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

Transcript

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

0:06
Speaker 1: On September the 13th, 2007, a woman's body was found
0:11
Speaker 1: in the burnt-out remains of a stolen 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.
0:30
Speaker 4: She was just a victim of 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 5: When the news came on about a body, he seemed
0:44
Speaker 5: kind of excited about the whole conversation. It was almost
0:47
Speaker 5: as if he had more information than what she even
0:49
Speaker 5: heard on the TV.
0:52
Speaker 1: The man in question was unemployed 25-year-old Kenneth Jackson.
0:57
Speaker 6: Kenneth Jackson showed absolutely no remorse for what he had done.
1:01
Speaker 6: He's a psychopathic killer.
1:04
Speaker 7: He was so proud of what he'd done that he
1:08
Speaker 7: 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 5th, 2013, 30-year-old Kenneth
1:44
Speaker 1: Jackson was sentenced to death after being found guilty of
1:48
Speaker 1: murdering mother of three, Cooke Tran. He'd ambushed her while
1:53
Speaker 1: she was out on an early morning run in her
1:55
Speaker 1: hometown of Sefna, a small community just outside Tampa in Florida.
2:01
Speaker 8: We're talking about a very small area of Florida. So
2:05
Speaker 8: you can imagine that a murder would send shockwaves through
2:08
Speaker 8: that small community. They were literally horrified.
2:13
Speaker 7: I think the impact only reinforced the notion that women
2:18
Speaker 7: aren't safe running alone in the dark.
2:21
Speaker 3: They're an easy target.
2:24
Speaker 7: No matter how many self-defense classes they may take or
2:29
Speaker 7: they may carry a pepper spray, it's not enough. It's
2:35
Speaker 7: just the element of surprise and the strength of the
2:38
Speaker 7: predator is 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 4: He had no emotion to the fact that this was
2:53
Speaker 4: a woman with school-age children that she was working to
3:00
Speaker 4: take care of.
3:01
Speaker 3: He didn't have respect for.
3:04
Speaker 4: Life in general, he didn't seem to care. Everything was
3:08
Speaker 4: only about himself at all times.
3:14
Speaker 1: This killer story begins on June 26th, 1982. Kenneth Ray
3:20
Speaker 1: Jackson was born in Hillsborough County, Florida. He was the
3:24
Speaker 1: product of an inappropriate and unlawful relationship.
3:28
Speaker 8: It's hard to imagine a less satisfactory childhood than Kenny Jackson's.
3:33
Speaker 8: His mother, when he was conceived, was 14. Her partner
3:37
Speaker 8: at the time was 28. She gave him up, effectively,
3:41
Speaker 8: at the age of six months to her mother, his grandmother,
3:44
Speaker 8: 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 8: Probably inevitably, Jackson's school reports reflected that he was aggressive,
4:07
Speaker 8: he was belligerent in class, he was just a really,
4:11
Speaker 8: really difficult boy.
4:14
Speaker 6: His teachers raised concerns about his behavior, about the way
4:19
Speaker 6: he was turned out when he came to school, and
4:23
Speaker 6: they had huge difficulties finding who his guardians even were,
4:29
Speaker 6: who it was who was supposed to be looking after
4:31
Speaker 6: this child. I don't think he had any stability in
4:35
Speaker 6: his life, so not surprising that he turned towards criminality.
4:44
Speaker 1: In 2003, at the age of 21, Kenneth Jackson was
4:48
Speaker 1: sentenced to five years in prison after a spate of
4:51
Speaker 1: car thefts. He was released four years later on July
4:56
Speaker 1: the 26th, 2007, and headed to the small residential community
5:01
Speaker 1: of Sefna in 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'Neills, Linda and Wally O'Neill,
5:13
Speaker 2: and they allowed him to move into the trailer with them.
5:17
Speaker 8: Wally was Jackson's grandmother's old boyfriend. the boyfriend who'd been
5:22
Speaker 8: with his grandmother when he arrived with her at the
5:24
Speaker 8: age of six months. Although they must have had a
5:28
Speaker 8: very strange relationship, it was probably the only place in
5:33
Speaker 8: which Kenny Jackson felt at home.
5:41
Speaker 1: On September 13, 2007, 12 miles away in the neighboring
5:46
Speaker 1: town of Gibsonton, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue were called to
5:50
Speaker 1: a van engulfed in flames at 7 o'clock in the morning.
5:55
Speaker 1: What they discovered when they got there was a scene
5:57
Speaker 1: of unimaginable horror.
6:00
Speaker 4: When the fire department put the vehicle fire out, they
6:04
Speaker 4: discovered a body inside. That, of course, triggered phone calls
6:09
Speaker 4: to the homicide section, and supervisors had detectives respond to
6:13
Speaker 4: the area. So I went down to the Gibsonton area.
