left hand fingers and to her right hand palm.
• 17:13
  The wounds in her hands were indicative of defensive wounds.
• 17:16
  The majority of the stabs have been created by the use of a
• 17:19
  single edged knife. In addition to the massive
• 17:22
  amount of stab wounds to her body, she also had a contusion
• 17:26
  on the left side of her head, likely caused by blunt force.
• 17:30
  The wounds made to the victim's ribs were examined by a forensic
• 17:34
  anthropologist, Dr. Love, who assisted the Chief Medical
• 17:37
  Examiner Chancellor. In the autopsy, Dr. Love
• 17:40
  determined that the wounds have been inflicted by a sharp edged,
• 17:43
  non serrated knife. Doctor Chancellor proposed that
• 17:47
  two knives could have been used in the attack or a knife that
• 17:51
  had two sides, that is 1 was sharp edged and another
• 17:54
  serrated. She firmly believed that the
• 17:57
  wounds inflicted on the victim's neck had been done with a
• 18:00
  serrated knife. The exact weapons or weapons
• 18:03
  used in the killing were never identified.
• 18:07
  Regina Hunt was a local sandwich shop owner who attended the same
• 18:10
  church as the victim and her daughter who were both frequent
• 18:13
  patrons of her shop. Upon hearing about Jennifer
• 18:17
  Jackson's murder, Regina Hunt drove to their house to comfort
• 18:21
  Nora. Nora immediately told Regina
• 18:25
  that she felt uncomfortable with her mother's friends who were
• 18:27
  standing across the street staring, and she wanted to
• 18:31
  leave. Regina drove the teenage girl to
• 18:34
  her sandwich shop, but when she saw her friends Perry Brasfield,
• 18:37
  Clark Schifani, and Joey Mcgoffin's side, Nora didn't
• 18:41
  want to see them. Instead, Regina drove her to the
• 18:44
  back of the shop and made her a sandwich.
• 18:46
  She then drove Nora back to her mother's house where she pulled
• 18:50
  a bag out of her car and then they went over to Caroline
• 18:53
  Giovannetti's house where she took a shower.
• 18:56
  Joey Mcgoff was also there. Nora and Joey went to the back
• 18:59
  room together and when they returned, Regina noticed that
• 19:02
  her hair was wet and both of them reeked like marijuana.
• 19:06
  She and Nora, along with Caroline and Brooke, left to go
• 19:09
  back to Regina Hunt's house. Nora asked Regina if they could
• 19:13
  stop at the Memorial Park Cemetery to visit the grave of
• 19:16
  her late friend Anna Menkel. She watched as Nora sobbed at
• 19:21
  Anna's grave site, but she had not shed a tear when Regina came
• 19:27
  to her deceased mother's house. When they arrived back at
• 19:30
  Regina's home, Nora said she wanted to throw a party, to
• 19:33
  which Regina said that wasn't a good idea.
• 19:36
  Then Nora said she wanted to go to the movies, but Regina told
• 19:40
  her they weren't going anywhere. Nora sulked and walked off to
• 19:45
  another area of the house. Later, more of Nora's friends
• 19:48
  came over to Regina's house and stayed there until around 11:00
• 19:51
  PM. Regina went through Nora's purse
• 19:54
  and found a bottle of prescription pills in the name
• 19:57
  of someone named Robert. There were 12 to 20 pills inside
• 20:01
  that had little speckles on them.
• 20:04
  When Regina later confronted her about the pills, Nora claimed
• 20:07
  she had a prescription for Lortab.
• 20:10
  Regina calls her out on being full of it and a start telling
• 20:15
  the truth. Nora confessed that she had
• 20:17
  gotten the pills from someone at her high school.
• 20:20
  When Regina asked her about what she had done that Saturday, Nora
• 20:23
  gave her two different stories for she said she was at her
• 20:27
  mother's house, but she snuck out to go party that night with
• 20:30
  her friends. The other story she said was
• 20:33
  that she had talked to her mom who was already going to bed, so
• 20:36
  when she drove by the house and saw the lights off, she decided
• 20:39
  to not go back. When Regina pointed out that she
• 20:44
  had just told her two different stories, Nora became a very
• 20:48
  defensive and wasn't able to tell her exactly what time she
• 20:52
  got home that night. On the morning of Tuesday, June
• 20:56
  7th, Nora received a call from Sergeant Justice.
• 20:59
  She had contacted Nora about some of the numbers dialed on
• 21:02
  her cell phone to verify the timeline she had given for the
• 21:05
  night before her mother's murder.
• 21:08
  When asked about Taco Bell, Nora became flustered and wouldn't
• 21:11
  tell them which location she had gone to.
• 21:15
  Then, out of nowhere, she broke down.
• 21:17
  She sobbed and confessed to lying.
• 21:20
  According to the police, she told them she drove around
• 21:23
  smoking a bowl of marijuana. She lied because she didn't want
• 21:27
  them to think she was a bad person.
• 21:29
  So she made-up going to Taco Bell.
• 21:32
  After receiving the call from the police in her presence, Nora
• 21:36
  asked Regina if she was a suspect in her mother's murder.
• 21:40
  Nora said to Regina. I hug my mother, I touch my
• 21:43
  mother. I'm all over my mother.
• 21:46
  When Regina told Nora not to worry because the police would
• 21:50
  find her mother's killer, Nora very flatly and coldly said that
• 21:56
  they never figured out who murdered her father.
• 22:00
  Nora told her that she wanted to go shopping or tanning, but
• 22:04
  Regina refused to take her out, so she ended up calling Kathy
• 22:07
  Menkel, the mother of the girl whose grave site she had just
• 22:11
  visited days earlier. Later that day, she picked Nora
• 22:16
  up from her residence and took her over to the hotel where her
• 22:19
  aunt Cindy and Grace were staying.
• 22:21
  Regina asked Nora about the cut on her hand, to which she
• 22:24
  replied she cut it while trying to chase her cat out of the
• 22:27
  garage, and yet the day before, when asked, she told Regina that
• 22:32
  she had cut it on a broken beer bottle at the Italian Festival.
• 22:37
  Regina Hunt again called her out on having two different stories.
• 22:43
  Nora once again became super defensive and began talking
• 22:48
  about wanting to kill herself. Two days passed and Nora called
• 22:52
  Sergeant Justice inquiring about any new developments made in her
• 22:56
  mother's case. Then Sergeant Justice never
• 23:01
  heard from her after that. When Cindy Idesen learned of her
• 23:04
  sister's murder, she asked her niece where she had been that
• 23:07
  night. Nor claimed to have been out
• 23:10
  with Chris all night, but she had told Perry she was at home
• 23:13
  because she didn't want him to know she was with Chris nor his
• 23:17
  other aunt. Grace France had received a call
• 23:20
  from her niece sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 AM on the day of
• 23:24
  the murder. She told her that something
• 23:26
  terrible had happened to her mother.
• 23:29
  Then she talked to her neighbor, Sheila Cock, who was screaming
• 23:33
  hysterically, telling her that her sister had been stabbed to
• 23:36
  death. She flew from Atlanta to a
• 23:39
  Memphis the following day and asked Nora to go to the police
• 23:42
  station with her so they could figure out what was going on,
• 23:47
  but Nora refused to go. When her Aunt Grace left the
• 23:51
  police station and offered to pick Nora up at her friend
• 23:54
  Kathy's house, she insisted on staying there another day with
• 23:58
  her friends. The next day when she picked up
• 24:01
  her niece Nora, she noticed the oversized grey polar fleece
• 24:04
  jacket she was wearing and the flip flops on her feet.
• 24:07
  She promptly took her to buy some clothes and tennis shoes.
• 24:11
  Nora only selected long sleeve shirts, which didn't make sense
• 24:16
  given the hot and humid summer days in Memphis.
• 24:19
  Nora then wanted to return to her mother's house to pick up
• 24:22
  the tennis shoes she had bought her in Florida.
• 24:25
  Grace found this to be odd since the tennis shoes had blood on
• 24:29
  them and were technically part of a murder scene.
• 24:33
  After shopping, she took them back to the hotel where both
• 24:36
  herself and Nora's other aunt Cindy were staying.
• 24:40
  They did their best to be supportive of their niece, but
• 24:44
  Nora wanted nothing to do with either one of them.
• 24:48
  She just kept begging them to let her friends come get her.
• 24:51
  She only cared about being with them.
• 24:54
  When Grace later inquired as to how Noah had hurt her hand, she
• 24:59
  said she had burnt it while cooking.
• 25:02
  It is not reported exactly what happened to land her there,
• 25:06
  likely a suicide attempt or talks of suicidal ideation, But
• 25:11
  on June 8th, Nor Jackson ended up being placed in a hospital.
• 25:15
  On June 10th, the same day of her mother's funeral, Officer
• 25:19
  Turn Meyer took photographs of the daughter.
