Richard Douglass says he went to trial in the murder of Mary Nell Jackson with no eyewitnesses, no confession and no forensic evidence.
So the former Marion County district attorney says they “had to have some magic” to convict her husband, James T. Jackson Sr.
It worked. Although a jury in 1986 didn’t convict Jackson of murder, it did find him guilty of manslaughter.
So what was the secret?
“We didn’t prove that he did it; we proved that nobody else did it,” Douglass said Thursday.
The retired lawyer, who now lives in North Carolina, spoke to the Lions Club at noon and then at the Columbia-Marion County Public Library that afternoon about his book, “The Three Minute Man: The Story of a Small Town Sociopath.”
It details the March 12, 1985, murder of the 51-year-old, who was beaten with a soft drink bottle at the family’s business, Red Carpet Motors, and died the next day. James Jackson, who was a deacon at First Baptist Church, reported a robbery and told police he found his wife in the service area of the business. He said a man armed with a gun came to the front door and told him to open a safe that was in the showroom and that he heard a commotion in the service area and later found his wife there, according to newspaper reports from the time.
However, a bank bag he told investigators was stolen was found inside the dealership, indicating there was no armed robbery. At Jackson’s sentencing, the judge told him he believed someone else came to the business that night and that Jackson let them in, but that he had a hard time believing the rest of his story. The judge, Michael Eubanks, said two other explanations more readily accounted for Mrs. Jackson’s death: possible drug involvement between Mr. Jackson and someone else and a confrontation resulting from romantic involvement on Mr. Jackson’s part.
The unanswered questions about motive and exactly what happened that night have led to much speculation through the years.
“You guys have heard about the case, and you’ve heard a lot of rumors about the case,” Douglass told the Lions Club. “This would probably mean a lot more to the people of Columbia than it does to the rest of the people of the United States. This was the hardest case that we dealt with because it was so close to our home here in Columbia and it was so hard to deal with the split there was in town and in church. All along, I knew a lot of things that other people didn’t know that I couldn’t tell them.”
The first question Douglass received at the library involved blood — of the lack thereof — on James Jackson’s clothes.
Douglass said it didn’t matter because Jackson would have had plenty of time to change clothes before calling police. He also said Jackson didn’t turn the garments in until about four weeks after his wife died and that no witness could confirm those were actually the clothes he was wearing.
“Yes, that is a real important thing because there was blood on the walls. Blood would hit and make a little snow cone,” Douglass said. “Why he didn’t have blood on him, I don’t know. He should have. She was laying in a pool of blood. He should’ve had blood. I asked the first responding officer if (Jackson) had blood from trying to help her. He said absolutely not.”
Douglass gave credit to the lawyers and investigators around him, saying they were some of the best he ever worked with.
He said the case hinged on discovery of a bank bag by another employee at Red Carpet Motors.
“She was working at Red Carpet Motors and the night that Mrs. Jackson was killed, she didn’t go to Red Carpet Motors because it was late at night,” he said. “However the next day, she did go. Mrs. Jackson was on life support and she wasn’t technically dead. It was her job to see to it that paperwork and things were done. Mrs. Jackson did a lot of that, too. She got a call from Jimmy, Mr. Jackson’s son, about some workers comp paperwork. She didn’t know if it was Jimmy asking or Mr. Jackson. She went looking for it – they had never had anybody hurt. There was never any need for it.
“She started opening some drawers and a bank bag fell. At the hospital, she overheard Mr. Jackson telling law enforcement what a robber made him give over at the safe. One of the things that was asked be given over was a little bank bag. Mr. Jackson called in the 911 call and said he needed help and his wife was in bad shape and they needed an ambulance. One of the things he told law enforcement about that night was that he handed over a bank bag full of money to the robbery. He didn’t know who or what had happened with Mrs. Jackson because he said he didn’t see that. Even though where she lay was only 37 feet from where he was. He said his wife was beaten by somebody either while he was being robbed or as the robber was leaving. That’s kind of it in a nutshell.”
Douglass said the employee’s discovery of the bank bag, when it fell forward, scared her to death.
“There are all kinds of stories about what happened and why it happened,” Douglass said. “There were stories as to who might have been there and who might have been involved. We never found any evidence that there was somebody else involved.”
Investigators Carroll Bryant and Joe Sanders ended up going back to the open crime scene, and Jimmy gave them permission to come in.
“When they searched there, the same thing happened to Carroll (Bryant) that happened to her – the bank bag fell,” Douglass said. “Carroll pulled the drawer out and it fell down. It had the same checks there from March 22. This gave investigators thoughts on how to question Mr. Jackson.”
James Jackson, who eventually died in prison, had been heavily involved in the community but had a little-known dark past.
“He gave to all kinds of charities in town,” Douglass said. “A lot of people didn’t know this, but when he moved to (Columbia) from Hattiesburg, he had four federal convictions for tax evasion. Law enforcement had also already looked at a fire he had at his house, and it was ruled arson. They couldn’t prove he did it.”
The thought of a book had always run through Douglass’ head.
“I kept waiting for a time when I could just work on the book and not anything else and life got in the way,” he said. “We started talking about it and working on it. Until we dropped everything and moved to North Carolina, there wasn’t time. I got all these notes and started making some calls. I called various people on the case.”
Douglass said the book is basically in three parts with the first being about the injuries Mrs. Jackson had and the case. The second part is about the investigation and the third part is about the trial, which was moved to Rankin County.
“The only thing that we knew was that two people went into a business and one of them died in an assault,” Douglass said. “A terrible assault. She was beaten to death with what we figured was a Coke bottle. They were in a metal building by themselves and he could have heard anything. She died. There was a lot of talk about all kinds of things, drugs and things. Most of those rumors were started by James T. Jackson.”
Douglass said the book also deals with James Jackson’s “other life.”
“I bet you that after you read it, you say it still doesn’t answer everything,” he said. “It’s not going to. Not here, because there has always been so much said. A lot of people knew him. I never knew him. I met him one time. He never once talked to me about Mary Nell Jackson. I just kind of felt like he did have another life.”
Pictured Above: A crowd numbering more than 100 people packed into the Columbia-Marion County Public Library Thursday afternoon to hear former District Attorney Richard Douglass speak about his new book on the 1985 killing of Mary Nell Jackson inside a Columbia car dealership. | Photo by Mark Rogers
