Jenna Jackson
Appearances
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
It gives me goosebumps every time I hear that, you know, as a parent. I mean, I just don't know how you accept that news and then how you deal with it.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
He's sorry he's sitting in prison for 35 years.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
I mean, I think as a mom, if you told me one of my twin boys plotted to kill me, I would immediately think you were trying to frame them. Like, no one's going to believe that, you know? And I think she felt like a suspect in the beginning. And so then I think she was like, well, they're just grasping for straws. Now they're going after my kid. That's not going to happen.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
You know, one of her attorneys told me a story at one point. There was a moment of realization for her that was heartbreaking. She was in a conference room at the law firm. And this was after Nick had admitted to everything, had been presented with all the evidence and, you know, Jackie had already turned against him, and he was about to take this plea deal.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
And it took up till that point for Corey to hear every piece of the evidence connected and laid out in front of her. And this attorney said you could see it just wash over her. Oh, my God. He really did this. Like... And she had to leave the room because she got so emotional. And then she came back and she was like, okay, like, what's the next step?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
I do too. She's in an impossible situation. There's no good answer. And at some point, even if it's the full 35 years from now, her son's gonna walk out of prison. So it makes it even more difficult
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
I have never heard of it. I think it's sort of brilliant. I mean...
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
That's right. I mean, it's still it still seems like getting off easy compared to her cohorts who are every night in prison. But, you know, I did think it was an interesting thing that was in addition to this probation that I have never heard of before.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
She's an impressive woman. She really is. She had a literal shootout. Like I feel like part of that even gets missed in all this craziness. She literally had to shoot back at two hitmen who broke in in the middle of the night. I can't fathom that. And then hid in the closet when she ran out of bullets. Like there's so much trauma, you know?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
Just that is traumatic. And then the rest of this craziness unfolds and it's the other person you love most in the world who did this.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
Jim's exactly right. They left no detail unturned and they searched and searched to figure out who this guy was and thankfully found somebody who remembered him from four years earlier, you know, so it's pretty amazing.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
And then once they drive all over the state, you know, they drove all over the state for like several days in a row to finally figure out which office of this window place. Someone remembered this guy.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
And I think his parents thought he was on the right path for the most part. Corey said at one point during our conversations, he wasn't super motivated yet. I mean, I'm a mom of twin teenagers. That is not unusual. You know, I think they thought their relationship was fine.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
I mean, apart from trying not to throw up, right? I knew she didn't want to talk to us because I had been to visit her twice in jail. And the second time she wouldn't even come out to say hello. So she knew who I was. She didn't want to talk. I genuinely always want to hear someone's story, whatever it is. And I feel like people always surprise you and people generally want to tell their story.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
So I was just trying to be, you know, not intimidating and like, look, we're doing this story. You're a part of this story. We really want to hear what you have to say. And while she said, I don't want to talk, I said, OK, well, I'm going to ask you some questions anyway. And she just kept answering them.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
She had thought about this, you know, so whatever you make of her, it at least gives a little more insight into her, which was nice.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
I'm from Texas and have been crime reporting here for over 20 years. Even 35 years for a murder and an attempted murder is pretty low in Texas. I was kind of amazed at those plea deals. But Jackie did cooperate eventually with the police. She filled in some blanks. So, you know, that could be what sort of led them to these plea deal talks.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
Yeah, and I don't know if we'll ever know fully what went into that decision.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Crossfire at the Shaughnessys'
Yeah, I mean, I agree with Jim. They're not answering the question that we asked.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Heartbreaking. I think that the identical twin bond is so sort of deeply ingrained. It's just got to be awful. It was awful to listen to her and see her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