• 25:21
  At the hospital. Nora Jackson's wounded left
• 25:24
  hand, her feet, and a full body shot were taken.
• 25:28
  Officer Turn Meyer observed that the young woman also had a small
• 25:31
  bruise on her left thigh. Nora Jackson remained at
• 25:34
  Lakeside Hospital for a month over her stay.
• 25:39
  Regina Hunt visited her there several times.
• 25:42
  Nora wanted Regina to contact Perry Brasfield, but she refused
• 25:46
  to do that. She told her multiple times how
• 25:49
  her aunts were keeping her money from her, that the cars were
• 25:53
  hers, the money was hers. Jennifer Jackson's brother, Eric
• 25:57
  Sherwood, had also received a vague message from his niece the
• 26:01
  day of his sister's murder. Nora said that something had
• 26:04
  happened and to call her back. He didn't have a chance to talk
• 26:08
  to Nora when he went to his sister's house after learning
• 26:11
  about her death. Eric visited his niece 2 * a
• 26:14
  week while she remained in the hospital.
• 26:16
  Over that month, when he would ask her if she had any idea as
• 26:19
  to who killed her mother, all Nora would do was put her head
• 26:24
  down and not say anything. Nora once again changed her
• 26:29
  story. When her Uncle Eric asked about
• 26:31
  the wound on her hand. She claimed she cut it while
• 26:34
  jumping a barbed wire fence at the Italian festival.
• 26:39
  But then about a week later, he asked her the same thing, and
• 26:42
  this time she said she burned her hand on the stove.
• 26:47
  During her extended hospital stay, the homicide investigators
• 26:50
  turned up some surprising evidence.
• 26:53
  The investigation intent, Nora's alleged activities the night
• 26:57
  before, and the morning she found her mother's dead body
• 27:00
  revealed the following Nora had told the police that her mother
• 27:03
  had called her and told her to get back home, but when she
• 27:06
  drove by and saw the lights were off, she decided to not go
• 27:09
  inside. They located a receipt for
• 27:12
  cigarettes purchased from the BP gas station at 12:46 AM with
• 27:16
  Nora's signature. Nora Jackson claimed that she
• 27:19
  didn't return home until around 4:00 AM, but phone records
• 27:23
  clearly showed that a call was made from the landline to Perry
• 27:28
  Brassfield between 12:30 AM and 1:00 AM.
• 27:32
  There was also an additional call made from inside the
• 27:35
  Jackson residence to Clark Shafani at 12:59 AM.
• 27:39
  Records show the call lasted 5.8 seconds.
• 27:42
  There were additional calls made at one O 8:00 AM and 3:18.
• 27:47
  AMA text sent at 113. AMA text received at 2:11 AM and
• 27:53
  another sent from her phone at 3:34 AM.
• 27:58
  A gas receipt stamped at 4:20 AM was also found.
• 28:02
  On June 17th, 2005, Investigator Helldorfer returned to the
• 28:07
  Jackson residence and peered inside the daughter's vehicle.
• 28:11
  He noticed there was a Walgreens bag in the rear trunk area of
• 28:15
  the car buried underneath some clothing.
• 28:18
  It was towed back to the Crime Scene tunnel for further
• 28:21
  examination. Inside the Walgreens sack were
• 28:25
  first aid supplies including tape, hydrogen peroxide and
• 28:29
  liquid bandages. Additional evidence collected
• 28:32
  from her vehicle included sandals, a white skirt, two
• 28:36
  floor mats, fluid samples, a paper towel with an unknown
• 28:40
  substance, and three empty skin shield packages.
• 28:44
  Video surveillance at the Walgreens store showed Nora
• 28:47
  Jackson asking for her paper towel for a cut on her hand.
• 28:51
  She had purchased these items at approximately 4 O 1:00 AM the
• 28:55
  morning of the homicide. During Nora Jackson's initial
• 28:59
  interview with homicide detectives, she never mentioned
• 29:02
  going to Walgreens in her detailed account of the night in
• 29:06
  question. Nora's aunts Grace and Cindy and
• 29:10
  her uncle Eric rented an apartment for her after she was
• 29:13
  discharged from the hospital. She refused to live in a more
• 29:17
  affordable place because she was used to living at a certain
• 29:21
  level. They gave in to her demands and
• 29:23
  found a very nice apartment at the same complex where her uncle
• 29:27
  worked, so he helped move her in.
• 29:30
  Eric told his niece that she needed to find a job to keep
• 29:33
  herself preoccupied, to which she replied she would just sell
• 29:37
  pills or something. While moving furniture around
• 29:40
  the apartment, he noticed 3 or 4 different pills and a clear hard
• 29:45
  plastic straw with white residue.
• 29:49
  Her mother's sisters and brother were generously paying for all
• 29:52
  of Nora Jackson's expenses up until the day she was arrested.
• 29:58
  On September 29th, 2518, year old Nora Jackson was arrested on
• 30:03
  suspicion of first degree murder.
• 30:06
  When her Aunt Cindy asked her niece again where she was the
• 30:10
  night her mother was murdered, specifically who she was with,
• 30:15
  all she said was she didn't know.
• 30:18
  She had been willing to support her niece in any way possible by
• 30:22
  getting her a defense attorney or anything else she could to
• 30:26
  help Nora. But things changed when she
• 30:30
  couldn't provide her with an alibi.
• 30:34
  Her Uncle Eric also began to doubt her innocence.
• 30:37
  When his niece was arrested for murder, he returned to his
• 30:41
  sister Jennifer's house along with himself, the victim, and
• 30:46
  her on again, off again boyfriend Mark Irvin had keys to
• 30:49
  the house, and sometimes Jennifer would leave a spare key
• 30:53
  underneath a flower pot on the front porch.
• 30:56
  In the sunroom, inside a plastic bin, he found the victim's
• 31:00
  wallet, which included her driver's license, Social
• 31:03
  Security card, bank debit card and a Focal company card.
• 31:08
  When her family never received any answers from her, they
• 31:12
  stopped supporting Nora and refused to post her $500,000
• 31:17
  bond. Nora Jackson was held in the
• 31:21
  county jail for 3 1/2 years before her criminal trial
• 31:25
  commenced. Shelby County Assistant District
• 31:28
  Attorney Amy Warwick was seeking a life sentence.
• 31:32
  Nora Jackson's defense attorney, Valerie Cordair, believed in her
• 31:36
  client's innocence enough to take on the case pro bono.
• 31:40
  On February 9th, 2009, now 22 years old, Nora Jackson would
• 31:44
  face her fate. Over the next almost three
• 31:48
  weeks, the jury judge in courtroom would listen to the
• 31:52
  entirely circumstantial case of mattress side made against the
• 31:56
  young woman. The State presented A loosely
• 32:00
  threaded but compelling case that sought to illustrate how an
• 32:04
  affluent, oiled teenage girl, whose main priorities in life
• 32:07
  were partying, shopping and sex, wanted to get rid of her mother,
• 32:12
  who threatened her lifestyle and most importantly, her freedom by
• 32:18
  killing her mother. The teenage girl would be the
• 32:20
  beneficiary of a little over $1.5 million.
• 32:26
  Cindy Eisen, Jennifer Jackson's sister, testified in the
• 32:29
  courtroom about an all night conversation she had with her
• 32:32
  late sister and niece during Memorial Day weekend in 2005.
• 32:37
  Jennifer told Nora, who was home schooled at the time of the
• 32:40
  events, that she would send her to boarding school or the
• 32:44
  military because she was partying too much and not taking
• 32:47
  her tests. Nora was already 18 years old
• 32:50
  and hadn't completed the 11th grade.
• 32:53
  She had attended 3 different high schools before being home
• 32:56
  schooled. Her mother, Jennifer, was fed up
• 33:00
  with her nonsense and she wanted her to either move out or go to
• 33:03
  boarding school. This was the same weekend where
• 33:07
  Jennifer was notified that a bunch of teenagers were partying
• 33:11
  at her house. Nora initially denied having any
• 33:14
  knowledge of it, but then confessed to knowing that Perry
• 33:18
  was going to throw a party there.
• 33:20
  Cindy Eitzen spoke of how things became very cold and distant
• 33:24
  between the mother and daughter from that moment on.
• 33:27
  Jennifer Jackson would end up pursuing A restraining order
• 33:30
  against Perry Brasfield for his behavior, which only added to
• 33:34
  the rage and resentment nor felt toward her mother.
• 33:40
  The victim's brother, Eric Sherwood, testified to an
• 33:43
  incident when he accompanied the mother and daughter when they
• 33:46
  visited his sister Cindy in Florida.
• 33:50
  During the trip, his sister told Nora that her drug test proved
• 33:53
  she had drugs in her system, but Nora continued to deny she used
• 33:58
  anything. All Jennifer said was that they
• 34:02
  would deal with it when they got back home to Memphis.
• 34:05
  When the three of them left Florida that Monday, his sister
• 34:08
  received a call from a client regarding the selling of a bond.
