July 31, 2017 • 54 mins
Noura Jackson was 18 when her mother was fatally stabbed 50 times in her Memphis home and she was 30 when she walked out of a Tennessee prison a year after the state Supreme Court overturned her second-degree murder conviction. Nancy Grace talks with Lisa Hickman, who wrote "Stranger to the Truth," a book exploring Jackson's sensational case.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Climb Stories with Nancy Grace on Serious x M Triumph
Channel one thirty two. Now my mom and my mom
and breathing, breathing, breathing, not breathing, not breathing. You have
help on the world. We're going to help your mother.
Only right now. Imagine coming home in the evening and
(00:31):
you call out, hey, where is everybody? Anybody home? And
you walk through the home. You walk through your house,
you know it by heart. You don't have to turn
on all the lights, and you look and you look
from room to room. Nobody's there until you get to
your mom's room and you find your mom and you
(00:53):
find out why she's not answering and why she didn't
come to the door. She's dead, covered in blood, naked,
lying on her bed. Clearly a horrible, horrible struggle has occurred,
and the killer has rammed a waste basket over her
(01:18):
head and you can't even process it. This is a
story of Norah Jackson, a girl who finds her mother dead.
I Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for
being with us. What happened to Jennifer? What happened to
(01:42):
Norah's mom? The mystery goes on. I want to expose
the facts as we know them and joining me a
very special guest. I want you to meet her. Lisa
Hickman has written the book, literally written the book on
this murder mystery, Stranger to Truth, and it is awesome.
(02:07):
First I heard about it, then I got it on
Amazon dot Com and I read it immediately and couldn't
put it down. I mean, even the cover is captivating
to me, even the cover. Lisa, thank you for being
with us. I mean, that's an awesome book, the way
(02:29):
you compilated all the facts. But what's interesting to me
is I described just then the way Nora came in.
Nora Jackson came in and found her mother. But actually
that night there's a little more to the story of
her coming in. Also with me the Duke Alan Duke
(02:50):
joining me out of l A Alan. She comes home.
She's been out with her friends that night, and I'm
talking about the daughter Nora, and as spelled n O.
You are that that's Nora correct, because sometimes I've heard
her pronounced Nora. Lisa, is it Nora or Nora? Nora
pronunciation is the same as it's a slightly different spell.
I guess, gotcha. So she had been out with her
(03:13):
friends that night, Alan, and they had been to some
Italian festival. They live in the Memphis area, and they
have been out partying and drinking and having a good time.
So she gets home and immediately perceives that there has
been a burglary, that something's not right with the entry way.
(03:34):
Did you get that part? Alan? She didn't just walk in.
She knew immediately that the home had been burglarized. Did
you did you see that point? Yes, something that didn't
seem right according to what she said. What was it? Lisa?
So when she comes home, she doesn't just walk in,
and nobody answers it's not exactly how it happened when
she drove in. How did she know someone had been
(03:55):
in the home? I think, um, the glass. There was
glass all over the kitchen floor, and I believe that's
what the first thing that let her know something was
a myth she came in. That's right, there was glass.
There was one of those um doors between the garage
and the kitchen that you could I think, break through
(04:17):
and reach in and unlock it right there. That indicates
very strongly it's someone that knows the family. It could
be a neighbor, it could be a delivery person because
that door was not visible from outside. You had to
know to get into the garage, and there was something
(04:39):
hinky about the lock. You had to know how to
do it. Am I right on that? Am I remembering correctly? Yeah?
They described it as a secret butterfly lock that you
would have had you have reached your arm through the
hole that was in the glass and unlock it. And
you would had to have known it was there to
even have any idea that's what you would do. So
(05:00):
it was a very peculiar place question. Yeah, the glass,
the glass, The glass was on the in the um
on the kitchen floor, and it was a pretty pretty
um defined round hole UM in the center pane of
that dark where somebody punched through. Okay, all right, so
(05:23):
she comes in and she immediately sees that has happened.
Then where does she go to? Lisa? And I believe
she went down the hallway to toward her mother's bedroom
and um that was up of course when she discovered
her mother's body, and it was twilight, so it was
(05:45):
um that was such early morning hours. It was sort
of semi dark in the house. Now didn't she run?
