Mom of Two Murdered on Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's Day, but for Auburn police, roses and romantic dinners are going to have to wait. They have a homicide on their hands. At 2.20pm this afternoon, the lifeless body of a young African-American woman was discovered in the bushes outside of commercial business center. She's been shot in the face. Her jacket might have been pulled up over her head when she was shot. Yeah, that actually catched it. That's the entry. Yeah, this is all stippling on her face. This is all the potter bird, all those pock marks and everything. That's all potter bird. She also appears to have been shot in her upper torso. She's going to have another one in her somewhere, but she's going to have another one in her somewhere shoulder. That's actually another entry. Another hole in that green sweatshirt. What's this? That's all clean. It could be, well, if so, that's a contact transfer not a shot. But she clearly was pulled through there, then dropped, right? Everything's clean and everything. In addition to a small amount of blood spatter on the ground, police find a spent 9mm shell casing less than 20 feet away from her body. Given the black blood? It didn't happen here, and it probably didn't come out of the way it flies. Yeah, and the casing probably just got dried out. Yep, and then there's some stuff in the bushes. They're like a bottle, half-filled bottle, juice or something, and maybe some clothes. There's a shoe that possibly most likely belongs to her. Okay, no gun or anything. The woman has no idea on her, but officers find a cell phone in her pocket. Is this a cell phone number? We can take the cell phone. Yeah, does it show a number? Or does it just say that? I mean, you can use her fingerprint. While they attempts to unlock the cell phone, other officers can miss the area, looking for any eyewitnesses. Christopher, I got his information. He works over in, set around 1,400. He heard a female voice. Almost as if it was coming from inside the building, and he thought that was odd because he started working there. But when he came out, no one was there. And that's about the only thing we have right now. He said it could have sounded distressed. Like a distressed female voice, but he doesn't really know. So he believes that all the cameras right there are belonged by one of these other businesses. So we'll, besides, kind of do all that stuff, but that's about what we got to do. Fortunately, almost all of the surrounding businesses have security cameras. And I got a lot of information for the property owner who said he's trying to get video now one. There's one over there and over there. Yeah, so he's going to get now one, that one, over here. They have one that's not going to show. Yes, but one is more frustrated. As they wait for the medical examiner to arrive, one of the officers successfully unlocks the cell phone. When they run Anicia Howard's name through their system, police learn the 34-year-old lives less than seven miles away in Kent. And it turns out Kent police are out searching for her. An hour before her body was discovered, Anicia's boyfriend, 32-year-old Calvin Jackson, contacted the Kent Police Department to file a missing person's report. He said Anicia's colleagues alerted her family when she failed to show up for work this morning, and no one's been able to get a hold of her. Police searched the parking lot, but Anicia's black SUV is nowhere to be found. Later that evening, detectives head to the apartment Anicia shared with her boyfriend, Calvin, their two young sons and Anicia's mother, Fay. When they arrive, police pull Calvin and Fay aside and deliver the news that Anicia is dead. Fay is devastated, but Calvin remains oddly calm. Detectives then question them separately. So Calvin, to be completely honest, we don't really have a good idea of what's going on, so we're trying to figure out information on Anicia, because we don't know who she was as a person or anything like that, and so we talk here to one, but you guys know what's going on and when you guys know it, we relocated her to cease, but two, we want to know essentially who she was and what happened leading up to this. Calvin tells police that Anicia was a Navy veteran, and they met in her hometown of Savannah, Georgia, in 2011. Calvin insists, even though he and Anicia were no longer a couple, they remained on good terms. So you said you had an understanding? What's the understanding? What does she work at? Is that down in Auburn? Do you know what time she works at usually? She has to be to work by six. I guess according to mom, I don't know what time exactly she means. When detectives ask Calvin what time he got up for work this morning, he seems defensive. I'm not working right now, I haven't been working for a while since I had to leave my last job, so I was out doing some legal thing. Okay, so just to be straight, because part of the conversation is like everything everybody tells us, we somewhere down the road, we corroborate, and some people are being untruthful with us and that raises questions. So are you talking about your out-boosting, out-slinging? Okay. According to Calvin, he was slinging a.k.a. selling