• 34:11
  Nora asked about the number of bonds she sold and how much
• 34:15
  money they were worth. Jennifer told her daughter that
• 34:18
  she's on her life insurance and four O 1K policies and would be
• 34:22
  very well cared for if something was to happen to her.
• 34:26
  Not long after returning from the trip to Florida, Eric had
• 34:29
  dinner with both of them at their house.
• 34:31
  They were discussing the vehicles from her father's
• 34:34
  estate. Jennifer said that any proceeds
• 34:37
  will either go to fund Norris College education or they can be
• 34:41
  used to pay for the back child support she had been owed.
• 34:45
  Nora became angry about this, saying that those were her
• 34:49
  father's cars, so the money should go to her.
• 34:52
  Eric Sherwood also testified how only a few months before his
• 34:55
  sister was killed, his niece had admitted that she smoked
• 34:58
  marijuana. His sister had hosted a birthday
• 35:01
  party for him in late May at their home, to which Nora showed
• 35:04
  up late. When she arrived, her mother
• 35:07
  called her out, saying that her eyes looked glazed over and she
• 35:10
  looked high. She wanted Nora to take a drug
• 35:13
  test. Nora continued to deny that she
• 35:16
  used any drugs, and the party went on without any further
• 35:20
  mention of it. Rebecca Robertson was a friend
• 35:23
  of Eric Sherwood's, and she was the assistant manager at the
• 35:26
  apartment building where Nora temporarily lived.
• 35:29
  She invited her to stay with her and her daughter for six weeks
• 35:33
  before she can move into her own place.
• 35:35
  Toward the end of June, the police arrived in response to a
• 35:37
  complaint made against another resident.
• 35:41
  Nora was visiting Rebecca inside her office at the time and
• 35:44
  asked, are they here for me? Nora appeared to be in a panic,
• 35:47
  extremely nervous and uncomfortable while they were
• 35:51
  there. Nora would only last about a
• 35:54
  month before she was evicted from the apartment complex due
• 35:58
  to noise complaints and having a pet Sheila cock.
• 36:02
  Josiah's mother resided with her son and daughter-in-law that
• 36:05
  same month of the murder. One night in March of 2005, she
• 36:10
  was witness to a heated argument between the defendant and her
• 36:13
  mother after the girl's 18th birthday.
• 36:16
  She was walking her dog around 9:00 PM that evening when she
• 36:19
  overheard the two arguing in the driveway.
• 36:21
  Missus Cock heard the defendant say, just give me the fucking
• 36:24
  money. She heard her mother tell her to
• 36:27
  calm down and go back inside the house.
• 36:29
  Another time, she recalled in the spring of that year when the
• 36:32
  defendant said to her mother, give me the money, I want the
• 36:35
  money. To which the victim replied, I
• 36:38
  will, I will. That morning that Miss Jackson
• 36:43
  was killed, Missus Cock went to her house to offer Nora some
• 36:46
  comfort. She sat with her as officers
• 36:48
  asked her about her whereabouts that morning.
• 36:50
  Missus Cock remembered how Nora never told them the same answer
• 36:54
  twice. Her story kept changing.
• 36:59
  The prosecution also presented several witnesses, friends, and
• 37:03
  acquaintances of the defendant who testified to Nora Jackson's
• 37:07
  frequent use of alcohol and drugs and her resentment of her
• 37:10
  mother. There were also many suspicious
• 37:13
  and unexplained factors surrounding her behavior and
• 37:16
  timeline the night before she claimed to have discovered her
• 37:19
  mother's dead body. On June 4th, the evening before
• 37:23
  the victim's death, the defendant was wearing a yellow
• 37:26
  tank top, a white skirt and gold sandals, as depicted in a
• 37:30
  photograph taken of the defendant and three of her
• 37:33
  friends at the home of Carter Kobach and as testified to by
• 37:37
  Kirby MacDonald. Later that evening, around 11:00
• 37:40
  PM at Perry Brasfield's house, according to Kirby MacDonald,
• 37:44
  the defendant was wearing the same top, but she had now
• 37:47
  changed into a dark denim skirt and black sandals.
• 37:51
  Even though none of the defendants clothing tested
• 37:54
  positive for blood, this sudden change of clothing was perceived
• 37:58
  as bizarre and suspicious. John Eric Whitaker testified
• 38:03
  that somewhere between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM, nor had called him
• 38:06
  wanting to come hang out. She arrived at his place around
• 38:10
  4:30 AM while he was leaving to drop his friend Dean off, who
• 38:14
  just lived down the street. John asked if Nora wanted to hop
• 38:17
  in and ride there with him, but she said no and that she was
• 38:20
  going to meet up with some people.
• 38:22
  Nora was only there for a couple minutes before leaving.
• 38:27
  Andrew Hammock described himself as having a friends with
• 38:30
  benefits type of relationship with the defendant.
• 38:33
  Andrew testified that he talked to Nora Jackson between 10:00 PM
• 38:37
  and midnight the night of June 4th.
• 38:40
  She wanted him to come over to meet her at her house, but he
• 38:42
  never did. Andrew then talked to Nora
• 38:46
  around 4:00 AM after she was returning from Eric's house.
• 38:50
  Again, she asked him to meet her at her home, but he never went.
• 38:55
  The last time Andrew Ham occurred from the defendant was
• 38:57
  when he received a text from her at 5:00 AM saying that she
• 39:01
  wanted to talk to him. Andrew Ham had claimed that he
• 39:04
  had stayed at his friend Schultz's house for two hours.
• 39:07
  Initially, Andrew Hammock told the police that he had talked to
• 39:10
  Nora Jackson between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM when she was driving
• 39:14
  back from a party. She had asked him to meet her at
• 39:17
  her house in 15 minutes, but he denied that he ever went when he
• 39:23
  was asked whether the defendant had called him at 4:47 AM.
• 39:27
  Five AM. 501-5025 O three and five O 6:00 AM.
• 39:34
  He replied that he couldn't recall if he talked to her each
• 39:37
  of those times and that he was likely asleep.
• 39:41
  He later said it was between 10:00 PM and midnight when Nora
• 39:45
  Jackson initially called him asking him to come over.
• 39:49
  Andrew Hammock identified the Gray New Balance shoes that Nora
• 39:53
  Jackson was wearing the morning the police arrived at the
• 39:56
  victim's house as belonging to his roommate, Garrett Perryman.
• 40:00
  Andrew wore these shoes when he was first interviewed by the
• 40:03
  police on June 7th. He stated that later on, a group
• 40:07
  of his friends brought the shoes in to police.
• 40:11
  Based on phone records collected from both the landline and the
• 40:14
  defendant's mobile phone, the prosecution proposed that the
• 40:18
  murder of her mother occurred sometime between 1:13 AM and
• 40:22
  3:18 AM. During this time, Nora Jackson
• 40:26
  hadn't called or texted anyone and no one saw her.
• 40:31
  There was phone activity at one O 8:00 AM from inside the house
• 40:35
  to Claude Shafani and then a text message was sent at 1:13
• 40:39
  AM. Her phone received text both at
• 40:42
  2:11 AM and 3:34 AM, but no replies were received or Jackson
• 40:48
  called Eric Whitaker at 3:18 AM. The day before the murders,
• 40:54
  Sophia Cooley saw Nora at Carter Kobach's house.
• 40:58
  She witnessed the defendant take 3 Lortabs, which is a
• 41:02
  prescription combination pain medication containing
• 41:05
  hydrocodone and acetaminophen. It is a controlled substance.
• 41:10
  When Sophia learned of Miss Jackson's death, she went to
• 41:13
  comfort her friend Nora. She talked to her while she sat
• 41:16
  inside her friend Regina Hunt's car.
• 41:19
  She noticed a small Ziploc bag inside Nora's hand.
• 41:23
  It contained a large amount of Lortabs.
• 41:26
  Later, she saw Nora Jackson at Regina Hunt's house.
• 41:30
  She described her as being upset, but not very emotional at
• 41:34
  all. Before Jennifer Jackson was
• 41:37
  murdered, none of Nora's friends had noticed her having a wound
• 41:40
  on her hand, but several testified to seeing it bandaged.
• 41:44
  Afterwards. Her high school friend Kirby
• 41:48
  MacDonald shared with the court that the night before the
• 41:50
  murder, while hanging out partying at Carter Kobach's
• 41:52
  house, some of the girls began to discuss their mothers.
• 41:56
  When Nora's mothers came up, all Nora said was my mom's a bitch
• 41:59
  and she needs to go to hell. But at the time, according to
• 42:03
  Kirby, it sounded like a relatively normal thing for a
• 42:06
  teenager to say who was mad at their mom.
• 42:09
  Regina Hunt, who had been a source of great comfort and
• 42:12
  support to the teenager in the early days following the murder,
• 42:15
  also testified that she had witnessed how disrespectful and
• 42:19
  rude Nora Jackson was toward her mother.