Didn't she run to a neighbor and said, I think
someone's broken in our house, and the neighbor comes with us.
After she actually been in her mother's bedroom, she ran
across the street and asked them to screaming at their
(06:07):
front door and asked them to help her that there
had been an intruder in their house. And that's when
the neighbor grabbed his gun and um, you know, walked
ahead of her for a while across the street, and
then she actually ran in in front of him. That
(06:28):
was a real problem for the why minute she got
in front of the neighbor who had the gun because
she ran in front of him. So they go in
and they find the mom. Allan, the description of the
crime scene is gruesome. Please describe the photos that I
saw blood, the mother laying with no clothing on the
(06:51):
bed and just an awful lot of blood. Is that
the best way to say at Lisa? Yes, And she
actually was on the floor when she was found, Um
at the footboo at the foot bed or the you know,
towards the bottom of the bed, but on the floor.
Her head was close to the door. What was it immediate?
(07:15):
Should it immediately have been apparent that she had been
stabbed or could it have been you would assume that
she had just been shot or was that obvious? Well,
I think anybody who just glanced in that room would
have just seen all the blood and they would not
have had any ideas it was she'd been stabbed or
murder shot. There's just blood everywhere, so I wouldn't say
(07:40):
it would be immediately apparent. Now, as a matter of fact,
it turns out the mom has been stabbed nearly thirty times.
That's a lot all around the torso neck, face. Jennifer
just complete, eatly, completely destroyed. Everything about her is covered
(08:06):
in stabs, including defensive stabs. Now, what has always intrigued
me is the fact that a wicker basket had been
shoved down over her head, over her face. Lisa and
a lot of um. I mean, I just made it
(08:28):
such a personal crime, uh that you know whoever it
committed this, I did not want to see her and
her eyes were open. She was just thirty nine years old,
just absolutely beautiful, is stunning, vivacious. A successful bond trader
can't be an idiot to do that, and a triathlete.
(08:51):
This is the mother, the thirty nine year old mother
found stab dead and I mentioned thirty times, it was
more like fifty times. Fifty stab wounds over fifty stab wounds.
There were so many stab wounds they could not count
them after a certain point because many of them overlapped
(09:12):
each other and the body was such a mess. They
know that it was over fifty stab wounds. At that point,
what happens to Nora because her her dad's already dead.
Her dad was shot. Let's see about a year before that,
Nasmi was his name now. The dad and Jennifer had
(09:35):
been living apart for a period of time, several years.
They were estranged. He was a successful business owner. He
owned several businesses in the Memphis area, and he was
at one of them one night and there was a
security surveillance camera and he's then he's in there and
you can see him, and an unknown assailant comes in,
(09:59):
manages to avoid the security camera, shoot him down execution style.
You can't tell who the person was, and leaves. There
is no attack, there is no theft, no burglary, nothing.
They come in, shoot him dead and leave. Then about
a year later, Jennifer is murdered. So this girl is
(10:25):
left without either a parent, Alan and a little bit
of an inheritance too. Why do you say things like that,
A little bit of an inheritance. It's only it's over
a million dollars. That's not an awful lot of money.
I mean, it's not like you told me that your
dad for the railroad, as did mind. So I don't
(10:48):
know what planet you're living on, but a million dollars
is a lot of money. Alan, Earth to Alan before
we talk about the inheritance. That night, Lisa, what happened
to Nora? Where did she go? Well, by the time
the her neighbors had been over and um they called
the first responder, it was close to early morning, and
(11:10):
she UM, she sat on the front curb and talked
with the neighbors and UM and then eventually some friends
showed up and picked her up and she left with
him and UM drove around and UH just was and
she was on and off at the crime scene because
(11:31):
there were times when you know, she was confronted by
a lot of people showing up, relatives and friends of
her mother, and they would have, you know, various conversations.
Isn't it true that she admitted that she was drinking
and smoking pot that night? She did admit that. Yes,
but she had been out and you know, so she
probably needed a couple of hours to cyber up. Yes. Um,
(11:55):
she did eventually, of course, ride downtown with um Detective Connie.
Just this and uh, she actually fell asleep. Um on
the ride down downtown. She was exhausted. Well well, well
wait a minute, she fell asleep in the car. Okay,
(12:17):
I'm projecting, Lisa. I know I'm projecting, and that's not
good when you're analyzing a crime or a crime scene.
