The Jackson Family Murders

"On prime crime, so I'm broken in our house. I'm shot. My other family has been shot. I need help immediately." A suspected home invasion leaves a family shattered. "That's it. Who's this down here? Who are you? What happened?" "He came down. There was a man." But as detectives dig deeper. The story told by the lone survivor begins to unravel. "It was daylight. It was hot. This person wearing all black and a ski mask and gloves, breaking in a back door. It didn't add up." [Music] Hey there, everybody. I'm Jesse Weber and welcome to Prime Crime. This is where we break down some of the most compelling and memorable true crime cases from across the country. When a call comes in about a possible break in in an upscale neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, officers aren't sure what they're going to be walking into. It's a crime which leaves investigators wondering, "Is the caller a victim? Or is he hiding a darker truth?" "When can you share the courage or emergency? I've been shot. My other family movement shot. I need help immediately." "Okay, first stay on the line." It's early morning June 15, 2021. Please get a 911 call saying an intruder has broken into a family home. "Okay, what's going on?" "It's all about that." "I've been shot." "You've been shot?" "My dad's been shot." "Hold on just a second. Are they still there?" "No, they're less." "Did they come inside the house?" "Yeah." It was before 8.30 a.m., police received a 911 call from Alex Jackson and he said that there was a intruder that had broken into their home. Where were you shot at? "Downstairs." "No on your body." "And you're fine?" "You know who broke in?" "No." "Did you get a look at them?" "No." "Did you tell those a man or a woman?" "A man?" "I think I saw." "Do you know how they got in the house?" "Do I think it's open?" Berglories don't necessarily have to stick to a certain script. There are certain characteristics of a burglary that we come to expect. Daytime burglaries usually result in push in burglaries or going to a less visible part of the house breaking into a window, kicking in a back door, something of that nature. "You're doing great, Alex. You're doing good. Is anybody else home with you?" "No." "Your sister, where's she at?" "Her bedroom." "What's your sister's name?" "Why?" "I just want to make sure that we know who's supposed to be in that house, okay?" "This person that you saw in your house, did they leave out the back door?" "Yeah, yeah." "How long ago was this?" "I don't know." "Do you know?" "10 minutes ago?" "10 minutes ago." "Do you remember what color shirts or what color share this guy had, anything about him?" "Black?" "You think it was a black male or a black shirt?" "Uh, okay." When he's asked to describe the intruder, he simply describes him as a male black. With no specific features, no real description of his clothing, his age. One could argue that this was an individual who was in shock after just seeing his family gunned down. He probably wasn't shocked, I'm sure, but he didn't give a lot of details to the dispatcher. She was trying to draw it out of him. "Just you and your sister in the house, right?" "Yeah." "No parents or grandparents, animals." "My mom's here." "Okay, so you, your sister and your mom?" "Yeah." "I like that, too." "Do you know if mom and sister are safe, did the guy go upstairs?" "Well, I don't see them." "Alex, do you have any weapons downstairs? Any guns, knives, anything like that?" "No, but there's a gun on the floor." "There is, that's not yours." "It's ours, but we got shot by it." "So he took your gun and shot you?" "Yes." "In this case, lots of potential people responding to the scene, including police. So when they got there to the Jackson Home, I don't think they knew what they were going to find." "I've got officers in the back in the front, they're just trying to get mom and sister to come to the door if they're there, okay? That's why they're ringing your doorbell." "Consister and mom be gone, do you think?" "Well, please." "Do you think you know who did this to you?" "No." Officers arrive on scene, but there's a lot of confusion. "This is the very last house of the dead end of the right truck." "You have to realize that this is a fairly affluent community in Cedar Rapids. It's also a quiet community. And so when they arrive at the house, they don't really hear anything." "This sounds f***ing good. There's people in the house. There's no reason they can't come out. This is sound loud." "I'm going to go around to the back. I'm going to see if I can get eyes." "This is sound f***ing good. I'm just going to knock." "We're wondering if it's not a swatting call." "They're trying to get information from dispatch because the perpetrator is still inside. Where are people? Where should we go?" "They classified as a potential swatting situation. A swatting situation is when people kind of give a false call just to get an officer's reaction or get police there. "I'm getting nothing." "The back