• 42:22
  Specifically, she described overhearing a nasty conversation
• 42:25
  between them at her sandwich shop.
• 42:28
  The defendant was furious at her mother, who was pursuing A
• 42:31
  restraining order against her friend Perry Brasfield because
• 42:35
  he had thrown a party at their house when they were in Florida.
• 42:39
  She was also very angry that she was going to start forcing her
• 42:43
  to take regular drug tests. The night before, Perry
• 42:47
  Bradsfield, Nora's ex-boyfriend, got into a heated exchange for
• 42:50
  the defendant when he showed up at Carter Kobeck's house with
• 42:53
  another girl. The conversation went from bad
• 42:56
  to worse when North slapped him in the face.
• 42:59
  Later on, around midnight, after partying with him and others at
• 43:02
  his place, Nora left saying she had to go back to her house.
• 43:06
  Shortly after she called him, she wanted to get back together
• 43:10
  and left a voicemail stating so, and an hour later a text saying
• 43:16
  the same thing. Perry Brasfield initially denied
• 43:20
  that Nora Jackson had called him that night asking about her
• 43:22
  purse or while it got missing. The morning of the discovery of
• 43:26
  Jennifer Jackson's body, Perry Brasfield went to visit Nora to
• 43:29
  check on her. He said she was walking her dog
• 43:32
  and described her as being all right.
• 43:35
  When Perry inquired as to what happened to her hand, Nora said
• 43:38
  she cut it on some piece of broken glass while chasing her
• 43:41
  cat in the house. Genevieve Dicks, an attorney who
• 43:45
  had been the victim's best friend since 1993, went
• 43:48
  immediately over to the Jackson residence upon hearing the
• 43:52
  devastating news. She noticed that Nora was
• 43:55
  dressed strangely, especially for the heat, in a long Gray
• 43:59
  sweatshirt, denim skirt, and tennis shoes.
• 44:02
  The girl was usually impeccably put together.
• 44:05
  The teenage girl just stood there, holding the sweatshirt
• 44:08
  down around her knuckles, her arms straight at her side.
• 44:12
  Although she knew Nora smoked when she hugged her, she didn't
• 44:15
  smell like it, and she had on no makeup, which was odd because
• 44:19
  she usually had on heavy eye makeup.
• 44:22
  A few minutes later, while she was on the phone, an officer
• 44:25
  approached her and said that Nora wanted to speak with her.
• 44:28
  The police wanted consent to search her mother's house, and
• 44:31
  she wanted to know what that meant.
• 44:33
  She asked Genevieve Dicks six or seven times whether or not the
• 44:36
  police could search her car. Miss Dicks stressed to Noor that
• 44:40
  she didn't practice criminal law and she had never seen a consent
• 44:44
  to search for him before. She also stressed that she
• 44:47
  wasn't there to represent her. Genevieve Dicks also told Nora
• 44:52
  that whether she consents or not, the police will get a surf
• 44:56
  warrant and go through whatever they want.
• 45:00
  She told the court how Nora Jackson was an extremely smart
• 45:03
  and intelligent young woman who had no problem clearly
• 45:07
  communicating with her. Nora didn't hide her concern
• 45:11
  over the police searching her vehicle.
• 45:13
  When Genevieve Dicks asked Nora Jackson what she was so freaked
• 45:17
  out about that they could find there nor said her bong.
• 45:22
  These interactions between the defendant and attorney Genevieve
• 45:25
  Dicks would later become an important legal element.
• 45:29
  Nora Jackson's defense counsel did their best to cross examine
• 45:32
  every single witness in hopes of creating a reasonable doubt and
• 45:36
  have the jury question their credibility.
• 45:39
  They pointed out evidence that indicated someone else was
• 45:42
  involved in the crime, or maybe even more than one person.
• 45:46
  Mark Irvin, the victims on again off again boyfriend, was a
• 45:50
  pastor with the United Methodist Church.
• 45:52
  He testified to his dating the victim, Jennifer Jackson, from
• 45:56
  July 2001 until about a month before she was killed.
• 45:59
  Irvin said that they had differences of opinion that
• 46:02
  would lead them to a breaking up every five months or so, but
• 46:05
  there was never any violence between the couple.
• 46:08
  Mark Irvin told the courtroom that it wasn't uncommon for
• 46:12
  Jennifer to sleep without any clothing during the peak of the
• 46:14
  summer, which is how her deceased body was found.
• 46:17
  However, when interviewed by the police, nor Jackson had told
• 46:20
  them that her mother either slept in a big T-shirt or
• 46:23
  sometimes just her underwear. Irvin also said that they
• 46:27
  frequently golf together and the Golf Club founded The crime
• 46:30
  scene was identified as his. He claimed that it had been
• 46:34
  missing for a couple months, so it must have accidentally been
• 46:38
  placed inside Jennifer's bag the last time they went golfing.
• 46:42
  Irvin said that he moved from Memphis in 2004 and was living
• 46:46
  in Jackson in 2005. He said that about a month
• 46:50
  before the victim's death, he took her to a Memphis restaurant
• 46:53
  where they discussed their relationship.
• 46:56
  The victim came to Jackson a day or two later again to discuss
• 47:00
  the relationship, and that was the last time Irvin saw her.
• 47:04
  The last time they spoke was on June 4th, the day before
• 47:08
  Jennifer Jackson was discovered. Mark Irvin said that Jennifer
• 47:11
  wanted to take him out to dinner the next day for his birthday,
• 47:14
  but he wasn't quite in that place of getting back together.
• 47:20
  He stated that she was disappointed, but the
• 47:23
  conversation ended amicably. That Saturday night, Mark Irvin
• 47:28
  called her between 11:30 and midnight, but when he realized
• 47:32
  how late it was, he just hung up.
• 47:35
  The defense also addressed the gaping holes in the case and the
• 47:39
  sure incompetence exhibited by the Memphis Police Department,
• 47:44
  in particular by the officers involved in the crime scene
• 47:47
  investigation. Officer Turn Meyer was the only
• 47:51
  one who documented the evidence from the crime scene, and once a
• 47:55
  hard copy was made of their collaborative report, the notes
• 47:59
  taken were then destroyed. Sergeant Heldorfer had reported
• 48:03
  that the surfaces of the sink and shower in the hall bathroom
• 48:06
  were wet, yet none of the over 800 photographs taken documented
• 48:13
  this. All of the evidence in areas of
• 48:16
  the victim's residence had been sprayed with a chemical that
• 48:20
  investigators had never used prior to this incident.
• 48:24
  The chemical clung to biological fluid and was intended to help
• 48:27
  preserve items and sections of the crime scene to be
• 48:30
  photographed and then lifted at a later time.
• 48:34
  However, after they were processed, the analyst wasn't
• 48:37
  happy with the results and the department elected not to use
• 48:41
  the product ever again. Agent Linda Littlejohn of the
• 48:44
  Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, an expert in
• 48:47
  microanalysis footprint examination, analyzed a pair of
• 48:51
  tennis shoes, 2 pairs of sandals, 3 gel lifts, and C DS
• 48:55
  that contained more than 660 photographs of the crime scene.
• 49:00
  Agent Littlejohn concluded that nine of the impressions left at
• 49:03
  the location of the murder had a similar tread design to Nora
• 49:07
  Jackson's tennis shoes. However, she was never giving
• 49:12
  any original evidence from the crime scene to evaluate, which
• 49:16
  she agreed was the best and most accurate method.
• 49:20
  When asked about one of the crime scene photographs that
• 49:23
  showed a bloodied footprint impression, she was unable to
• 49:26
  tell if there was any detail present in the impression due to
• 49:30
  its lower quality. From another photograph of a
• 49:32
  bloody imprint, she determined that although the tread design
• 49:36
  was detailed enough to be present, they were not
• 49:39
  consistent with the other shoes she analyzed.
• 49:42
  Lieutenant Mark Miller of the Memphis Police Department
• 49:45
  claimed that he never collected shoe prints from the first
• 49:48
  responders, the police, or the neighbors for elimination
• 49:53
  purposes, nor did he direct any of the crime scene officers to
• 49:57
  do so. Doctor Chancellor, who would
• 49:59
  perform the autopsy on the victim, addressed how the Crime
• 50:03
  Scene Investigation Unit had contacted her office for a blood
• 50:06
  spatter expert to examine photographs from the crime
• 50:09
  scene, but she wasn't aware if any were ever sent.
• 50:13
  Investigators never requested that anyone from her office
• 50:17
  attend the crime scene in person.
• 50:20
  Quadria Debnam, a specialist in DNA serology with the TBI or
• 50:25
  Tennessee Bureau Investigations, examined multiple items.
• 50:30
  These included a sexual assault kit, saliva samples, neo
• 50:34
  clippings from the deceased, a pair of new balanced tennis
• 50:37
  shoes, a Gray pullover jacket and a Golf Club.