But I remember two distinctly. After my fiancee was murdered.
There was no falling asleep, the shock and the just
(12:39):
trying to grasp and understand what was happening. There was
no sleeping. I remember even into the night, like one
or two o'clock in the morning. Um. Our family doctor
finally brought over some kind of sedative so I could
go to sleep. It didn't work. I was just so
(13:01):
strung out. So she fell asleep in the police car
after finding her mother's dead body. She did. Okay, that's
just weird. When did they notice the big cut on
her hand? That that they noticed that early? And um
they took photographs of it. Um when she was downtown
(13:22):
was detected Justice and um, like you know, she had
a she had for that A variety of different stories
as to how they cut occurred. What we were talking about,
Lisa Hickman, author of Stranger to the Truth about the
Jennifer Jackson murder, is the daughter had a huge cut
(13:44):
on her hand that cops had to notice. How did
she explain that away? Well, it was um actually covered
with some adhesive tape when by the time they were
at the police station, and um, they was never examined
underneath the tape. And she said that people were breaking
beer bottles at the Italian festival and that she um
(14:09):
tripped and cut it on one of the broken beer bottles,
And that's what she told Detective Justice. Did any of
her friends recall her tripping and cutting her hand, any
of the friends she was with that night, No, they
did not. Well, they really didn't have time to focus
on her tripping on and getting cut with a beer
(14:30):
bottle because of her of the mom, Jennifer's boyfriend, This
on again, off again boyfriend she had had called the
mom that very night. They had a very volatile relationship.
What was their relationship about the one the mother Jennifer
had been dating this guy. What do we know about him? Well,
(14:52):
he's a Methodist minister and um, at this point in
their relationship, just before the murder occurred, he was quite
insistent that they get married. He was he wanted um
to take it to the next level, and she was
hesitant to do that. Isn't that pushing the nuclear button?
(15:13):
I mean getting married? Well, what was the rush for him?
Apparently it was, you know, extremely important. And Jennifer, having
been married and divorced was twice by then, was you know,
reluctant to get married. And uh, it seems fairly content
to keep things as they were. So that led to
(15:37):
a number of breaking you know, breaking up and getting
back together. And that was a scenario at the time.
She had called even wanted to drive to he was
in Jackson, Tennessee, drive and uh see him for his birthday.
And um he was luke lukewarm to know about that idea.
(15:58):
And that very night he called her. Yeah, he was
having none of it. It was either get married or
I guess face his anger. He had tried and tried
to get her to get married. She wouldn't do it.
That night he called her. What was his excuse for
calling her. What did he say, Well, they never spoke. Um,
(16:21):
she didn't get the call, didn't take the call, and um,
we'll really never know what he was calling about. That
was about midnight. But he gave a story about why
he called. Didn't he say it was an accident like
a pocket dial? Um? He said he decided that it
was too late to be calling any hung up. He
(16:42):
was afraid she might be right? So what at? What time?
Did they place the time of death as best as
they could, Lisa, I believe they it was quite broad.
I want to say between one and three am there
was I wouldn't quite a window of time. And what
time was his phone call? Wasn't his phone call around twelve?
(17:07):
Around twelve? So just before the attack he's calling her
and he lived out of town, right, Yes, he was
in Jackson, Tennessee. Interesting, I mean, some would argue, some
would hypothesize that he was calling to make sure she
was at home before he came over. That could be
(17:28):
a very compelling argument. So police, of course, alan look
at the boyfriend, the X, the current spouse. That's where
they start every investigation because the statistics typically it's your
partner that kills you, sad but true, So they start
looking at this guy methodist minister. Right, Yeah, I'm wondering
(17:50):
why they weren't looking at the dead former husband Nasmi
who killed him? Because if just months earlier, or you're earlier,
one spouse is murdered and then another one is, don't
you just think they might be connected? Did they, Lisa?