weed down at a nearby bus stop this morning. He got home, he went back to sleep. The next thing he knew, a family friend named Dorel showed up at the apartment in a panic. He knocked on my door, he was like "Hey, I have a heart missing though." He didn't make it to work. Oh, then he got up and started calling. I'd text her too. I'd text that car for this month, that I didn't think anything of it, so I thought she was at work, and then what prompted you guys to call 911, I guess? Oh, mom told me. She called 911. She called me literally 20 seconds before he knocked on the door, she called, but I missed the call. He came in, and I saw the miss call, and I called 911. After he reported Anicia missing, Calvin says he and Dorel got in Dorel's car and drove Anicia's usual route to work. I had, I was just riding downwards, I was like "We wrote downwards, that'd be so good times today, bro." Okay. Trying to find her, and I just had a bad feeling. I don't know, I mean, I still have a connection even though it's with her, so it's like, "That's got a bad feeling right now, it's valid." But when police speak with Anicia's mother, Fay, she describes Calvin and Anicia's connection as much more contentious. Fay says Anicia tried to make their relationship work, but Calvin's lack of initiative, as a partner, as a provider, and as a parent, took a toll on her. So in the spring of 2023, Anicia asked Calvin to move out. But Calvin couldn't afford to move out, so Anicia and Fay agreed he could remain in the apartment until he could get a job and his own place. But Calvin was dragging his feet, and their platonic living arrangement imploded last week. when Anisya discovered Calvin had gone through her emails behind her back. That's how he discovered that Anisya had a new love in her life, her friend Laurie. The two met in June of 2023, within months, their feelings for each other grew into something more. According to Faye, Calvin did not take the news of Anisya and Laurie's romance well. He and Anisya got into a massive fight and had left Anisya shaken and upset. While police are at the apartment, Laurie shows up and she doesn't mince words when it comes to Calvin. "I know you ain't supposed to hear say in point fingers, but I can hear you and I'm going to point you saying together." "Everybody's got a story and we'll listen to you." Laurie accuses Calvin of lying about his whereabouts this morning. "Because her mom said she'd seen him get up and they made eye contact around three something in here." "I loved him, didn't I?" "Back to afterward, six, almost seven?" "Yeah." "That, come on." "That, that, that, that, I feel right." "That, I feel right." "The hair standing up on my skin, that, I feel right." "That, I feel right." She also says that earlier today when word got out that Anisya was missing, Calvin didn't seem surprised or bothered. "You know nothing like the fuck." "You know I'm not sure what, you're invisible." "Everybody's fine, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay." The next day with Calvin sitting at the top of their suspect list, detectives go to the daycare where Anisya worked and speak with her colleagues. "Tell me a little bit about Anisya." "So, um, I could set my clock by her, she was that, um, punctual and dependent, she's very, very, um, responsible, reliable, she was always here, she was never like from the moment I've known her since August of last year, she hasn't taken a day off." Anisya's colleagues say she kept her personal life to herself, and last month she confided in one of them about some problems she was having at home. "She shared something with me, um, she shared that, um, she's living with the father of her children as well, she said that she was gonna ask them to move out." "Okay." "And I heard that she, in fact, has asked them to move out." "Okay, and that was on the 18th." "Um, I don't know when she asked them, but I chatted on the 19th, 19th." Based on their interviews so far, it's clear to detectives that Anisya was done with Calvin once and for all. Did he seek revenge by killing her? That same day detectives bring Calvin into the police station for another interview. "So, uh, one of the things that's really important for us to gather is timestamps, right? Um, so we can try to track with her cell phone and try to figure it out with the phone calls, because it sounds like you and, do you call her Mama Faye, Mama? I call them Mama. Mama, got it. You and Mama sounds like she used her phone to try and call her, um, also at some point, and there's some text messages. So, one of the things we do to preserve that data is we mirror people's phones. So, um, after this, we're gonna have, I was trying to get both of you guys down at the same time. It sounds like it just didn't work. Um, so, one of the things we do is, um, he also does mirroring a phone where he just mirrors the data. Nothing gets lost, nothing. He just mirrors it, um, for what can be, uh, scenes we can say at this time, I know. I don't know, got it. At this time, it gets called, everything gets, um, easily, uh, tried. So, it just comes out easily on printable. So, that's what we like to do, um, with your phone, okay? I know you're gonna, you were