• 50:41
  The sexual assault kit was negative for the presence of
• 50:44
  semen. The samples of blood from the
• 50:46
  various areas of the residence, interior and exterior, revealed
• 50:51
  the presence of the victim's DNA.
• 50:53
  The fingerprints on the kitchen glasses were identified as cool
• 50:56
  medicine. She stated that she drank a
• 50:59
  glass of water in the house on June 4th.
• 51:01
  Fingerprints lifted from the interior glass of the kitchen
• 51:04
  door also didn't match the defendants.
• 51:07
  When the top sheet of the victim's bed was tested for DNA,
• 51:10
  the profile indicated a mixture of genetic material.
• 51:14
  However, the primary contributor was from an unidentified female.
• 51:19
  It didn't match the defendant, and the victim couldn't be
• 51:22
  eliminated as a minor contributor.
• 51:24
  On one of the pillow cases, there was also a mixture of two
• 51:27
  DNA's, but there was no way to determine when the DNA was left
• 51:32
  there and when the two combined. Agent Debnam analyzed the white
• 51:37
  napkin that was discovered folded up inside the pocket of
• 51:41
  the defendant's Gray pullover. She determined the presence of
• 51:45
  the defendant's blood. The blood spatter tennis shoes
• 51:48
  revealed a strong DNA match to the victim.
• 51:52
  When the police searched Nor Jackson's Jeep Cherokee, no
• 51:55
  blood was found, nor was any on the white skirt that was
• 51:58
  collected. There was also no blood on the
• 52:01
  clothing she had worn that morning or the sandals left near
• 52:03
  the front door. NOR Jackson may have been
• 52:07
  dressed bizarrely, even suspiciously, but there was no
• 52:10
  blood spatter. There was, however, blood on her
• 52:14
  New Balance sneakers. Of course, this could be
• 52:17
  explained away by the fact that, by her own admission, she was
• 52:20
  wearing the shoes on the morning inside the house when she found
• 52:24
  her mom. Officer Martin Milner of the
• 52:27
  Crime Scene Unit and expert in fingerprint identification
• 52:30
  examined to the Ridge detail in the blood on the bed's foot
• 52:34
  board, but it was too miniscule to compare.
• 52:37
  The condom wrapper also didn't yield any identifiable
• 52:40
  fingerprints. A BlackBerry box was located in
• 52:43
  the kitchen, but it also didn't match any known fingerprints.
• 52:46
  It was acknowledged during cost examination by the defense that
• 52:49
  Nora Jackson's DNA was not located on the sheets, the
• 52:53
  pillows, the headboard or footboard, nor the light switch.
• 52:57
  Perhaps most interestingly was the fact that her DNA was not
• 53:01
  found in the fingernail scrapings.
• 53:03
  The only DNA found was that of the victim.
• 53:07
  The prosecution's case held zero forensic evidence that tied the
• 53:11
  defendant to her mother's murder.
• 53:14
  The ineffective and incompetent methods employed by the police
• 53:18
  specifically during the investigation and evidence
• 53:21
  collected at the crime scene couldn't be disputed.
• 53:26
  But nothing could change the effective character
• 53:31
  assassination of the defendant, especially by those who knew her
• 53:35
  best. Throughout the trial, which
• 53:38
  lasted almost three weeks, the state prosecutor called 45
• 53:42
  witnesses and 376 exhibits were presented to the jury.
• 53:47
  Not one witness was called for the defense, and Nora Jackson
• 53:52
  exercised her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
• 53:56
  On February 21st, 2922, year old Nora Jackson was found guilty of
• 54:01
  the lesser charge of second degree murder.
• 54:04
  Based on the Tennessee Criminal Code, Second degree murder is
• 54:07
  defined as a knowing killing of another.
• 54:10
  A person acts knowingly with respect to a result of the
• 54:14
  person's conduct when the person is aware that the conduct is
• 54:17
  reasonably certain to cause the result.
• 54:21
  On March 27th, 2009, Judge Christopher Craft sentenced Nora
• 54:26
  Jackson to 20 years and was given an additional nine months
• 54:30
  for drug possession charges. According to Judge Craft,
• 54:35
  circumstantial evidence just drew a tight noose around her
• 54:38
  and there was no way she could get out of that.
• 54:40
  But this is only where this bizarre story begins.
• 54:46
  Upon her appeal in 2012, Nora Jackson sought 12 different
• 54:50
  claims, of which I will discuss only a few of the more
• 54:54
  interesting and relevant ones. That first was easily squashed
• 54:59
  because she claimed that her client attorney privileges were
• 55:02
  violated when Misses Genevieve Dicks testified in court.
• 55:07
  According to Misses Dicks, she clearly explained to both the
• 55:10
  defendant and the police officers that she was not there
• 55:14
  as an attorney, but exclusively as the victim's friend and that
• 55:18
  in no way did she represent Nora Jackson.
• 55:22
  Secondly, she claimed violations to search and seizure based on
• 55:25
  the fact that Attorney Genevieve Dix was not her representative
• 55:29
  and in offering her legal advice, her consent to search
• 55:33
  was illegal. This was also determined to not
• 55:37
  be in violation since Nora Jackson was not intoxicated or
• 55:41
  under any kind of mental impairment at the time she
• 55:43
  willingly signed the consent to search forms.
• 55:47
  The appellant also claimed that the court erred in allowing the
• 55:50
  testimony of her substance use since the State's theory for the
• 55:54
  motive for the murder of her mother was profit.
• 55:57
  It was essential to illustrate how Nora Jackson had spiralled
• 56:01
  out of control and the reasons behind why her mother was
• 56:05
  testing her for drugs and threatening to send her to
• 56:08
  boarding school. It was also evidence of a lack
• 56:11
  of respect she showed her mother and the increased resentment she
• 56:15
  held for her. The court determined that the
• 56:18
  drug testimony was probative evidence to establish the
• 56:21
  motive. The same claim was applied to
• 56:24
  testimony that was given which showed a pattern of all around
• 56:27
  bad behavior. One claim after the other, the
• 56:31
  court declared, was without merit or that there was no error
• 56:35
  made in its allowance, including hearsay testimony given by her
• 56:39
  relatives and photographs of the deceased.
• 56:44
  Now, one of the more interesting claims the appellant made was
• 56:47
  regarding a closing statement by the prosecution which she said
• 56:51
  violated her Fifth Amendment rights.
• 56:54
  The prosecutor said just tell us where you were.
• 56:57
  That's all we are asking Nora. To which the defense immediately
• 57:02
  objected to and demanded a mistrial.
• 57:05
  However, since it wasn't direct reference to a statement made by
• 57:09
  her aunt Cindy Idesen, when she had asked Nora about her
• 57:12
  whereabouts the night or early morning of her sister Jennifer's
• 57:16
  death, it wasn't allowed. Another intriguing claim were
• 57:21
  the personal attacks made on the defendant during the state's
• 57:25
  closing statement. And I quote, when you go back to
• 57:30
  the jury room, I want you to remember that all of this stuff,
• 57:34
  all of this was brought to you by the state of Tennessee.
• 57:37
  The good, the bad, the ugly. If we were all guilty of this
• 57:42
  conspiracy theory that the defense is accusing us of, don't
• 57:45
  you think we'd have nor Jackson's blood on that bloody
• 57:49
  sheet? Give me a break.
• 57:51
  We don't pick and choose our crime scenes.
• 57:54
  We don't pick and choose the investigations.
• 57:57
  It is what it is, and it means nothing in this case.
• 58:01
  But ladies and gentlemen, this is the state of Tennessee, and I
• 58:04
  would like to think that we live to a higher standard.
• 58:08
  You have worked so hard and part of what's going on in the
• 58:11
  country right now. And I would like to think in our
• 58:14
  community that we're going to take part of it, to roll up our
• 58:18
  sleeves and get to work, to not sit back and say, yeah, well,
• 58:22
  the police didn't do this and the police didn't do that, so
• 58:24
  I'm going home. That's not who we are.
• 58:27
  It's all fine and well for the defense attorneys to make fun of
• 58:31
  Mr. Payment or criticize a crime scene investigation or to whine
• 58:34
  about this, complain about that. I wish we had this.
• 58:37
  I wish we had that. Yeah.
• 58:38
  You know what we wish for? We wish daughters didn't stab
• 58:42
  their mothers 50 times. Wouldn't that be a great day in
• 58:46
  the state of Tennessee? But the sad, ugly, horrible
• 58:51
  truth is that it's happened and we have to deal with it and we
• 58:56
  have to look at it and open it up and roll our sleeves up and
• 58:59
  get to work and we can't turn a blind eye because that easy fix
• 59:03
  isn't there. This is about something much
• 59:06
  bigger. Simply put, attorneys are a loud
• 59:10
  latitude in their closing statements.