Did they ever try to connect those two killings? I
(18:10):
do believe they looked into that, and um, they just
know there was just no evidence that um, you know,
connected the murders. Well, they couldn't find any evidence because
they never knew Alan who killed Nasmi. That still remains
a mystery. They have the killer on video, they have
(18:30):
well they have it in Missy Beavers too, but that
doesn't mean they've got him in jail. For Pete's sake,
they don't know, they don't know who did it. Well,
that's true, but the maybe there was some connection, I'm
just saying, and maybe they don't have a way of
knowing that. Well. I agree with you on that, Alan,
I agree. I mean it's just too coincidental that the
dad is murdered, there's no doubt whether it was an accident,
(18:53):
and the mother is murdered shortly thereafter. And it's no
accident that clearly we're both victor was of homicide. That's
just what one in a million. The reason we don't
know who murdered Nasmy Lisa Hickman. Can you see the
purps You can't. You can never see the perps face
(19:13):
in the in the ship, in the shooting death. Correct.
Are they disguised or they just keep their face away
from the camera. Right, just had UM acknowledge of where
the cameras were placed and UM able to avoid them. Okay,
right there, knew how to avoid the surveillance cameras. Okay,
So we've got the killer of Nasmy as a potential suspect.
(19:38):
We have the boyfriend who called her that night. Some
would argue to make sure she was home before he
showed up. There is a break in. Now, was there
any evidence of a sex attack on Jennifer? No, there
was not. Umm, although she was naked, that's true. Yes,
(19:58):
and there was a used find him in the room,
but um, nothing that that linked that to Jennifer. Okay,
wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, So she's in her
bedroom naked and there's a used condom and they don't
think there was a sex attack. The medical examiner, you know,
it ruled that there was not. The examiner placed the
(20:20):
time of death between twelve thirty am and five ten am.
Was um. That was So what Lisa Hickman is saying
in a very delicate manner, is that, regardless of her
being in her bedroom completely naked and there's a used
condom in there, if the medical examiner did a rape
(20:43):
kit and there's no evidence on the body, then either
all of that was left from another incident or it
was staged. There's the only two choices, because I'm telling you,
even I looking under a microscope can tell the difference
(21:05):
as to whether there's any indication sperm is there. It's
it's very clear under a microscope. So if the emmy
says no sex activity, the emmy is right. So forget
about that now. That leads me to another question. Was
anything stolen from the home, Lisa UM. I believe there
(21:25):
were a few items missing that some some eventually turned
up in a bin in the sun room. I think
her driver's license, but as far as any valuables, no,
and her driver's license in a ben. I didn't know
that Jennifer's driver's like when you say, Ben, are you
talking about a trash can? No, No, just like a
(21:47):
storage you know container. Um, some stuff was just kind
of strewn around. Okay, I find that very odd. There's
no sex attack, nothing is stolen, no jewelry, no money,
the DVD, DVD play, nothing like that. And her driver's
license is displaced. Okay. Let's I want to get back
(22:09):
to where Nora was that night. She's saying she's at
the Italian festival. That's confirmed. I still don't did anybody
confirm her falling on the beer ball? No, no one
did that, that was not confirmed. All right, What can
you tell me about her being at a walgrains buying
(22:32):
bandages that night? Lisa? Right, that was um, that was
all caught on surveillance. Um. And she uh just walked
in of course, and um, you know, as the the
fellow checking you know, checking out, um, first of all
(22:52):
offers of paper towels, and he gave her some and
she used those on her hand and then bought a
number of medical supply What time was that, Lisa? I
believe that was around to a m um and she uh,
you know, had been on her phone pretty often on
(23:12):
all night basically except for a period of time when
it was quiet, and um, yes, went into Walgreens for
you Well, you're putting it. You're certainly putting perfume on
the big She lived on the cell phone. She was
on it constantly, but then there was a period of
time between let's say, like one and three, she went
(23:35):
totally quiet, not one single phone call. There was an
odd period of time she was not on the phone,
and then she picked right back up again. And during
this time, I think it's when she spotted on surveillance
video at the pharmacy buying bandages. So that was around
one o'clock. You're saying, um, right right in there, between
(23:58):
one and two. Okay, So you know what was interesting
Alan about when she went to the pharmacy to get bandages.
What the pharmacy employee said, did you see that? I
saw that. I saw the surveillance video that said she
was sure she was obviously bleeding and had a bandage
on her hand. Okay, there's a little bit more to it,
(24:23):
he said. The employees said it was openly bleeding, And
what I mean by that is it had just happened
unless she reinjured it and it started bleeding again. Lisa.