door is open. All the shades are drawn so I can't really see anything." "I'm getting no answer to the door. It's a shot." "Every door and window in this home were locked except for the one that was on the lower level. Bates spent backside of the home." "It takes them a while to even get into the house and then they're confronted with a horror of Jan laying on the floor. There's a rifle next to him. He doesn't look like he's alive at that point." "And then they hear Alex's voice." "Put your hands out to the side where I can see him." "15 multiple victims. One has a gunshot. The other is wounded in the leg." "Who's this down here? Who are you?" "What happened?" "He came down. There was a man." "Who's here? Who else is here? My sister. She's back? Yes, she's in her room. Is she okay? I think so." Alex initially appeared to be distraught. He sounded to be in pain and he didn't really talk very much about the very apparent injuries to his father. "When they eventually get inside they have their gun stront. They're going from room to room to see if there is in fact an intruder still there." "What's my bag?" "Leaves department. Sound off if you're here." "When they realize he's not there that there's no intruder, they come upon a pretty horrific scene. There is blood everywhere. There is Jan Jackson laying in the living room." "And then Sabrina, Alex's sister, is in her bedroom." To the officers, it's now apparent that this isn't just a break-in. It's a violent crime scene. "I'm going to go over here to the master bedroom. We're a big dog." "I can be the light." "662, we have a fourth victim. Upstairs, bedroom." They weren't expecting this. They were told that this was a burglary. What turned out to be just supposed to be a simple call of somebody breaking in. Maybe there's somebody that's been shot. That also now we have two dead bodies and we have another one injured. They go upstairs to continue the protective sweep and they find Melissa Jackson dead off the bed. "So we have triple homicide." "They're starting to put together that this is not what we were called for. That this is going to be a triple homicide." "The Jackson family, there was Jan and Melissa, who were the mother and the father, and then they had a Sabrina. She was 19." "Alex Jackson was her son who was 20 at the time." "Alex and Sabrina had been in college. Alex had been like an equal scout in high school. He played in the high school band and so had Sabrina. I believe she played the oboe and he played the flute." Jan worked in IT and Melissa, she was retired, but was a photographer. They kept to themselves. They were very quiet about things. They did not have it. I have a lot of local friends. They didn't have any other family in the area. - Investigators are now confronted with a storm of unanswered questions. Up next, the hunt is on for a killer, but could the culprit be closer than they realize? - I see you got some water in your hands, too. Do you mind if I take some bottles of that hair off, but you can just get that all in the head. I think that's my cold foot. (dramatic music) - Alex, what happened? - There was a man. - What man? - That's all, man? - Okay, thank you for the truck, got everything. - Police are investigating the tragic triple homicide of Jan, Melissa, and Sabrina Jackson. After their 20-year-old son and brother, Alexander Jackson, called 911 to report an intruder in the family home. When officers arrive, they get a closer look around and take stock of the crime scenes spread across several rooms. - The first thing that law enforcement needs to do is figure out what happened. If it wasn't intruders, this is a person that came to steal something and then just came upon the family and then killed them. Is this someone that intentionally came for the purpose of killing this family? - First ones, right here, shot in the head. - Watch out, you don't step on the rounds. Multiple gunshot wounds. - Dad's down on the gunshot wound in the head. He's a female DOA and a bedroom over there. I'm a DOA upstairs. I believe this is a sign that he was hitting the foot. We are not sure what. - No idea. There's a rifle on the ground here. - There's a rifle next to Jan. That has to be tested. Is that the weapon that fired the fatal shots? But at that moment, they don't know if there's more than one weapon involved. - We're the next one. All right, here. Another gunshot to the head. I don't know where the entrance one. Jesus Christ. (crow cawing) Jan, the father was shot five times. He was shot in the chest, neck, back. All of them piercing vital internal structures. And from that, he has injuries on his face from falling over Sabrina. Was shot twice. Melissa was shot twice. One near the left eye and the other in the head. Both of those piercing the brain. - The first priority is getting Alex to the hospital. And investigators must move quickly to figure out who could have done this. But once they get in the ambulance, Alex starts talking, unprompted. - Are you ran into him? - You ran into who? - The