• 59:12
  They're allowed to be theatrical and dramatic as much as they
• 59:15
  want. It is a court performance and it
• 59:21
  was deemed within acceptable boundaries.
• 59:25
  The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed her conviction and
• 59:27
  sentence, although the rationale for the decision was not
• 59:31
  unanimous amongst the panel of judges.
• 59:34
  And that is where her case sat until Norah Jackson filed a
• 59:38
  Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure and it was addressed
• 59:41
  by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2014.
• 59:45
  Among her most relevant claims was the fact that there was no
• 59:48
  forensic evidence connecting her to the crime scene.
• 59:52
  The murder bed, as the appellant described it as, contained the
• 59:56
  blood of two unidentified sources.
• 59:59
  Her blood was never found at the crime scene, nor were her
• 1:00:02
  fingerprints. Only the victim's blood was
• 1:00:04
  found on her shoes and in very minuscule spots, which was
• 1:00:08
  explained by her entering her mother's bedroom.
• 1:00:12
  None of the trace evidence implicated her involvement, and
• 1:00:15
  the shoe prints found in the residence didn't match hers.
• 1:00:19
  The prints of an unknown person were on the condom wrapper and
• 1:00:23
  on the blood spatter on the foot board.
• 1:00:25
  There was only a tiny cut on her hand and no damage was done to
• 1:00:30
  her recently manicured nails. It was argued that the comment
• 1:00:36
  made at the beginning of the prosecutor's closing argument
• 1:00:39
  was improper because it violated the defendant's right to remain
• 1:00:43
  silent and not testify. Through the language used as
• 1:00:48
  specified in the appellate case, the prosecution directly
• 1:00:52
  encouraged the jury to see the defendant as guilty because she
• 1:00:56
  wouldn't say where she was at the time of her mother's murder
• 1:01:00
  to the state, her not willing to testify was an admission of her
• 1:01:05
  guilt. The Tennessee Supreme Court
• 1:01:08
  declared this to be a structural constitutional error that places
• 1:01:13
  the integrity of the judicial process itself in jeopardy and
• 1:01:19
  therefore must always require reversal.
• 1:01:23
  What was most damaging to the prosecution, and pointing to
• 1:01:27
  signs of unethical behavior and misconduct, was the fact that
• 1:01:33
  their star witness, Andrew Hammock, the only person in the
• 1:01:36
  trial whose testimony placed the defendant at the crime scene
• 1:01:41
  during the time frame she was killed, had not just one or two,
• 1:01:46
  but three conflicting stories and thus alibis.
• 1:01:53
  On February 26th, 2009, five days after the jury had returned
• 1:01:57
  its verdict of guilty, but before Nora Jackson's sentencing
• 1:02:02
  hearing, the prosecution filed State's notice of omitted jinx
• 1:02:07
  statement in relation to the testimony of Andrew Hammock and
• 1:02:11
  attached his third statement. The Assistant DA had filed the
• 1:02:16
  notice in an affidavit describing the circumstances
• 1:02:19
  around why he had neglected to submit the third statement.
• 1:02:23
  He claimed that he placed a copy of the statement which he had
• 1:02:26
  all intention of providing the defense counsel with at the
• 1:02:30
  earliest opportunity, into the flap of one of the trial
• 1:02:33
  notebooks, but that he never provided the lead prosecutor
• 1:02:38
  with a copy. The lead prosecutor was in
• 1:02:41
  charge of the direct examination of Andrew Hammock, but when she
• 1:02:46
  did so on February 19th, the Assistant DA had forgotten all
• 1:02:50
  about his third statement. It was later learned that on
• 1:02:55
  June 13th, 2005, approximately one week after he made his first
• 1:03:01
  two statements to the police, Andrew Hammock had submitted
• 1:03:05
  1/3. It was handwritten on the
• 1:03:07
  backside of a letter and address to one of his roommates.
• 1:03:11
  Andrew claimed now that he had met up with his three friends,
• 1:03:14
  Ian, Gyron and Marcus, and they all went to the Paradiso, a
• 1:03:18
  movie theater, where they met up with Ryan Grisham.
• 1:03:21
  Andrew then went with Ryan and some others to a party but left
• 1:03:24
  not long after because Ryan began a fight there.
• 1:03:27
  They all left an Andrew's truck, but Ian drove because Andrew was
• 1:03:31
  high on ecstasy. At 3:57 AM, Andrew and Ian
• 1:03:35
  decided they wanted to go out again, this time to a strip
• 1:03:38
  club. However, when they stopped for
• 1:03:41
  some gas, they decided against it and just returned home.
• 1:03:44
  They decided to go out one last time to see a friend, but he
• 1:03:47
  wasn't home, so they just went back to their apartment and fell
• 1:03:51
  asleep. However, it was discovered by
• 1:03:54
  Nora Jackson's defense investigator that Andrew
• 1:03:57
  Hammock's third statement wasn't accurate.
• 1:04:01
  Ryan Grisham, whom he allegedly spent most of the night with,
• 1:04:04
  wasn't even in town that weekend.
• 1:04:07
  He was with his parents of visiting the University of
• 1:04:09
  Mississippi and Oxford. This led to Andrew Hammock not
• 1:04:14
  having an alibi for the night in question.
• 1:04:17
  The main prosecutorial error was the fact that they chose not to
• 1:04:21
  disclose the third statement Mr. Hammock submitted to the police
• 1:04:25
  when he realized he had screwed up his timeline and got the days
• 1:04:28
  mixed up. Andrew Hammock informed the
• 1:04:30
  police that he had left his phone in someone else's vehicle.
• 1:04:34
  This didn't add up since he testified at trial that Nora
• 1:04:37
  Jackson had called him and asked him to come over to her house
• 1:04:41
  and walk in there with her. He was the state's sole witness
• 1:04:45
  who could show that the defendant was at her mother's
• 1:04:48
  house in the time frame that she was likely murdered.
• 1:04:52
  Mr. Hammock also could have been perceived as an alternate
• 1:04:55
  suspect. The police never contacted the
• 1:04:58
  alibi witnesses he provided, and if they had contacted Ryan
• 1:05:02
  Grisham, they would have learned that he was out of state with
• 1:05:05
  his parents that weekend. Andrew Hammock's timeline was
• 1:05:07
  further placed under scrutiny since his roommates claimed that
• 1:05:10
  they couldn't get a hold of him the entire night of the crime.
• 1:05:15
  As aforementioned, Andrew Hammock's friends were the ones
• 1:05:18
  to bring in the pair of the Gray New Balance sneakers to the
• 1:05:21
  police. They brought them to the station
• 1:05:24
  on June 12th and had informed the police that he was wearing
• 1:05:27
  the shoes the same weekend of the murder and that they could
• 1:05:31
  not account for where he was that night.
• 1:05:34
  Although the police did take photos of the shoes, they never
• 1:05:37
  collected them as evidence or tested them.
• 1:05:40
  They simply returned the shoes to his friends, whom Lieutenant
• 1:05:43
  Miller described as being slightly incoherent, as if they
• 1:05:46
  had all been high. I guess This is why they didn't
• 1:05:49
  consider their concerns seriously enough to collect and
• 1:05:53
  keep the shoes as evidence. The Supreme Court of Tennessee
• 1:05:56
  would declare that the constitutional errors as
• 1:05:59
  discussed were not harmless to the criminal trial of Norah
• 1:06:03
  Jackson. They change the narrative of the
• 1:06:06
  crime and its potential players, which could have led to a
• 1:06:10
  different outcome in her trial. As a result, the Supreme Court
• 1:06:14
  of Tennessee vacated Norah Jackson's prior conviction of
• 1:06:18
  second degree murder and therefore her sentence, and it
• 1:06:23
  was remanded for a new trial. In 2015, a different District
• 1:06:29
  Attorney took over Nora Jackson's case.
• 1:06:33
  Instead of enduring another murder trial, where she still
• 1:06:36
  faced a strong likelihood of conviction and a long prison
• 1:06:40
  sentence, Nora Jackson took a plea deal.
• 1:06:44
  On May 20th, 2015, she submitted an Alfred plea, and Alfred Plea
• 1:06:50
  allows the defendant to plead guilty while simultaneously
• 1:06:53
  maintaining their innocence and acknowledging the state has
• 1:06:57
  sufficient evidence to convict them.
• 1:07:00
  At the time, the Department of Corrections in Tennessee
• 1:07:03
  informed her that she had accrued enough time served that
• 1:07:06
  she could be freed the next day. Anxious to end her time in
• 1:07:10
  prison, Nora Jackson agreed and plead guilty to lesser charge of
• 1:07:14
  manslaughter, which held a sentencing range of three to 15
• 1:07:18
  years incarceration. However, Nora Jackson soon
• 1:07:21
  learned that their calculations were inaccurate and she would
• 1:07:24
  have to remain in prison for another year.