ready to do it last night, sounds like. Yeah. We just don't want to take your guys' phones from the house, everything. So, we thought while we're here, he can do it right now. Um, it's strictly voluntary. Calvin not only agrees to hand over his cell phone to the detectives for analysis. He also agrees to answer more questions about his relationship with Anicia. So, when did you, and, uh, Anicia, make that decision that you were doing? That relationship was not going any further. The road is stopped and it was time to find different paths. Uh, could it seem like there was a moment in time with that? No, but she had a lot of issues with that. All right. Because she says she was done, and then she's still so, like, she wanted me to. Okay. When's the last time that she was like, this is it? Uh, gotta find a memory? I mean, that'd be good. I don't want you to guess on anything. No, 'cause I see that because she said it wasn't December. Who said? Okay. Calvin maintains things between him and Anicia were still cordial up until her death, but detectives mention Faye told them about a fight he had with Anicia just days before her murder. That's when Calvin admits it's because he read Anicia's emails without her permission. And so, when you saw that, did she see you seeing that, or she asleep? Did she find out? Did you tell her what you saw? How was that? The screen that went out and all that. She saw me. Oh, she saw me. She woke up? Yeah. Oh? Oh, she caught you. Oh, I'm in that conversation. Oh. I mean, it wasn't bad. I mean, she was pissed at first, but then I told her, like, I didn't do any scroll and I just, you know, she just put it down if I was going to such a computer down if I was, like, every any other night. And then she just, you just talked about it. Talk or argue? Just talk. All right. Mom said that. I mean, she got, she got, I mean, she was pissed that I went into that thing. What was that? So it was a lot about that. Okay. I did, after I explained myself and, like, I told her, like, there was no scrolling or anything. Calvin confirms the emails he read were between Anicia and Laurie. So, okay. She did that. What kind of relationship was going on with that? Like, I don't want to just friends first, and then it became more intimate than I guess. Did she confirm what you read? Like, did she just have that conversation? I think she, I think I explained myself. Yeah. And then, and that's what, what did she tell you about their relationship is? I don't know. She didn't mean to tell you how that relationship is. Like, she didn't really want me in her business. She just was like, yeah, they're officially, I mean. Okay. Detectives, Sans Calvin is downplaying his feelings about Anicia and Laurie's relationship. So they switched tactics. If you were running this investigation, where do you think we should be looking at? Honestly, I don't know. Any idea where her car would be? No. Time to get out. To get out of me then. Is there any way we can track it? I mean, I think our mom said yesterday, there's no load tank on the car. What do you think the motivation of this one is? The car. The car. The car. Oh, blank killer. She was pretty good. She did have a gun. Does she always have a gun? Yeah. Does she keep it in a purse, you're like on her? Calvin says he suspects Anicia's murder must have been the result of a carjacking gone wrong. Like, don't think I could think of. Like, she went for a gun. True. That's the only thing I could think of. But as the interview continues, detectives in another room are analyzing Calvin's phone, and they make a significant discovery. Yesterday, on the morning of Anicia's murder, Calvin used a ride share app to order a car. The app shows he was picked up at 6.22 a.m. near Lake Fenwick Park and dropped off at his apartment. Detectives immediately dispatch a team of officers to search Lake Fenwick Park. And they find Anicia's abandoned SUV inside the vehicle officer's detect blood stains and multiple bullet holes in the driver's seat. Detectives confront Calvin with this new evidence. Do you remember getting a lift that morning? Yeah, from the apartment. For this fallen, it does have software on it. I don't think you knew about. It does give location. I know. I do know that. Okay. In my location, uh-huh. Why not? I know. So you are saying that this? Yeah. The question isn't whether you get it. No, you already said it. Why? Why? Why? What happened in that moment? I did not. I don't know, just tell them I'm going to do. You know, she's going to ask, "What, what did you do?" No. So, like we talked about before, all we care about is the truth, right? And we're kind of there now. We have all the big stuff, and I want you to fill in the gaps to talk about the why. Evidence stacked against him, Calvin finally drops his charade. Honestly, man. Oh, I'm a great person, I didn't know. I'm a great person. Everybody's going to hate me now. I said just left everything. Calvin confesses he left the apartment that morning, went outside and watched and waited for Indicia to leave for work. Like, when she came out of the apartment, where were you? In the car. You were already in the car waiting for you. Was it a lot of people were you able to