man. - Okay. You ran into him, how? - You ran into him, and he's like a fester. - Like what? - Okay. - That's true. - So you're my foot. - You're sleeping in the porch? - Yeah. - Okay. Then what happened to your gunshots? What? - Yeah. (crow cawing) - Saw somebody in your house? - Yeah. - Alex, who opened the back door? - No, I don't know. - Maybe he can do this? - He's only saw one guy. - Yeah. - One guy? - Yeah. - There's almost a non-chalant way about Alex Jackson. I think he almost chuckles at one point. It's almost like he has no grasp or concept that his entire family has been killed. - Oh, you're mad at him. - Peter's. Peter. - What's this, I hate you. (crow cawing) (crow cawing) - It's hot. (crow cawing) - It's really good. - Once they arrive at the emergency room, Alex continues talking. And at times, he repeats what he claims. He saw that morning. (crow cawing) - You opened the door. Yeah. (crow cawing) - First of all, you're dead. - Yeah. (crow cawing) - What are you gonna say? (crow cawing) - So I think you're gonna run out. (crow cawing) - What happened to you? - And pushed him. Try to stay still. (crow cawing) - Then, well, (crow cawing) see what happened. (crow cawing) - Have you tried to take the gun from the guy? - Yeah. - I already got that happened, okay. - He's in pain, which you can understand if he was shot in the foot, but he's still not saying a whole lot. He's still just kind of saying the same story and he says he didn't see who it was. He does ask if they found his parents or if they found his sister and how are they, but nobody's really answering his questions. - Then, detectives get more of the story. - I'm gonna start off with my last name. Leave me like, what time do you get home last night or the other night? - Okay. - All day. - Okay. - What time do you order that? - I don't know, I think. - You're ready to sleep at the porch. - How many of you slept on the porch? Is that, where are you now? - There's no sleeper. - Were you the last one to go to bed? - The. - Maybe. - Maybe for a moment or so. - Oh my God. - The investigators did ask Alex what led up to this, what led up to the night, anything happened. And he basically said nothing out of the ordinary happened. They had spent the night together, they had dinner, they watched movies. - Who let's take that out from the walk? Then, sister and dog. - What time did you wake up this morning? - All right, walk out. We got a pair of gunshots. All right, what is it? - You need to take your time. You can swallow the finger. - I don't know what you're saying. I heard that stairs, so what house do they use? - They use nursing books. Well, Dan's got, they have a mask on. - Oh, we have all those stuff. - Let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see his hair, no, let's shoot, let's see, let's see. - Again, they just come questions about the intruder, about what the intruder looked like, how it was that the intruder came in throughout the questioning, whether it be in the house, in the ambulance, at the hospital. He's not very specific. He describes in his mouth black. He describes something that they're wearing. He describes at one point the guy cursing, but he really doesn't give any substantive descriptions of this person such that one would expect they'd ever be able to find that person. - He's nice to meet your dad's dad. He's nice to meet you. And then what happened? All these stuff, you're. And. Oh my god, I see. He was on the floor. And I ran out. He was your dad, dad, dad. I don't know what happened. - All right, push it, did he say anything to you? - What did he say? - Oh, what did he say? - What did he say? - Yeah, he was. - What did he say? - [bleep] - You think I helped him get out of the house? - No, no, no. He followed her and then he walked through that house. - He died there? - Yep. - And I sat in the floor. - Yeah, so I think I saw. I saw him running. I saw him running out of the house, I saw him. - And then I walked out there. - Investigators begin to realize many details of Alex's account aren't quite adding up. So their focus begins to narrow on Alex himself. - Do you think, uh, someone of that seven year here? You happen? This is that way. I don't know what it was, you know? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know what they be upset about. - How do you feel about your family? - Almost a show. - Do they ever do anything good and I said to you? Oh, yeah, I'm telling you. - He rarely showed any remorse force family. He started to express like, are they okay? It was like a rehearsed speech that he had ready. Like he said, like, I love my family. I love my parents and my sister. You may not believe me, but I love them. There was no passion or raw emotion. - He's acting like it's just like no big deal in a way, the way he talks, but it is probably going back to, he could still be in shock or maybe he's just an awkward kid. He says he loves his family. He doesn't have any problem with his family. And they keep pushing that because they're