• 1:07:27
  In August of 2016, after being incarcerated for 11 years, Nora
• 1:07:32
  Jackson was released since her family no longer supported her
• 1:07:36
  in any capacity. She ended up living with a
• 1:07:39
  family friend named Ansley Larson once she was freed.
• 1:07:42
  While in prison, she earned her GED and was applying to
• 1:07:45
  colleges. She also settled with her aunts
• 1:07:48
  for a portion of her mother's estate.
• 1:07:51
  In March of 2017, former Shelby County District Attorney Amy
• 1:07:56
  Warwick now faced ethical violation charges stemming from
• 1:08:00
  the withholding of exculpatory evidence.
• 1:08:04
  Exculpatory evidence is evidence that the prosecution fails to
• 1:08:07
  provide the defense with that could potentially benefit them
• 1:08:11
  and lead to doubts of guilt. When interviewed by 2020
• 1:08:16
  regarding Nora Jackson, Amy Warrick said she killed her
• 1:08:19
  mother and did her time for it. Charges against her were later
• 1:08:23
  dropped when she agreed to accept a private reprimand and
• 1:08:26
  admitted A prosecutorial error had been made.
• 1:08:29
  This case and Nora Jackson has been almost exclusively
• 1:08:33
  discussed within the framework of a wrongful conviction.
• 1:08:38
  But just because there was prosecutorial misconduct in her
• 1:08:42
  criminal trial, which ultimately led to her conviction being
• 1:08:47
  overturned and thus her being released, does not equate to
• 1:08:52
  innocence. Not everyone believes Nora
• 1:08:56
  Jackson is a victim of wrongful conviction.
• 1:09:00
  Judge Chris Craft of Shelby County Criminal Court has zero
• 1:09:03
  doubt that she murdered her mother, but he thinks there was
• 1:09:07
  more than one killer. Judge Craft thinks that her
• 1:09:10
  motivation was just what the prosecution presented.
• 1:09:14
  Nora Jackson was out of control and she wanted to continue
• 1:09:18
  partying and not doing anything with her life except just that
• 1:09:23
  and spent her mother's money. Her mother threatened that
• 1:09:25
  lifestyle and Nora Jackson decided that wasn't going to
• 1:09:29
  happen. I wanted to discuss this case
• 1:09:32
  for two primary reasons. First of all, in light of the
• 1:09:36
  tragic Reiner family murders, it is more relevant and more
• 1:09:41
  important than ever before to talk about Parasite.
• 1:09:47
  Parasite is the murder of one or both parents.
• 1:09:50
  Patricide is the intentional killing of 1's father.
• 1:09:54
  Mattresside is the intentional murder of 1's mother.
• 1:09:57
  Both are extremely rare homicidal events, accounting for
• 1:10:00
  less than 2% of all murders. When a daughter is the
• 1:10:04
  perpetrator, it's even more unusual, comprising less than 1%
• 1:10:09
  of all reported homicides. Females under the age of 18
• 1:10:13
  years old are the rarest of offenders, and with the
• 1:10:17
  hypothetical perpetrator in this incident just being 18 at the
• 1:10:22
  time of the ACT, her typology lies somewhere in between.
• 1:10:27
  I have discussed this type of murder before, so I won't go
• 1:10:30
  into extensive repetitive details.
• 1:10:33
  If you haven't listened to Parasite in Paradise or episode
• 1:10:37
  49, Candace and the Chainsaw, please do so because they are
• 1:10:41
  both fascinating cases that look at the issue closely.
• 1:10:45
  In parasite, there are three primary sources of motivation
• 1:10:49
  and thus typology of offenders. Mattresside committed by females
• 1:10:53
  is an understudied area of criminology and psychology.
• 1:10:57
  Most of the research is focused on male offenders who commit
• 1:11:01
  approximately 85% of all parasite killings.
• 1:11:05
  The first type of parasite offender is known as the
• 1:11:07
  severely abused child. This is an individual who's long
• 1:11:11
  suffered physical, sexual, psychological, or a combination
• 1:11:16
  of abuse and neglect at the hands of one or both of their
• 1:11:20
  parents. In their desire to end the pain
• 1:11:23
  and abuse, often out of fear and desperation, they commit murder.
• 1:11:29
  This offender is most frequently a child or a juvenile.
• 1:11:32
  The second is the most common type, which is the severely
• 1:11:35
  mentally ill offender. This type of offender sometimes
• 1:11:39
  has been officially diagnosed with a mental illness, usually
• 1:11:42
  schizophrenia or some other kind of delusional disorder, and
• 1:11:45
  sometimes they are not. Either way, it tends to be a
• 1:11:48
  long standing mental health condition.
• 1:11:51
  The violence is triggered by a mental health episode that is
• 1:11:54
  often directly associated with an absence of medication or a
• 1:11:57
  change in their ongoing treatment.
• 1:11:59
  This perpetrator is usually an adult child.
• 1:12:02
  The third is known as the antisocial type of offender.
• 1:12:05
  This is the kind of killer who seeks to get rid of their
• 1:12:08
  parents for personal gain. They are motivated by money,
• 1:12:12
  freedom, often both so they can have full reign and power over
• 1:12:18
  their life. They are tired of their parents
• 1:12:21
  telling them what to do and getting in their way of what
• 1:12:25
  they want. For offenders under the age of
• 1:12:28
  18, studies have shown that mental illness is the least
• 1:12:32
  likely motivation. The most common type of female
• 1:12:35
  mattressite offenders is a juvenile who has been suffering
• 1:12:39
  abuse for years. Records indicate this type
• 1:12:42
  accounts for more than half of all known cases of mattressite.
• 1:12:46
  The second most common is the dangerously antisocial offender.
• 1:12:50
  Research shows that the complex dynamic between mothers and
• 1:12:53
  daughters is a strong factor in the crime.
• 1:12:57
  There is often a power struggle and to achieve full
• 1:13:00
  independence, the daughter commits the ultimate act of
• 1:13:03
  rebellion and violence. These murders are noted to be
• 1:13:07
  particularly brutal and characterized by overkill.
• 1:13:12
  Of the cases of Professor Hyde, the woman behind the
• 1:13:15
  establishment of such offender typologies, she has pointed at
• 1:13:19
  that one of the most disturbing elements of female perpetuated
• 1:13:23
  mattresside is the strong bond that exists between mother and
• 1:13:27
  daughter, and that most of the offenders genuinely loved their
• 1:13:32
  mother. In the case of Nora Jackson, if
• 1:13:35
  one is to believe that she orchestrated her mother's
• 1:13:37
  murder, whether she held the knife alone or not, she fits
• 1:13:41
  within the dangerous antisocial offender.
• 1:13:44
  There is sufficient evidence that points to her wanting to
• 1:13:46
  get rid of her mother's control over her life.
• 1:13:49
  Nora Jackson could have cared less about finishing high school
• 1:13:53
  and only cared about partying with her friends.
• 1:13:55
  She openly talked and fought with her mother about wanting
• 1:13:58
  her father's estate money, specifically from his vehicles,
• 1:14:01
  which she believed she was owed. Then when her mother is
• 1:14:05
  murdered, she expressed little to no emotion or concern about
• 1:14:10
  finding her mother's killer. Her priority again was to party
• 1:14:14
  and to live like a rich girl. She wanted to have her mother's
• 1:14:18
  money. She talked to negatively about
• 1:14:20
  how her aunts were keeping her money from her even though they
• 1:14:24
  did everything they could to support her both financially and
• 1:14:27
  emotionally. Nora Jackson's stories and
• 1:14:29
  timelines were always shifting. They were never cemented, and
• 1:14:33
  she refused to cooperate with investigators again.
• 1:14:38
  She had no investment in finding the person or persons who killed
• 1:14:42
  her mother. The other main reason why I
• 1:14:44
  selected this case was for the sheer reason that just because
• 1:14:47
  someone is released from prison due to their conviction being
• 1:14:50
  overturned does not mean that justice wasn't in the process of
• 1:14:55
  being served. There seems to be some confusion
• 1:14:58
  around her case and what a wrongful conviction means versus
• 1:15:01
  a harmful error made in the trial, such as incompetent
• 1:15:05
  counsel or prosecutorial misconduct in her case.
• 1:15:09
  I have spoken about before how incredibly rare it is for
• 1:15:13
  appeals to be successful and very few result in the offender
• 1:15:17
  being released from prison. However, there have been several
• 1:15:21
  cases throughout the decades of convicted rapists, child
• 1:15:24
  molesters, and murderers being freed from prison due to errors
• 1:15:29
  made that may have led to a different outcome in their case.
• 1:15:33
  Many people in society don't seem to grasp how expensive it
• 1:15:37
  is to hold a criminal trial, in particular a murder trial.
• 1:15:41
  Each one cuts into the resources and time of the state and their
• 1:15:45
  circumstances in which pursuing a conviction in another trial is
• 1:15:49
  simply not worth the time and effort of the prosecution.
• 1:15:55
  That doesn't mean the offender is innocent.