6:19
Speaker 4: At that point, I was assigned to be the lead
6:22
Speaker 4: detective on the case.
6:25
Speaker 8: The body was charred beyond recognition. 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 4: I was told at the time that they had recovered
6:42
Speaker 4: a license plate off of the vehicle, and, of course,
6:45
Speaker 4: that was a start. We were able to make contact
6:50
Speaker 4: with the owner. We learned that the vehicle had been
6:53
Speaker 4: listed at the gentleman's job site as for sale. It
6:58
Speaker 4: had been parked in the parking lot there. He worked
7:01
Speaker 4: part-time at an auto parts store, repairing it to sell it.
7:05
Speaker 4: He had a sign for sale in the window. After
7:09
Speaker 4: we determined that this vehicle must have been stolen, we
7:13
Speaker 4: had the van taken back to our crime scene offices
7:16
Speaker 4: at the sheriff's office. But during this time, during the
7:19
Speaker 4: course of the day, there were other events unfolding that
7:23
Speaker 4: I wasn't immediately aware of.
7:27
Speaker 1: In a seemingly unrelated incident 12 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 Sefna.
7:36
Speaker 5: The sergeant was notified that there were some clothing items, shoes,
7:41
Speaker 5: and some blood that had been located in front of
7:46
Speaker 5: the St. Francis Church on 579 north of MLK.
7:54
Speaker 4: There had been a yard crew, and they had actually,
7:58
Speaker 4: in mowing the lawns, found this bloody clothing, and a
8:03
Speaker 4: sheriff's officer deputy had gone out there, and they had
8:06
Speaker 4: 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 4: Three in the afternoon or so, I received a call
8:25
Speaker 4: from my dispatch saying there was a young man there
8:30
Speaker 4: who was looking for his mother, and she'd been missing,
8:33
Speaker 4: that she had left early in the morning and had
8:36
Speaker 4: never came back. We had this person that we believed
8:42
Speaker 4: was a female and could not identify at that point.
8:47
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, we need to check this out.
8:51
Speaker 5: Where they were calling in from was just north of
8:53
Speaker 5: where that St. Francis Church was and where the clothes
8:57
Speaker 5: and the blood was located. I went up there, and
9:00
Speaker 5: I looked at the area, and that was when it
9:03
Speaker 5: was very evident that there was not a little bit
9:06
Speaker 5: of blood. Somebody had died there.
9:11
Speaker 1: The missing woman was 50-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran. 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 4: It appeared she had Asian features. And in learning that
9:34
Speaker 4: this was an Asian male that was reporting his missing
9:39
Speaker 4: Asian mother, of course, everyone was starting to think, this
9:42
Speaker 4: is our woman. I asked for some details about some
9:48
Speaker 4: particular jewelry because this body that was burned up in
9:52
Speaker 4: the van still had lots of jewelry on.
9:54
Speaker 5: We were able to link jewelry from pictures in the
9:58
Speaker 5: house to what was on her person. So at this
10:02
Speaker 5: point in time, we were pretty positive that Cooke Tran
10:05
Speaker 5: was our victim.
10:07
Speaker 1: The small community of Cefna 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 13th, 2007, in Hillsborough County, Florida, a pile
10:38
Speaker 1: of bloodied clothes had been discovered in the grounds of
10:41
Speaker 1: a church. 12 miles away, the charred remains of a
10:45
Speaker 1: woman had been found inside a burning van. Detectives believed
10:49
Speaker 1: her to be 50-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran from the
10:53
Speaker 1: town of Cefna.
10:55
Speaker 3: She was a mother of three.
10:58
Speaker 4: She had an older son who was off at college,
11:01
Speaker 4: a 16-year-old that was going to high school, and a 10-year-old.
11:07
Speaker 2: She worked a full-time job as a nail technician, She
11:11
Speaker 2: lived at home in a trailer park, and she would
11:15
Speaker 2: get up very early in the morning to try to
11:18
Speaker 2: find a little bit of time for herself to go
11:20
Speaker 2: for a walk or a jog to try to take
11:23
Speaker 2: care of herself.
11:25
Speaker 1: Cooke Tran 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 70s and 80s, after the communists took
11:40
Speaker 2: over South Vietnam after the Vietnam War.
11:45
Speaker 7: It sounded like a pretty horrific struggle after the war
11:48
Speaker 7: for her and her children and her husband to come here.
11:53
Speaker 7: For Mrs. Tran to leave a war zone and come
11:56
Speaker 7: to the United States was an example.
11:59
Speaker 3: Of the American dream.
12:02
Speaker 7: She was escaping violence of the war and coming to
12:05
Speaker 7: a country where people are believed to be safe and
12:09
Speaker 7: given opportunity.