trying to get more answers about it, but he just says that it, wasn't him." Despite Alex's statements, the evidence of the scene appears to be pointing in a different direction, coming up, detectives wonder if Alex Jackson is telling the whole truth. Detective's aren't exactly sure what led to an Iowa family being gunned down in their own home. But the lone survivor of the family, Alexander Jackson, tells investigators that he awoke to gunshots and fought with the intruder. But when officers do a sweep of the area surrounding the Jackson's home, Alex's story begins to fall apart. Officer Curtis Buckles and his canine partner Corsa, what they need to first figure out is is there another person that was there. They were told that this person escaped or left the back door area and took off run-in. They want to see if they could pick up the scent of another individual. They checked the trails, our areas where someone may have gone, those weren't disturbed. They looked for fingerprints, they looked for DNA, they looked for anything to show that someone broke in to disturb something, to take something. There's no indication of that. I've walked all this and the only place she had interest was right here. Back at the hospital, detectives confront Alex on the inconsistencies in his story. The investigator during all this, they're like at his home, went through everything. What was strange was that there was nothing to miss in the house, nothing was turned over, everything was in its place. There was even, I believe, a puzzle nearby on a table that none of the pieces were on the floor. When we stepped out, we talked to our co-workers, they were at the, at your house. This is the name of the house, Alex, the reality is he's not, not any of it in the city, but also so great at your house. It's okay, it's okay. Alex, do you want to tell us what happened? What did we have? Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex. The fact that it was daylight, not just daylight, but it was hot, this date will stick out in my memory forever, based on just the sheer temperature that it was at 8 o'clock in the morning. So, the description of this person wearing all black and a ski mask and gloves, you know, walking through this affluent neighborhood in broad daylight, it didn't add up. There had been a person there that would be some evidence that he showed up. There is no evidence that someone else is there, but something bad happened, and there's a reason why something bad happened, and I know you know that reason, but I don't, and I don't understand it. I don't know. What do you do? What happened that led to the events today? What caused this? What really caught Officer's attention was if someone had come in, broken into the house, used the gun, shot the family, and then shot Alex, why would they leave the gun behind? The gun that was used was the Jackson's family gun. It was actually Alex Jackson's gun. It was a brown 22 rifle. Do you want our report to reflect that he was a guy in your house and that there's no other than himself? Well, if this person is going to help us, he'll listen to me. Do you want us to write down in the report that there was a guy in your house that there's no video that they were showing up for leaving. Do you want us to put that down? Or do you want to give us some sort of an explanation that makes sense? I want to click on the shuttle. The Jackson home had external surveillance cameras set up all along the outside of the home. All of the surveillance videos were on and live and recording except that one in the backyard that would have specifically caught this phantom burglar. What do you think about what happened that led to the incident? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's one key question still on everyone's mind. If Alex did kill his parents and sister, why would he want them dead? The problem law enforcement had with this case is here you had what seemed from the outside to be a fairly normal family dynamic. Alex Jackson had no history of criminality, he had no history of mental health issues, and no one seemed to have any basis to believe that there would be any motive why he would want his family dead. Alex said that his dad had threatened the kicking mal or told him he would have to move out if he didn't get a job because he had been going to college but he dropped out. If I'm going to pay for half of your college, you're going to get a job, you've got to pay a job. Motive was something that plagued us. Could it have been money? Absolutely. At the time, he only had $30 to his name, he did not have a job, he did not have savings. There was a fair amount of wealth and assets to be attained by whoever the surviving heir was. This was our first triple homicide here for at least 30 years. To have this type of brutal crime scene, to have this type of murder happen in your own community just really, really took back everyone. no one could have ever imagined when they ever made it. The immigration came out that this was caused by