• 1:15:58
  There is not one piece of evidence that acquitted Nora
• 1:16:01
  Jackson of murder. She wasn't declared as innocent
• 1:16:05
  and neither the judge or the prosecutor believe she was
• 1:16:09
  framed. There is no evidence to imply
• 1:16:11
  that she was framed by the police or the prosecution.
• 1:16:14
  There was gross incompetence on the part of law enforcement and
• 1:16:18
  unethical behavior on the part of the prosecution.
• 1:16:21
  These are the only reasons as to why she was released after
• 1:16:26
  serving eleven years in prison. Her case and similar ones to it
• 1:16:30
  are really important to share and discuss so society
• 1:16:34
  understands how critical it is that everyone involved in the
• 1:16:37
  justice system does their job to the best of their ability and
• 1:16:43
  that integrity is never jeopardized.
• 1:16:46
  These errors that can be made are detrimental to the course of
• 1:16:49
  justice and they interfere with an offender paying for their
• 1:16:53
  crimes and therefore the victim and their loved ones receiving
• 1:16:57
  justice. There is no justice in someone
• 1:17:00
  being free because a defense attorney, law enforcement
• 1:17:03
  officer, or prosecutor didn't fulfill their expected role and
• 1:17:08
  responsibility. In 2022, Nora Jackson became
• 1:17:12
  entangled with the criminal justice system again.
• 1:17:15
  She was arrested for drug possession in the town of Cadiz,
• 1:17:18
  KY. While officers were at a Cracker
• 1:17:22
  Barrel to investigate a report of a suspicious person in the
• 1:17:25
  area. They saw her removing items from
• 1:17:27
  her vehicle. Inside her car, police found
• 1:17:30
  marijuana, cocaine, and prescription medication.
• 1:17:34
  She openly admitted to the illegal substances being hers
• 1:17:38
  and was arrested. The Innocence Project is
• 1:17:41
  currently working on Nora Jackson's case to use updated
• 1:17:44
  testing to determine whose DNA was collected from the crime
• 1:17:47
  scene. It will be interesting to see if
• 1:17:50
  any significant results ever surface.
• 1:17:53
  I personally don't believe anything will come of the minute
• 1:17:55
  DNA that was recovered, if it ever was properly preserved.
• 1:18:00
  It is alarming and eerily coincidental how more than a
• 1:18:05
  little over a year earlier, NOR Jackson's estranged father Nazmi
• 1:18:11
  Hassania was shot and killed in an alleged robbery at his
• 1:18:15
  convenience store. Nor is Quick Stop.
• 1:18:18
  He was also the owner of a limousine company.
• 1:18:21
  That's why his vehicles had become the primary source of his
• 1:18:24
  estate. This became a source of
• 1:18:27
  contention and fierce resentment between the mother and daughter.
• 1:18:31
  Nora Jackson felt she was owed whatever her parents had.
• 1:18:35
  She believed her father's money and property, most of which
• 1:18:37
  included vehicles which she and her mother both drove, belonged
• 1:18:42
  to her and her alone. Nora's mother, Jennifer Jackson,
• 1:18:47
  was a very successful investment banker and bond trader, of which
• 1:18:52
  Nora was the sole heir. After her mother died, she
• 1:18:57
  conveyed the same notion, the same priority to take control
• 1:19:01
  and have complete ownership over her mother's estate.
• 1:19:05
  It is difficult to ignore these dark, almost too impossible to
• 1:19:09
  merely be coincidences that led to both of her parents brutal
• 1:19:14
  and unsolved deaths. Had she hired her friends or
• 1:19:18
  their acquaintances to stage not just her father's murder, but
• 1:19:22
  her mother's as well, possibly in exchange for her piece of her
• 1:19:26
  inheritance? Could it really be a coincidence
• 1:19:31
  that both of her parents were mysteriously and savagely
• 1:19:35
  murdered within only a year of one another, and her main
• 1:19:39
  priority after both was how their deaths could benefit her
• 1:19:44
  life? Could one young woman be almost
• 1:19:48
  cursed to lose both of her parents to violent deaths of
• 1:19:52
  which never have been solved? Her orchestration of both of
• 1:19:58
  their murders is something that must be considered.
• 1:20:01
  Nora Jackson denies being involved in either of their
• 1:20:04
  murders and still declares that she was a victim of conspiracy.
• 1:20:10
  Whether she hold the knife that ended the life of her mother
• 1:20:14
  alone I am. I'm not so sure, especially
• 1:20:18
  given the highly suspicious circumstances and behavior of
• 1:20:21
  Andrew Hammock's statements and whereabouts.
• 1:20:25
  There are also many lingering questions surrounding the
• 1:20:28
  mysterious 2 strands of blonde hair.
• 1:20:31
  According to investigators, they were unidentified, but what
• 1:20:35
  exactly does that entail? DNA, unless the root is attached
• 1:20:39
  to the hair follicle, is not present in hair, and hair
• 1:20:42
  forensics in general is often an inaccurate and misleading
• 1:20:47
  science. I have read that some people
• 1:20:50
  suspected Jennifer Jackson's sisters since they were both
• 1:20:53
  blonde and ended up being charged of her estate, which
• 1:20:57
  would have been otherwise left to Nora Jackson.
• 1:21:01
  But this theory doesn't make any sense, nor could it have been
• 1:21:04
  executed in that way. First of all, her sister Grace
• 1:21:08
  lived in Atlanta and immediately went to talk to police on her
• 1:21:12
  own accord when she arrived in Memphis the following day.
• 1:21:16
  Her other sister Cindy lived in Florida.
• 1:21:18
  So again, the scenario that the sisters killed Jennifer Jackson
• 1:21:21
  is illogical. I also would presume that even
• 1:21:25
  the Memphis police were through enough in vetting their alibis.
• 1:21:29
  This is why it's so dangerous when individuals make
• 1:21:33
  presumptions or spread conspiracies around a case when
• 1:21:36
  they don't have all of the details around it.
• 1:21:40
  If I had been an investigator on this case, I would have looked
• 1:21:43
  more closely at the hair of Nora's girlfriends or possibly
• 1:21:47
  even boyfriends who had longer blonde hair.
• 1:21:52
  There was also the fact that no DNA or fingerprints belonging to
• 1:21:55
  the defendant were found at the crime scene.
• 1:21:59
  Two things stand out to me about this.
• 1:22:01
  First of all, DNA is only present at approximately 20% of
• 1:22:05
  all crime scenes, so that alone can't be a deciding factor of
• 1:22:09
  innocence versus guilt. Secondly, isn't it strange, and
• 1:22:13
  thus suspicious in itself, that the victim's daughter, who lived
• 1:22:16
  in the same residence, didn't have her fingerprints or DNA
• 1:22:21
  anywhere? That doesn't make any sense.
• 1:22:25
  How is it possible that she didn't leave even trace DNA on
• 1:22:28
  things she touched in areas she lived in almost every day?
• 1:22:33
  I know there are many listeners who will disagree with me.
• 1:22:36
  You may think I am being judgmental of her behavior,
• 1:22:39
  which is not the case, or that she was somehow framed by the
• 1:22:42
  police. However, there is 0 evidence of
• 1:22:45
  Nora Jackson being set up to take the blame for her mother's
• 1:22:48
  murder. The police, in particular the
• 1:22:50
  crime scene investigators, were so incompetent it would be
• 1:22:54
  almost laughable if it weren't so troubling.
• 1:22:58
  The prosecutor, in particular the Assistant District Attorney,
• 1:23:01
  acted in an undeniably unethical and deplorable fashion, but that
• 1:23:07
  doesn't change the facts of the case.
• 1:23:11
  I was on the fence too, until I read more than 130 pages of the
• 1:23:15
  court case files. Now I have little doubt that
• 1:23:20
  Nora Jackson was not just a troubled, misunderstood poor
• 1:23:24
  little rich girl who was unfairly painted as a party girl
• 1:23:27
  by the prosecution who wanted to get rid of her mother.
• 1:23:30
  She was a young woman who viciously slashed to death her
• 1:23:33
  own mother because she wanted her money and freedom, who is
• 1:23:36
  now free from prison. Please let me know your thoughts
• 1:23:42
  on this strange and mysterious case.
• 1:23:45
  Participate in the poll, leave comments, or feel free to reach
• 1:23:48
  out to me directly. If you enjoy the show.
• 1:23:51
  Please help our global community grow by following Radiant on
• 1:23:55
  Spotify or Apple, and leave a review on Apple or Amazon Music.
• 1:24:00
  I appreciate your support more than you know.
• 1:24:05
  Until next time, stay safe and watch out for Shades of Murder
• 1:24:13
  happening in the streets next door and especially inside drone
• 1:24:19
  Home. Shades of Murder is created,
• 1:24:23
  researched, written and edited by Lita Caldwell.
• 1:24:28
  Original music Stranger composed by Stereo Code.