12:11
Speaker 1: For Cook Tran, however, the United States was far from
12:15
Speaker 1: the safe haven she'd hoped for, and her life had
12:18
Speaker 1: been cut short in the most brutal way. With no
12:23
Speaker 1: immediate suspects, police started to look into Cook Tran's life
12:28
Speaker 1: for clues.
12:30
Speaker 4: There were some issues with her marriage. They weren't necessarily
12:35
Speaker 4: living together, but they were still good friends. Both parents
12:39
Speaker 4: were still very much focused on taking care of the kids.
12:44
Speaker 4: She would get up, do some exercise. Her husband would
12:49
Speaker 4: come by in the mornings, help get the kids ready
12:51
Speaker 4: for school. She would get back from her morning exercise routine,
12:56
Speaker 4: and she would get them to school, and then she
12:57
Speaker 4: would go to work. She was a responsible employee, got
13:02
Speaker 4: along well with everyone. She was evidently well-liked by her customers.
13:09
Speaker 4: She did nothing wrong. She was just a victim of
13:12
Speaker 4: an evil person.
13:15
Speaker 1: Cook Tran's daily morning run would take her past St.
13:19
Speaker 1: Francis Church in Sefna.
13:21
Speaker 4: It was a very large church property where it had
13:24
Speaker 4: quite a bit of open land between the roadway and
13:27
Speaker 4: the church itself.
13:30
Speaker 5: If a car was going by at 5 in the morning,
13:32
Speaker 5: they wouldn't see you down there.
13:35
Speaker 1: Detectives started working on the theory that Cooke 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 7: She had a routine. She would run at 5 a.m.
13:47
Speaker 7: in the morning before work. This was her only free time.
13:51
Speaker 7: It was really the only time she had to herself,
13:55
Speaker 7: which was even more tragic. That's all she had, and...
13:59
Speaker 7: She never dreamed that there was this predator waiting.
14:02
Speaker 2: There for her.
14:05
Speaker 6: This isn't an area where there'd be lots of women
14:08
Speaker 6: to choose from. So this person had probably gone to
14:11
Speaker 6: that area before, checked it out, waited around, seen how
14:16
Speaker 6: many people were around, whether they were likely to get caught.
14:22
Speaker 6: I don't think that this was opportunistic. I think this
14:25
Speaker 6: was targeted.
14:28
Speaker 4: We wanted to get the guy. I mean, that's the
14:30
Speaker 4: whole goal, right? You want to solve this thing.
14:34
Speaker 1: Detectives were convinced that Cooke Tran was killed in the
14:37
Speaker 1: grounds of the church and then her body driven away
14:41
Speaker 1: in the van that was found on fire 12 miles away.
14:45
Speaker 1: The autopsy confirmed the horrific circumstances of her death.
14:49
Speaker 4: The medical examiner was able to determine there were multiple
14:53
Speaker 4: stab wounds in the neck. The carotid 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 4: She was dead before the fire ever started. There was
15:14
Speaker 4: no soot in the windpipe or carbon monoxide in the blood.
15:22
Speaker 1: The autopsy also discovered a possible motive for the crime.
15:27
Speaker 3: She had been raped.
15:30
Speaker 4: The medical examiner had collected blood slides and the vaginal
15:34
Speaker 4: swabs and all for DNA, but we didn't have any
15:37
Speaker 4: comparisons at that point.
15:41
Speaker 6: Usually when people use fire to destroy a body, it's
15:45
Speaker 6: because they want to eliminate any forensic evidence at all.
15:52
Speaker 6: They think, I'm never going to get caught because I
15:56
Speaker 6: have destroyed every single piece of evidence. Well, fire doesn't
16:00
Speaker 6: always destroy every piece of evidence. This would have been
16:05
Speaker 6: an overconfidence, I think, in that person.
16:10
Speaker 1: Desperate to find Cootran's killer, detectives started to hand out
16:14
Speaker 1: flyers in the trailer park where she'd lived, appealing for
16:18
Speaker 1: information from her neighbors.