a 20-year-old kid that anyone would kill their parents and their sister in this matter. This young man with no criminal record and no previously reported mental health issues is accused of killing his own family. Up next, is there enough evidence to bring murder charges against Alexander Jackson? You weren't thinking straight, Ellen. You weren't. People didn't think in straight, don't do these kind of things, they talk themselves out of it. Your brain storming out of you, get your ass out of this trouble you're in. I think it's up. I do. Detectives believe they know who's responsible for killing Jan, Melissa and Sabrina Jackson. Despite his claims of innocence and contention that a masked intruder is the real shooter, son and brother Alexander Jackson has taken into custody, but investigators have a few more questions to hash out. We took into account your theory about a ski masked intruder coming in with the worst description on the planet. You gotta just be honest with this man. We don't know him left. I'm telling him how I saw him, you know? You still think someone was there? Yeah. Do I know someone who was there? Who is using your call at 6 a.m. to get on social media? Maybe me? I don't know. I don't remember. How could you use it at 6 a.m. or sleep, tell me? Alexander had told investigators that he was sleeping outside on that screened in porch with his dog all night without his cell phone. 20 year old gamer, no cell phone on the porch. Alex Jackson claimed that he was awoken by the gunshots, yet they were able to show that several hours before this alleged intruder came in, Alex Jackson was awake and on the phone. If they came there to murder people like you said, then they would have had to get lucky enough that you had lost the gun out for. And then be able to know where everybody's at, and shoot everyone and get in a fight with the biggest person in the house, and be able to escape. You cannot sit there and look me in the eye and say, "Yeah, well, that did happen." Are you ashamed? Is that why you don't want to tell us? Well, you're being charged with murder, of your mom, your dad, and your sister, and you're going to go to jail. As investigators strengthen their case against Alexander Jackson, one critical question still troubles detectives. Who shot Alex in the foot? When Alex began to interact with law enforcement, he tried to appear to be so hurt that he couldn't walk, that he couldn't move, that he couldn't check on his family members. Even though there were footprints throughout the basement of this home. The couch that was next to the stairs, there was this big pile of blood that initially thought maybe that's where he was shot, but there was also a large puddle of blood near the corner of his bed. His footprints only went in one direction. His footprints only went out of his room. Never did his footprints go into his room or go down the hallway. The investigators figured out that Alex had shot himself in the foot. He walked himself in his bloody foot out of the bedroom and up the hallway and deposited that murder weapon next to his father. Alexander Jackson is charged with three counts of first degree murder for the deaths of his parents, Janna Melissa, and his younger sister Sabrina. A year and a half later, Alex goes on trial facing three life sentences. Alexander Jackson wants you to think that he had her fixed family life, that his mother, Melissa, his father, Janna, his sister Sabrina, they all got along great. And it's not what, but Jackson claimed it to be. They appeared to be close knit and we were able to gather that interpretation from a lot of the photographs that we found throughout the home. But then there was this gap in time where it seemed like the family interactions just ceased for this four year period. We knew that there were some disagreements for lack of a better word about politics. It appeared that Alex and his father were very conservative. The sister appeared to be a very liberal person. His sister and he argued a lot according to Sabrina's journals. On June 15th of 2021, a 911 call went out early in the morning hours. That call was made by the defendant, stating, "So when it broke into our house and shot me and my family, they find no evidence of any sign of anyone else inside that home that morning except for the defendant, Sabrina, Melissa, and Jay." Prosecutors point out one key piece of evidence which sets Alexander Jackson apart from any other possible suspect. This gun was shot more than 11 times on that June 15th of 2021 day, meaning it had to be loaded more than once. It was a unique gun and so somebody would have to be familiar with that gun if that's the gun they used, which that's what the evidence points to. The murder weapon was on the floor and just mere feet from his father. As our investigator began to process the firearm, he himself could not figure out how to load this gun. Trained law enforcement weapon processor had to watch a YouTube video of this specific model of firearm to figure out how to