The story went that Catherine would tell her young school children, if you see me on the street and say hello and I don't answer, it's because it's my sister, Allison. She didn't want them thinking they were ignored.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Yeah, they all suspect that there are more victims that either have not come forward or that they haven't found. And so there is an ongoing look at all the places he lived to see if they can connect any dots to any unsolved cases.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And it was just very emotional because everything about the case was emotional. And they all said a version of... Yes, it's the ending we wanted. And yes, it's what we worked for. But to call it justice for Mary Catherine is just too difficult for them because this guy got to roam the earth and have a family and get married twice and live a life. And Catherine got nothing. None of those things.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And everybody, I think, had to go back and dwell on the fact that he was just, as Jenna said, hiding in plain sight. He was just there and nobody thought twice about him.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Ranger Best could have his own show.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
It was great to work with you, Natalie. Thank you so much. Thank you, Natalie.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And what they did was a very multi-layered, complicated process where they were doing the family tree, but they were also researching the birth and death records, Googling with certain things in mind, like who's in education, who's near Beaumont, Texas, all things that they thought could lead them
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
to the person who had the DNA at the crime scene, but to build it up and down and sideways and then have it be almost 7,500 people to get to one, to get to the person they became sure was the killer. That was really pretty amazing. And an unbelievable husband and wife team. Yeah, I was going to say. Tina wasn't even assigned to the case. She's an auto crimes detective. He's the homicide guy.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And suddenly she sees him floundering in front of the family tree. And she already knows a little bit about it. And so she just jumps in and the obsession level just goes off the charts and she's up all night, you know, and not sleeping. She knows there's a killer out there and she will not stop. She goes into the Mary Catherine diaries.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
There's nothing that Tina didn't do to try to get to the bottom of this.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
So Tina's building out the tree, and she keeps running into this family named LaPointe. And then she runs into Shira, keeps coming up Shira LaPointe. And she's saying, who is this person? Why is she everywhere? And could she be related to her suspect? So she gets Aaron to do the calling. Aaron calls her up.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And not only is Shira uploading her family tree, and it turns out there may be some distant connection. She's also a professional genetic genealogist. So suddenly they have this new person who knows how to work these cases, has done at least one with the Texas killing fields where she identified a woman in that case who had been buried along the highway with all those other victims.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And they just, Tina and Shira to this day are really great friends. It was a huge connection. And they even described, Shira was driving almost through Beaumont. So they met and Tina said, we met in a coffee shop and we were both wearing like the same cat eye glasses. I mean, this sort of mind meld was just, it was just incredible. Yeah.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And also the relay and the teamwork among the four of them was really very extraordinary to watch. And the way they worked together. I mean, at one point, Brandon, Beth says to you, Natalie, and it doesn't make the show, but he talks about... what it's like to be a cold case investigator, how they're just a different breed, you know, and that many great policemen have already looked at a crime.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
But the cold case people come in and they look at it sideways. And he called it like looking at it from the 10 mile mark. You just get above it. Look, look at everything. And that's what they all did together.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Tina actually said in testimony that had she billed for overtime, it would have amounted to something like $50,000.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Well, that's a very dramatic moment. Aaron Llewellyn describes just running a check on both of them to see if they have a criminal record. And Michael is completely clean as a whistle. But Clayton Foreman has a conviction for aggravated assault. There are some similarities to what happened to Mary Catherine. And suddenly they are off to the races. This is our guy. We are on the right track.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Yeah, I mean, these guys, so much heart went into what they were doing. So they finally... After all their hard work and all these years, they've got an arrest warrant for them, and they have one thing, just one more thing they really need to do. And they worked it out with the prosecutors.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
They brought the very handcuffs that had bound Mary Catherine the night she died, and they slapped them on Clayton Foreman. And that was such a moment when Ranger Best talks to you about it. He just says it felt... so good and that we had done something for Catherine.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
And so symbolic. It was just this sort of parting thing they had to do.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
No signs of violence ever. I just have to say my hat is completely off to Jenna, what she did and the delicacy that you must have when you're dealing with victims. And Jenna just did a remarkable job with just respect and gained their trust.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Oh, yeah. I mean, and the components between the familial testing and the family tree just growing and growing and growing and what everybody had to do to whittle it down. And then there's just this kind of astonishing twist that no one could have predicted.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards
Yeah, that was so, it was wrenching, just wrenching.