What did she say at the pharmacy as to what
happened to her hand? No, I don't remember exactly to
tell you the truth. Um if she gave any kind
(24:46):
of an explanation for her or not the hand. Um.
She told her her off on and off boyfriend Perry,
that she cut it in her house chasing her kitten.
She told her Aunt Grace she cut it. Um she
burned it making macaroni and cheese. There are just a
number of different stories about the cut on her hand.
(25:08):
And um, okay, hold on, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa? What
happened to falling on the beer bottle? That was one
of the stories too. There's several different accounts for how
the cut occurs. Alan are you hearing this? Mr? Innocent
until proven guilty? Well, at least O. J. Simpson stuck
to the story about how he cut his hand. At
(25:29):
least we have that but with that similarity. But you
think they're broken glass in the middle of consumption of alcohol,
right right? Exactly? What? So? He? I guess I do
have to give that decemps. And he did stick with
his story. Nora Jackson has multiple stories. Now. That is
when I got concerned about Nora Jackson. First of all,
(25:53):
knowing about that hinky lock and how to get in.
That's why I was asking you about the glass. Was
it on the kitchen floor or the garage floor? That
would tell me which way the intruder from which angle
they were punching the glass. Then the fact that the
waste basket was put over the mom's face. A random
(26:18):
killer doesn't take time to do that. They hit it
and quit it. They're gone. They don't care about the
victim looking at them. No sexist, sex attack, nothing stolen.
And now this cut on her hand. This is not
typically if you look at statistics a female crime, this
(26:41):
is statistically not committed by a woman. Also, matricide or
killing your mother less than one percent of all homicides,
less than one percent is the murder of your own mother.
(27:02):
So trying to pen this on Nora Jackson is statistically improbable.
But then enter the various stories she gives. I mean
to me, it was unlikely that you happened to fall
on a broken beer bottle number one, But number two,
I mean to me, you'd hit your knees first. Just
(27:24):
to me, that's an unlikely scenario. But I I could
go with it, but changing the story, that is a problem.
I want to go through her changing stories again. Who
did she tell what Lisa? She told Perry her Um,
as I said, her on and off again boyfriend. She
was chasing her kitty. She she picked up a little
(27:47):
kitten that day from a neighbor who was giving them away,
and Um cut it on the glass in the kitchen floor.
And then she told her aunt Grace that she burned
it making macaroni and cheese. And then of course the
police officers, she told you know that there was broken
(28:08):
glass at the Italian festival and as she fell and
cut it on that. I used to go through this
with defense attorneys in court all the time. The fact
that they would argue, well, your witnesses, your witnesses change
their story, and I would argue back, no, Alan, they
haven't changed their story. They have embellished their story. They've
(28:31):
added to this story because they're finally being asked the
right questions. They will never ask these questions before. There's
a big difference, Alan, in changing your story and adding
to your story. Once you start changing your story, you're
in hot water. But did she only tell one story
to police, to the police. Yes, yes, I believe to
(28:54):
the police it was so and that's what's relevant. What
do you mean that's what's relevant? I mean well, I
mean she to investigators, she did not tell multiple stories.
And this boyfriend, I mean, are there reasons we wouldn't
trust necessarily his memory? Well, I don't know. He was
partying too, but um, I couldn't. I don't know about
(29:17):
his memory. Okay, the wait a minute, you're saying because um,
he had been drinking that night, he didn't remember what
she said about the wound to her hand. Well, are
you trying to suggest he did it? He had been
using drugs, right, He had been using drugs right, Yes
he did. Um, he was using ecstasy that night. There
(29:39):
you go. Okay, So who did she tell about the kitten?
Who is that? Okay, that's um, that's tell His name
is Perry and he was on again, off again boyfriend. Andrew. Um,
the individual we were talking about earlier. Uh, he um
(29:59):
was also someone he was a friend, but at times
like they had more of a relationship than a friendship.
As he described, I've got three stories so far. What
Lisa he described on the witness stand. Uh, friends with
benefits with how he described his relationship to Nora Andrew Hamrick.
(30:20):
During her police investigate interrogation, Nora Jackson says she was
out at the Italian Festival that night. She went to
two parties after that at friends homes. At six a m.