load it. Not only did this phantom burglar come into the Jackson home to hurt people without a weapon, but he used a weapon that just happened to be laying out on the fireplace mantle and figured out how to load it and then reload it during this killing spree. With this evidence, this knowledge, this truth, you will see that the person responsible for the deaths, Sabrina Jackson, Jan Jackson, Melissa Jackson, was caused by their own family member, the defendant. In a circumstance where you have three people and they're killed in different rooms of the house, and yet no one seems to have gotten to a phone. Why isn't there more of a struggle, more of a fight, or more of a hiding, or something like that, maybe because the perpetrators known to them are confronted with Alex. And they're not afraid. The lack of evidence in this case was as important if not more important than the physical evidence that was recovered. The lack of a fatal or attempted fatal wound on Alexander Jackson, coupled with all of the other physical evidence that only could point at Alexander Jackson, where how we pieced this case together. The defense, however, suggested investigators had tunnel vision, accusing them of zeroing in on Alex from the start. Having just seen his father lying in a full of blood on the ground, with a gunshot bleeding from his foot, in shock, officers wasted no time at all accusing Alexander Jackson of killing his family. And although they interrogated him for over seven hours, officer Matt Dillinger and Sarah Latina had never even stepped foot on the crime scene. It took about 35 minutes before they decided that Alex and Jackson was their suspect. We knew that the defense were going to argue that we did not exhaust all of the leads that we could. We didn't do a thorough investigation to look for other suspects. There are some things in the investigation that could have been done differently, could have been done better. Part of their strategy was to poke holes in the investigation. Alexander Jackson never wavered in telling officers what happened to him that morning. He told them over 13 different ways that it was Matt Henry. But charging Alex was the easiest route for officers. And when it came to the subject of fingerprints, aside from Jackson's prints because it was his own gun, could there be someone else? Offset, didn't even- a father to test whether there are any fingerprints or DNA on the bullets later removed from that gun or from any bullets that were dropped on the floor. There was an unidentified fingerprint that was found on the rifle. They were going to also point to that piece of evidence that there is also a possibility that there was another suspect. Officers found no other blood on Alex except from his own body. Officers found two separate prints on that rifle that was on the scene. One belonging to Alex, the other print belonging to an unidentified person. The other fingerprint most likely was Alex. It didn't have enough points to say who it is one way or the other. Following days of testimony, the case is handed off to the jury and when the verdict was read after five and a half hours of deliberations, Alexander Jackson is emotionless. We at the jury find the defendant, Alexander Jackson, guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree. The defense doesn't waste any time. They file a motion for a new trial even before the sentencing hearing less than two months later, but the motion is ultimately denied. And that is when Alexander Jackson learns his fate. This set of murders shook this community to its core. Mr. Jackson is adjudicated to be guilty of three counts of murder in the first degree. In each count, he is sentenced to be confined for the remainder of his life with no possibility of parole. I'm an eagle scout as well. So you know, you're taught these values and these ethics that you should live by. The eagle scout badge has two stars on it and those stars indicate truth and knowledge. The truth that Alex was trying to tell that wasn't the truth. In all of my career, I have never prosecuted a triple homicide of family members killed by someone who was a part of that family who was supposed to love and cherish the family that they were born into. It was an absolute tragedy, an absolutely inexplainable, unjustified, senseless murder. Even though we were able to obtain three guilty verdicts, there are still three innocent people who lost their lives with absolutely no explanation and no justification for that. In the end, here's what we know. Jan, Melissa, and Sabrina were brutally murdered. And we know that Alexander Jackson is the one who committed this absolutely atrocious crime. But what we don't know and what we may never know is why he did this. That is the part that still plagues us, why a man would cut short the lives of three people who were supposed to be his whole world. That's all we have for you here on this episode of Prime Crime. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jesse Weber and as always, stay safe.