16:20
Speaker 5: There was probably 100 or so trailers In this trailer park,
16:24
Speaker 5: we went house to house, handing the flyers out, talking
16:27
Speaker 5: to neighbors. There was one trailer that I actually stopped at,
16:32
Speaker 5: which was within eyeshot of where the victim's house was,
16:37
Speaker 5: her trailer. And there was an elderly individual that was there,
16:41
Speaker 5: a man, who was very inquisitive as to why I
16:44
Speaker 5: was there. So I finished walking through. It was extremely
16:49
Speaker 5: hot out that day. I was thirsty, so I decided
16:53
Speaker 5: to go to the gas station at the corner of
16:55
Speaker 5: MLK and 579, which is just to the south of
16:58
Speaker 5: where St. Francis Church was. And I walk in, I
17:03
Speaker 5: get my drink, and I'm soaking wet. I've got a
17:05
Speaker 5: shirt tie. I walk up, I pay, and all of
17:09
Speaker 5: a sudden, something hit me of saying, you know what,
17:12
Speaker 5: I'm going to go get a flyer. I come back,
17:15
Speaker 5: I give the flyer to the clerk. As I start
17:17
Speaker 5: talking to her, she starts explaining how There was this
17:21
Speaker 5: individual who was in the store, and when the news
17:26
Speaker 5: came on about a body and an investigation, he seemed
17:30
Speaker 5: kind of excited about the whole conversation and the subject
17:34
Speaker 5: matter and everything that was being said, but also it
17:36
Speaker 5: was almost as if he had more information than what
17:39
Speaker 5: she even heard being 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 Cooktron jogging, and the only
17:48
Speaker 2: time she did that was very early in the morning
17:51
Speaker 2: right around 5, 5.30 in the morning. And that's when
17:54
Speaker 2: she was abducted. So that was pretty critical.
17:58
Speaker 1: The stranger's story confirmed what the police already knew about
18:01
Speaker 1: Cootran's morning routine, but it wasn't information they'd released to
18:06
Speaker 1: the public.
18:07
Speaker 4: This guy's talking, and he's saying things that really haven't
18:10
Speaker 4: been publicly made.
18:12
Speaker 3: So that's a clue. That was a very.
18:17
Speaker 4: Strong, okay, we need to jump on this And that
18:22
Speaker 4: started the ball rolling.
18:26
Speaker 5: I started asking her questions. Well, you know, who is
18:28
Speaker 5: this individual? Do you know where he lives? And she
18:32
Speaker 5: proceeds to tell me that his name's Kenny and he
18:38
Speaker 5: had just gotten released from prison. So I asked her,
18:40
Speaker 5: what did he go to prison for? Do you know?
18:43
Speaker 5: And she said, I think Grand Theft Auto. At this
18:47
Speaker 5: point in time now in the investigation, we know that
18:51
Speaker 5: the van that was burned with our victim in it
18:54
Speaker 5: was stolen from the advanced auto parts literally two blocks
18:58
Speaker 5: from where I was standing at the gas station and
19:01
Speaker 5: just south of where the victim was murdered. I said,
19:05
Speaker 5: where does he live? Do you know anything about him?
19:07
Speaker 5: She said, yeah, he lives in the trailer park north
19:10
Speaker 5: of here.
19:12
Speaker 8: It turned out that this man, Kenny, lived in exactly
19:16
Speaker 8: the same trailer park as Cook Tran.
19:19
Speaker 1: Detectives finally had a breakthrough in the case, but all
19:23
Speaker 1: 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 19th, 2007, six days
19:44
Speaker 1: after the murder of 50-year-old Cooke Tran in Hillsborough County, Florida,
19:48
Speaker 1: Detectives have therefore... lead. A man called Kenny, who'd aroused
19:54
Speaker 1: the suspicion of a gas station clerk when talking to
19:57
Speaker 1: her about the murder, lived in the same trailer park
20:01
Speaker 1: as the victim. Troy was reminded of a strangely inquisitive
20:05
Speaker 1: man he'd interviewed at the trailer park.
20:08
Speaker 5: Now all of a sudden, the red flags start going
20:10
Speaker 5: off even more because now I realize, wait a minute,
20:13
Speaker 5: I wonder if this Kenny guy is the guy that
20:16
Speaker 5: I was sitting there asking myself. This guy's awful nosy.
20:19
Speaker 5: 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. Wally confirmed that
20:34
Speaker 1: Kenny was, in fact, 25-year-old.
20:38
Speaker 5: 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.
20:48
Speaker 4: He had had several arrests in the past. He had
20:51
Speaker 4: recently gotten out of prison. He hadn't been in the
20:55
Speaker 4: area long.
20:57
Speaker 1: Wally 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 4: We learned that at the time of the murder and
21:08
Speaker 4: the vehicle being burned, that.
21:10
Speaker 3: He was not at home.
21:13
Speaker 4: So they couldn't give an alibi as to his whereabouts,
21:17
Speaker 4: but they did know for a fact that he did
21:19
Speaker 4: happen to be in the area where the burned van was.
21:23
Speaker 4: We haven't made contact with our person of interest yet,
21:26
Speaker 4: but we are getting verification that he's in the right
21:29
Speaker 4: place at the right times to be associated to it.
21:35
Speaker 1: Detectives learned that Kenneth Jackson had gone to live with
21:38
Speaker 1: his girlfriend in North Florida. On September 20th, a week
21:44
Speaker 1: after the murder, they drove upstate to find him.
21:48
Speaker 4: We went up there and asked if he was willing
21:50
Speaker 4: to speak with us.