unlock it, but they're not a key file? No, it was already unlocked. She forgot to lock it. And as she got in the car, did she know you were in there? No. What point did she know you were in there? Or did she ever shoot out? Where were you at in the car? Oh, sorry. This man. Are you in the front seat or the back seat? No, it wasn't in the front seat. Oh, I'm sorry. Are you in the back seat or the rear compartment? Back seat. Behind the driver's side. Are you actually sitting out when she gets in? Are you crunched out when she gets in? I was wondering when you're in the back seat and she threw her person in the back, is that when you went to grab her gun and it's her gun that you're used? Bullistically, we're going to find out. So I'd rather just have this truth just come out. It makes more sense. That's just a weird thing not to be honest about. Just be honest about it. You're being straight about what happened, right? Is everything on the table so we can have that open conversation? Was it her gun that was used? Is it still in the car? So she starts to drive out of the parking lot. How did you get the gun out of her purse? That's what I'm asking. Is it person in the back seat? Is it a holster? So she put it in the back seat and didn't even notice you back there? Calvin says the gun was loaded. He said she didn't know you were even there before it happened. So how is it that you shot the gun? I don't understand. How she didn't know you were there before it happened. Did you get in and immediately it happened or what happened? No. I've played it for a minute. I really didn't want to do it. I don't even know what to do. So walk me through that where you guys on West Valley at that point. Yes. Okay. And then when did the first shot go off? Not sure. Okay. How many shots did you do before the car? At some point, the car had to connect over to it. Three. Okay. Did the car stop at some point? Yes. Did you have to get out of the car to move her and get into the driver's seat or no? I think so. I think I did. I think I did. Okay. Calvin says he placed Anicia in the passenger seat and took off, searching for a place to dump her body. Why that spot? Is there any reason? Where you actually ended up with? Where you placed her? I don't know. Like I said, I was just like that. I wasn't thinking, man. At all. So that spot was in a pre-planned spot. It was just a spot in the future. When he pulled into the commercial business center, Calvin realized there was a problem. Anicia was still alive. Is she talking? Money? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. At all. Talking, Money. Making noises. She was twitching. I'm sorry. Twitching. Twitching? Okay. So I'm not sure. Okay. And how did you respond to her twitching? I think you do know. That's why you're thinking about it. Because this is the kind of self-part. I don't want you to think about what you want us to hear. I just want you to talk about what's going on. Do you want to talk about what's going on? that away to jail, Calvin makes one request. He asks if he can call his kids. I want you to recognize this is a matter about you. I don't want you thinking about that because it's all about the kids. They still don't know clearly. Other than us, nobody else knows what's happened as far as where this has progressed, right? I don't want you to be the one telling the kids that. I don't think it started them over the phone right now. So I'd rather be the one to tell them? What are you going to tell them? I don't know, but I'd rather be the one to tell my kids that. I don't want it to come from from from from from from her mom and stuff like that. I get it, but there's a difference between telling them over the phone with words that the kids are not going to be understand. No, they're going to understand the death of it is what he's talking about. They'll understand the fact that mom's gone, the words are dead in general, but they won't know. My kid, I know my kid. I get it. I'm not coming to you telling them over the phone that you just killed their mom. That conversation about what you did can happen at a time that they're ready for it. After he's arrested, police obtain a search warrant for Anisea's apartment. Inside they locate the clothing Calvin said he was wearing when he committed Anisea's murder. When police compare it to security footage obtained from the crime scene, it's a match. And the video further corroborates Calvin's confession how he pulled into the parking lot removed Anisea from the car, shot her in the face, and then dragged her body into the bushes. With her killer behind bars, Anisea Howard's family and friends are left to celebrate her life and mourn her death. On March 2, 2024, Anisea is buried with military honors in Savannah, Georgia. And her funeral, Anisea's sister pays tribute to the woman she describes as a beacon of light, a force of unwavering love and a reservoir of kindness. In February of 2026, Calvin Jackson pleads guilty to first-degree murder, a judge sentences him to 28 years in prison. But Calvin's punishment seems tame compared to the pain left in his wake, because the day he murdered Anisea, he also sentenced his two young sons to a lifetime without their mother.