Background: The area near Ella Jackson's home from where she is believed to have been taken while walking her dog (WLEX/YouTube). Inset left: Ella Jackson (Richmond (Ky.) Police Department). Inset right: Glenn Jackson (Richmond (Ky.) Police Department).
Days before a Kentucky man's murder trial was to begin over the death of his wife, he made an admission in court that is set to bring the case to a close.
Glenn Jackson, 45, entered an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter in the death of 47-year-old Ella Jackson, as well as abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, Lexington-based NBC affiliate WLEX reported. The plea signifies that while he maintains his innocence, he acknowledges there is enough evidence for him to be convicted at trial.
The defendant had been arrested and charged with murder in the spring of 2020. According to local CBS affiliate WKYT, the case was delayed due to pandemic-related court shutdowns, forensics laboratory delays, judicial recusals, and the discovery of new evidence.
Months earlier, on Oct. 22, 2019, Ella Jackson was reported missing. According to the Richmond Police Department, her husband — who until months earlier had worked as a professor at Eastern Kentucky University — told police that he last saw her two days before, on Oct. 20, 2019, and that she had gone out to a park near their home to walk her dog before her disappearance.
Investigators reportedly found the circumstances of her vanishing strange given that she left behind her then-5-year-old son, dog, purse, and cellphone. And there were other elements to the case that authorities made note of.
"Investigators discovered that Mrs. Jackson met with a domestic violence advocate a few days before her disappearance," Richmond police added in its April 2020 press release. "A search warrant was subsequently executed on the residence and vehicles belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. A significant amount of blood was located in the trunk of Mr. Jackson's vehicle that was later proven to belong to Mrs. Jackson."
"Police located several recordings that Mrs. Jackson secretly made of her and Mr. Jackson's arguments," the law enforcement agency added. "Mrs. Jackson also told several individuals that she was afraid of Mr. Jackson, and if anything ever happened to her, her husband would be responsible."
Glenn Jackson was arrested on April 24, 2020, and about two weeks later, investigators found Ella Jackson's remains. In a wooded area near property he owned in Pulaski County — two counties south of Madison County — authorities say they found partial skeletal remains and that the Kentucky State Medical Examiner's Office confirmed "[d]ental records were used to positively identify Mrs. Jackson."
Ella Jackson's cause of death remains unknown, according to WLEX, though "she did have a fracture to her skull," Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Smith said.
Glenn Jackson is set to be sentenced on March 12, with the local outlet reporting that he faces up to 14 years in prison, but that, due to time served on house arrest, he could be released in fewer than eight.
"He will end up having done about 40% of his sentence sitting at his victim's house, which is incredibly frustrating," the victim's ex-husband Jason Hans, who is raising the Jacksons' young son, told WLEX. "There's some evidence that he confessed to one of his best friends in December of 2019. He's denied it ever since then."