21:51
Speaker 3: He rode with us in the.
21:53
Speaker 4: Car over to the Carrabelle Police Department office where we
21:58
Speaker 4: could sit down and do an audio recording and try
22:01
Speaker 4: 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 4: During the course of this conversation, we got around to
22:16
Speaker 4: the clothes that he was wearing, and he said, you know,
22:19
Speaker 4: I think this is what I was wearing that day.
22:21
Speaker 4: It's like, can we get that for, you know, testing?
22:26
Speaker 4: And he said, well, I don't have anything else. I said,
22:29
Speaker 4: we'll take you to go buy clothes. We went and
22:32
Speaker 4: we bought him new shoes, new shirt, so he gave
22:36
Speaker 4: us permission to take his clothes.
22:39
Speaker 7: He considered himself smarter than the police, so that made
22:44
Speaker 7: 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 5: During a course of our investigation, we put him down
23:01
Speaker 5: there where the van was burned. And that was huge
23:04
Speaker 5: because he had a family member that identified him being
23:07
Speaker 5: down in Gibsonton.
23:09
Speaker 1: Why?
23:10
Speaker 5: He lives in Sefner. Why would you be down in Gibsonton?
23:13
Speaker 5: So everything just started falling in. So we wanted to
23:17
Speaker 5: get him locked into a timeline as to where were
23:19
Speaker 5: you at? What were you doing? And we were able
23:22
Speaker 5: to do that. But we were also able to get
23:24
Speaker 5: him to give too many inconsistencies in his interviews that
23:27
Speaker 5: could prove that he was lying. And he could not
23:29
Speaker 5: stick with a solid alibi because he didn't have one.
23:36
Speaker 2: In 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 Cooktron. And they showed him photographs of her.
23:45
Speaker 2: that were very good depictions of her in the year
23:48
Speaker 2: or two before her death. And he insisted, I don't
23:51
Speaker 2: know her. I don't know anything about her. I've never
23:54
Speaker 2: seen her before, even though she lived about five trailers
23:58
Speaker 2: down from his. And you could step out from the
24:02
Speaker 2: doors of those trailers and see the other trailer is
24:05
Speaker 2: how close he lived to her. But he insisted he'd
24:07
Speaker 2: never seen her before.
24:08
Speaker 9: I don't know nothing about this lady. I ain't never
24:16
Speaker 9: seen him before.
24:18
Speaker 6: He was obviously super confident that he'd obliterated all of
24:22
Speaker 6: the evidence and that he could sit and play games
24:25
Speaker 6: with the police, almost, because they were never going to
24:28
Speaker 6: pin this one on him.
24:31
Speaker 3: We both believed that we had our guy.
24:34
Speaker 4: After that first interview, we had our DNA that he
24:37
Speaker 4: gave us, we had the clothing that he gave us,
24:41
Speaker 4: and Troy and I got in the car and we
24:43
Speaker 4: drove from Carrabelle, Florida, back to just north of Gainesville
24:47
Speaker 4: to meet up with one of the detectives from Hillsborough here,
24:50
Speaker 4: who was meeting us halfway so we could pass that
24:52
Speaker 4: off so they could immediately get that back to FDLE
24:56
Speaker 4: the next day to start the DNA comparisons.
25:01
Speaker 1: Six days later, on September 26, the DNA reports came
25:05
Speaker 1: back from FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
25:12
Speaker 4: I received a phone call from FDLE stating that they
25:15
Speaker 4: had just gotten the report from their DNA analysis that
25:20
Speaker 4: said that the samples collected from Kenneth Jackson did match
25:26
Speaker 4: the semen that was collected from the medical examiner during
25:30
Speaker 4: the autopsy of Cook Tran.
25:32
Speaker 5: At that moment, it's like relief. You realize, okay, we
25:36
Speaker 5: knew we were on point. We 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 4: We had dealt with Kenneth Jackson for hours, and he
25:48
Speaker 4: said that he didn't know this person, he had never
25:51
Speaker 4: met this person, didn't even know that she was a
25:53
Speaker 4: neighbor in his trailer park. and now we have his
25:57
Speaker 4: semen in her. That is enough to get an arrest warrant.
26:02
Speaker 8: As soon as the DNA samples come back and they
26:06
Speaker 8: are confirmed as being Kenneth Jackson's, the police fly by
26:10
Speaker 8: helicopter to his new abode in North Florida to find him.
26:15
Speaker 8: But when they get there, he's not there.
26:19
Speaker 4: We had the sheriff's office up there and the local
26:23
Speaker 4: township PD and also the girlfriend's mother's assistants. She had
26:29
Speaker 4: some ideas, and she thought, well, maybe they're over this
26:32
Speaker 4: one place fishing, and they were, in fact. So this
26:35
Speaker 4: was like 1 in the morning, but they were both
26:38
Speaker 4: up there sitting at the dock.