She tells police she went to a gas station to
buy cigarettes, then went to another friends home at three
(30:42):
thirty a m. There's a big gap right there. Coincidentally,
at the time her mother is murdered. A m. She's
buying cigarettes. Three thirty a m. She's at a friend's house.
That's a two and a half hour, two hour and
forty five minute gap. Then at four twenty a m.
(31:03):
She buys gas and heads home. Cops point out no
activity on her cell phone between one and three a m.
She forgot to tell police. She went to a Walgreens
at four a m. The surveillance video shows she asked
a cashier for a paper towel, not just to buy
(31:27):
band aids. She has to get a paper towel to
stop the bleeding from her hand. Then she buys bandages
in a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Okay. Cops believe Jennifer
was murdered between one and four a m Several prosecution
witnesses state that Nora gave them different excuses from broken glass.
(31:53):
She told one person a barbed wire, another person cooking
mac and cheese, and then the other person says she
said a cat scratched her, a kitten scratched her while
she was trying to get it out of the garage.
M hmm, okay, it's starting to look bad for her.
Take a listen, judge for yourself. Here is Nora Jackson's
(32:16):
nine one one call from What's Good that doesn't one
knew even avenue. What's the phone coming back? My mom?
Because my mom is breathing. She's breathing, breathings, not breathing,
not breathing. Blease them with anyone's shot like every clease,
(32:41):
I need a puttying. I didn't a mother burying nine
years old? Oh my god, oh my god, clean, please
help me, please in come Okay looking to me, ma'am,
I ne can't calm down. Okay, so we can help
(33:01):
your mother. Okay, breezy, okay, listen to me. Did you
see what happened? No, my good, fe long if someone
broken through your home, he had one still get my
kicking out of the kicking in his gloss everywhere in
(33:23):
your three Okay, we have help on the way. We're
going to help your mother. Only right now, man, money
canna come now, we can help her. Okay. Prosecutors say
(33:51):
that Nora Jackson murdered her mother to get access to money.
I'm talking about a lot of money. In fact, Nora's uncle,
Eric Sherwood, Jennifer's brother, states he heard Nora and her
mother discussing the mom's assets and life insurance policies just
(34:17):
one week before his sister is found stabbed dead. Alan,
you have questions, as do I about some evidence found
at the scene. What's your concern? Well, why didn't they
test the blonde hair found in the grasp of the mom?
Nora didn't have blonde hair? Whose hair was that? I mean?
(34:38):
Did they not want to know? This reminds me so
much of the O. J. Simpson crime scene and that
there should be a lot of evidence around footprints, DNA
from the perpetrator, that kind of thing. But that's completely
absent from this crime scene. Is she's so brilliant in
cleaning up and that did she stage the blonde hair
in her mother's grasp? Why didn't they test it and
(35:00):
find out. Lisa, what do we know about that? I
don't know why they didn't test it, and that's just
been a nagging question. Um. The judge said, he offered
the money to actually have that test performed to the
defense team, and they chose not to test the blond hairs.
But is it their job to do that? Oh? Whoa,
(35:22):
you're so right about that? Hold on Alan before he
started crying and sobbing about a hair that wasn't tested.
I agree with the prosecution, who has to do that?
Quite a minute. The prosecution doesn't have to do anything.
The prosecution has to carry a burden, and they didn't
(35:42):
test the hair. Now, if it were me, I would
have wanted the hair tested. But let me point out
that the mom had her hair bleach blonde and the
daughter had her hair bleached blonde. I don't know if
it was blonde at the time though, but they both
had put highlights in their hair. And it's interesting to
me that neither side wanted to test the hair. Um,
(36:05):
So the the defense could have had it tested for free. Right,
they can ask for tests just like the state does.
The state doesn't have to do that, and if the
defense wanted it tested. They could have it detested. Have
it tested. I've got another issue. The phone calls around
UM three eighteen a m. Nor Jackson starts using her
(36:28):
phone again. She calls a friend named Eric Whittaker, asking
him wanting to come over to his house and hang out.