26:40
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson's luck was about to run out.
26:45
Speaker 4: I talked with Kenny and said, we've got some new
26:47
Speaker 4: information we need to talk to you about. Would you
26:50
Speaker 4: mind coming with us back to the station to talk
26:52
Speaker 4: about it?
26:55
Speaker 5: No matter what it was that we talked to him about,
26:57
Speaker 5: he was very obstinate against anything that we said. Even
27:03
Speaker 5: when we could point out his inconsistencies, it didn't matter.
27:07
Speaker 5: He just was like water off a duck's back, you know?
27:11
Speaker 5: He just didn't care.
27:13
Speaker 1: But this time, investigators were armed with a smoking gun.
27:17
Speaker 4: I focused on the point of DNA again, because I
27:20
Speaker 4: had asked him at the first interview, will your DNA work?
27:24
Speaker 4: show up on this lady at any point? And he
27:26
Speaker 4: was like, no, no, no, I've never met her. There's
27:28
Speaker 4: no way possible. He knew he had burned up this
27:32
Speaker 4: victim in a van. He believed he had absolutely nothing
27:36
Speaker 4: to worry about because that was all burned up and
27:40
Speaker 4: there was nothing to be found. He felt that he
27:43
Speaker 4: was safe. Well, in fact, your DNA is on her, Kenny.
27:49
Speaker 4: How did that happen?
27:50
Speaker 3: Denial, denial, denial.
27:52
Speaker 9: So that your DNA just miraculously just appeared on this woman,
27:56
Speaker 9: on this dead woman. It just miraculously appeared. Someone who
28:00
Speaker 9: you've never met before. Someone who you don't know who
28:03
Speaker 9: it is. And you're going to sit here and tell
28:05
Speaker 9: us that you don't know how on top of the
28:06
Speaker 9: other lies you told us. And you're going to tell
28:08
Speaker 9: us that you don't know how that happened and you
28:10
Speaker 9: want us to just believe that, right? We know what
28:14
Speaker 9: we're believing. Forensic evidence is proven to us.
28:17
Speaker 4: And he finally said, well, if you have such good information,
28:20
Speaker 4: why don't you arrest me then? It's like, okay, we
28:25
Speaker 4: will do that.
28:29
Speaker 1: On September 27th, 2007, two weeks after the murder of
28:34
Speaker 1: Cook Tran, Kenneth Jackson was formally arrested. Despite his constant denial,
28:40
Speaker 1: detectives were convinced he was a dangerous predator.
28:44
Speaker 5: He planned that entire event. He stole the van from
28:48
Speaker 5: the advanced auto parts, left it parked where he knew
28:51
Speaker 5: he could ambush Cooke Tran because he knows she walks,
28:54
Speaker 5: runs in the mornings, and he targeted her. And it
28:59
Speaker 5: is as evil as it gets.
29:01
Speaker 6: This type of attack, a stranger in the dark jumps
29:05
Speaker 6: out of the bushes to attack you, is the nightmare
29:11
Speaker 6: that sits in the head of every single woman. And
29:15
Speaker 6: if it actually happens to you, all of those nightmares
29:20
Speaker 6: come to life at once. So for Cook Tran, that
29:25
Speaker 6: must have been the most terrifying moment that she had
29:30
Speaker 6: ever experienced.
29:33
Speaker 5: He thought everything through all the way up until the getaway.
29:37
Speaker 5: Like once he burned the van, he didn't have a clue.
29:40
Speaker 5: of what he was going to do after that. But
29:43
Speaker 5: I am convinced that he would have killed again. Given
29:45
Speaker 5: the opportunity, had we not have caught him, he would
29:48
Speaker 5: have killed again.
29:52
Speaker 1: After he was arrested, information on Kenneth Jackson continued to
29:57
Speaker 1: come in.
29:58
Speaker 8: One of the other significant pieces of evidence that the
30:00
Speaker 8: police received was from a relative of Jackson's who gave
30:05
Speaker 8: them a DVD, which he apparently habitually watched. It was
30:10
Speaker 8: a pornographic DVD, which included particularly Asian women and also
30:17
Speaker 8: had elements of bondage.
30:19
Speaker 5: Everything lines up that he's living out his fantasy.
30:22
Speaker 6: To me, Jackson appears to be on his first outing
30:26
Speaker 6: as a potential serial killer. He wasn't responding to some provocation.
30:32
Speaker 6: He was acting to please himself. And I think the
30:37
Speaker 6: violence pleased him. The fire pleased him. The cat and
30:41
Speaker 6: mouse he thought he was going to have with the
30:43
Speaker 6: 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 charged
31:00
Speaker 2: with sexual battery with a deadly weapon. And he was
31:04
Speaker 2: charged with grand theft motor vehicle of the van that
31:07
Speaker 2: he stole so that he could dispose of Ms. Tran'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.
31:22
Speaker 4: While he was in custody for all that time, again,
31:25
Speaker 4: that man talked.
31:28
Speaker 3: He ran his mouth to everybody.
31:31
Speaker 4: He did discuss about how he raped the woman, he
31:35
Speaker 4: killed the woman. He burned her up in the van.
31:37
Speaker 4: But one of the common threads from each of these
31:41
Speaker 4: statements we got was that he never was talking in remorse.
31:46
Speaker 4: He was bragging about it.
31:49
Speaker 7: He was so proud of what he'd done that he
31:52
Speaker 7: 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 4: Multiple inmates came forward with all the stories Kenny was
32:05
Speaker 4: 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 in 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 5: Getting those leads and that information from other prisoners saying
32:49
Speaker 5: that he's bragging about what he did only boosted 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 2012, five years after the death of 50-year-old mother
33:26
Speaker 1: of three Cooke Tran, Kenneth Jackson, the man accused of
33:29
Speaker 1: her rape and murder, stood trial in Florida.
33:33
Speaker 7: It was one of the most heinous murder rapes that
33:37
Speaker 7: had occurred that year. So there was a lot of
33:40
Speaker 7: 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 an 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
34:05
Speaker 2: to jailhouse snitches to other witnesses that he had made
34:09
Speaker 2: statements to that connected him to the crime.
34:12
Speaker 5: He planned this entire thing out to the point of
34:14
Speaker 5: 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 13th, 2007.
34:36
Speaker 2: He had seen her jogging in the early morning hours
34:39
Speaker 2: before he had become obsessed with her apparently and with
34:42
Speaker 2: the idea of abducting her. He positioned himself in an
34:47
Speaker 2: area in front of St. Francis Assisi 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 and forced her off of
35:00
Speaker 2: the roadway.
35:02
Speaker 7: Mrs. Tran was surprised by this man leaping out of
35:06
Speaker 7: the darkness. There was no way she could have defended herself.
35:09
Speaker 3: It was just all 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
35:29
Speaker 2: begging for her life, he began to stab her in
35:32
Speaker 2: the throat. He knew he was going to kill her.
35:37
Speaker 2: He knew he was going to rape her. This just
35:39
Speaker 2: speaks to an extremely depraved level of evil.
35:44
Speaker 4: He made the decision to take advantage of someone in
35:50
Speaker 4: the dark that he felt he could overpower. Then when
35:55
Speaker 4: he was in fear for maybe being found out because
35:59
Speaker 4: they were struggling, they were fighting, they were screaming, decided
36:03
Speaker 4: he could kill them. And then at that point, to
36:06
Speaker 4: think that he could make all this go away by
36:10
Speaker 4: destroying this person literally by trying to burn them up,
36:15
Speaker 4: that is evil.
36:20
Speaker 1: On October 15, 2012, Jackson's trial began at the Hillsborough
36:25
Speaker 1: County Circuit Court.
36:27
Speaker 2: In my opening statements, I told the jury he was
36:30
Speaker 2: trying to burn his biological evidence 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 3: It was all preplanned.
36:41
Speaker 7: It was extremely cold-blooded, calculated. It stayed with me for
36:47
Speaker 7: 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 courtroom.
37:00
Speaker 7: He didn't show any emotion at all throughout the trial.
37:04
Speaker 7: He just was sat quietly. It was kind of eerie.
37:08
Speaker 7: He had an eerie presence, this sort of calm, strange
37:14
Speaker 7: demeanor throughout. I thought he didn't mind being caught that much.
37:20
Speaker 7: Watching him, I think he had always wanted from the
37:24
Speaker 7: beginning to be able to boast about it.
37:27
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. He
37:34
Speaker 2: just didn't seem like he was taking the whole process seriously.
37:40
Speaker 6: He has got all eyes on him. This is his
37:43
Speaker 6: moment in the sun. He's not even thinking about what's
37:47
Speaker 6: going to happen afterwards. He couldn't hide his enjoyment at
37:53
Speaker 6: getting 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 called to testify.
38:05
Speaker 5: I took great pride in being able to get up
38:07
Speaker 5: there and testify, finding out the information that kind of
38:11
Speaker 5: linked everything to him. And that was pretty much all
38:14
Speaker 5: the testimony, you know, that I really had to bring
38:16
Speaker 5: to the table was being in the right place at
38:19
Speaker 5: 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,
38:41
Speaker 2: and they are separated by about 10, 11, 12 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 walking? 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 rode 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 and viscerally as a crime
39:32
Speaker 2: where a person is putting part of their body into
39:35
Speaker 2: another person against their will. And I think this may
39:40
Speaker 2: have impacted the women on the jury, and I argued
39:43
Speaker 2: to the jury, the last voice she heard and the
39:46
Speaker 2: last person's face she saw in her life on this
39:49
Speaker 2: earth was this defendant.
39:51
Speaker 1: The jury took less than a day to reach their verdict.
39:56
Speaker 4: The jury determined that he was guilty for the murder,
40:01
Speaker 4: 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 polled. A clerk asks each
40:19
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 say, yes,
40:31
Speaker 2: that's my verdict. They said, yes! I know two of
40:35
Speaker 2: the women looked directly at the defendant and said it
40:39
Speaker 2: very vehemently like that. So that's what kind of stood
40:43
Speaker 2: out to me, was proof. how much they believed in
40:47
Speaker 2: that verdict of guilty.
40:50
Speaker 1: The verdict was exactly the outcome the hardworking detectives had
40:54
Speaker 1: hoped for.
40:56
Speaker 5: To be able to get a positive result, it's what
40:58
Speaker 5: you want for every case. With this one here, everything
41:01
Speaker 5: just kind of fell right into place, being at the
41:03
Speaker 5: right place at the right time. Sometimes it's better to
41:06
Speaker 5: be lucky than good.
41:08
Speaker 4: I mean, it's horrible what the people went through, and
41:10
Speaker 4: the families, what they've gone through, but it's a huge...
41:15
Speaker 4: feeling of satisfaction when you can conclusively say, this is
41:20
Speaker 4: what happened.
41:22
Speaker 3: We got the guy.
41:24
Speaker 4: It doesn't change what happened. It's still a tragedy, but
41:29
Speaker 4: this is what we can give you for some sort
41:32
Speaker 4: of closure.
41:37
Speaker 1: A week later on November 1st, 2012, the next phase
41:42
Speaker 1: of Kenneth Jackson's trial began.
41:44
Speaker 7: The murder conviction comes first, and then there's basically a
41:48
Speaker 7: second trial with the same jury to consider the death penalty.
41:54
Speaker 7: And then they come back to the same jury and
41:56
Speaker 7: ask for a vote. In this case, it was 11
41:59
Speaker 7: to 1, which at the time was all that the
42:03
Speaker 7: state needed.
42:05
Speaker 1: On June 5, 2013, 30-year-old Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to death.
42:12
Speaker 7: When the death penalty was imposed, he had absolutely no reaction.
42:16
Speaker 7: I don't even know that he cared.
42:19
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell.
42:20
Speaker 7: He just looked blankly ahead, and he didn't offer any
42:24
Speaker 7: remorse or anything like that.
42:28
Speaker 5: I will say it was very satisfying to find that
42:30
Speaker 5: he was found guilty, number one, but number two, that
42:32
Speaker 5: he was given the death penalty.
42:39
Speaker 1: That wasn't the end of Kenneth Jackson's story, however. In 2016,
42:44
Speaker 1: the United States Supreme Court agreed that Florida's capital sentencing
42:49
Speaker 1: scheme was unconstitutional, which led the Florida Supreme Court to
42:54
Speaker 1: abolish the state's existing death penalty law and require that
42:58
Speaker 1: a jury's recommendation for death 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 Mr. 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 plead to life, and
43:18
Speaker 2: that's what happened, and he was resentenced to a life sentence.
43:26
Speaker 4: Whether he does life in prison without parole or whether
43:30
Speaker 4: he does death penalty.
43:31
Speaker 3: Either way, he's off the street.
43:34
Speaker 5: I know for a fact that that person won't be
43:37
Speaker 5: hurting anybody outside of those prison walls, and that's what
43:40
Speaker 5: we're after.
43:42
Speaker 7: This case really haunted me, I think because it was
43:46
Speaker 7: the first time I had encountered.
43:49
Speaker 3: What I thought was a true psychopath. I think there
43:53
Speaker 3: was every.
43:53
Speaker 7: Possibility that Kenneth Jackson if he had not been caught,
43:57
Speaker 7: would have gone on to kill other women, and that
44:01
Speaker 7: one day he might have been labeled a serial killer.
44:08
Speaker 1: Kenneth Jackson stalked, raped, and killed 50-year-old Cooke Tran, an
44:13
Speaker 1: innocent woman who'd done him no harm. He burned her
44:17
Speaker 1: body in the attempt to destroy any evidence, but he
44:20
Speaker 1: wasn't as clever as he thought, and when his DNA
44:23
Speaker 1: was found on the victim, his fate was sealed. He
44:28
Speaker 1: showed absolutely no remorse for leaving three children without a mother,
44:32
Speaker 1: proving that Kenneth Jackson is one of the world's most
44:36
Speaker 1: evil killers.