This isn't three eighteen in the morning. He agreed. She
drove to his house, but when she got there, he
was just leaving by the time she got there, so
they only chatter for two or three minutes and she
(36:49):
left all right. Next four oh one a m. About
one hour before she calls nine one one. That's when
she goes to Walgreen. But there's another phone call, isn't
there a phone call to a friend Around twelve fifty nine,
that's one am in the morning, a friend of Nora's
(37:12):
gets a hang up from Norah's home phone where the
mother is murdered. We don't know whether it was nor
that made the call, but just ten minutes later one
oh nine, she calls from her cell phone and leaves
a voicemail, but she says she wasn't home. Is that true? Um? Uh?
(37:38):
The friend you know who received a phone call from
the landline just said that. Um. There's no way that
Jennifer would be calling him, and that Nora always called
his cell phone. But there was a phone call from
the Jackson home land line um at that time. I mean, Alan,
(38:00):
has my mother ever called? You know? She's never done that? Okay,
So don't you think it would be a little odd
for Nora to now argue it was her mother callowing
calling her friends at one o'clock in the morning. It
had to be here. He's at home at the time
of the murder. Alt If I'm looking for my daughter
(38:21):
at one o'clock in the morning, I might call one
of her friends. I probably have done that before, so
that's not unusual. But but the fact that she called
would never called before. Ever, she had not even called
Nora looking for Nora, according to the phone call the
phone records. Don't you think if she was looking for
Nora should call Nora first, of a friend she doesn't
(38:43):
even know. I'll give you that, But I think it's
more unusual, believe it or not, that there's no DNA
evidence linking this Nora to the crimes. Would there be?
There was no sex attack, blood dripping blood, Where are
her bloody clothes? You can't stab somebody fifty times and
not get blood on you. Let's talk about clothes, because
(39:04):
Nora changed her clothes. Mm hmmm. She began wearing immediately,
including at the funeral, long sleeves and with then hold
the sleeves over her hands with her fingers up under
the sleeves. I'm glad you brought that up, Alan, thank
you so the clothes. She did change her clothes that evening.
(39:26):
But you're right. The defense points out the lack of
forensic evidence that an evidence that points away from Nora.
Beside the cut on her hand, no bruises or any
other injuries. Even her manicured nails were not chipped. Norah's
blood was not found at the scene, and the mother
(39:47):
had blonde hair in her hand. Now, preliminary tests excluded
Nora as the source of those hairs, but it no
one tested it any further. There was no d NA
known from anyone on the victim's pillow or the blood
(40:10):
soaked bedsheet. So you're right. The d n A does
not help the state at all. Um, Why would somebody
go out and start partying at four o'clock in the morning, Alan,
It's hard for me to relate to that at this age.
But when I was eighteen years old, I did that.
(40:31):
I did that. I didn't attack anybody. I didn't. That's
just me. Hey, no place where we left off, we
were talking to thank you? Uh question regarding the money.
As we speak, Nora Jackson is waging a battle to
(40:53):
get her mother's over one million dollar estate. Just so
you know, Nora Jackson was convicted in her mother's murder,
but as fate would have it, the prosecution failed to
turn over a piece of evidence and the whole thing
was reversed. She was set free. She then pled guilty
(41:20):
under an Alfred plea, which means I don't admit and
I don't deny, but I'm pleading guilty. Her lawyers say
the reason she did that is to avoid any more
jail time. Nora Jackson is walking free today. The death
(41:40):
of her father remains unsolved, his murder, and she is
mounting a battle for her mother's estate. Lisa, is that true?
That is true? But I believe they have reached a private,
confidential agreement on the on the money. Um, what do
you you what? What's the amount of the estate. It
(42:03):
was um a million and a half and um the
siblings Jennifer's two sisters and brother would have received that
money and had received it, but they did reach an
agreement with Nora. There was some sort of a settlement
that was confidential there. So that's so because of their conviction,
(42:25):
Jennifer's siblings got the money and then they had to
wait a settlement to give a portion of it. Genera,
is that what you believe happened. They didn't have to
they they could have had a civil trial, and um
they had. They had filed the paperwork for that because
you have to do that within one year of the murder,
(42:45):
and but instead of proceeding with that civil trial, they
chose to reach an agreement with Nora. Thank you for
being with us, Lisa Hickman, author of Stranger to the
Truth on Amazon dot com. You can also go to
Stranger to the Truth dot com. It has its own website.
Nancy Grace Climb Stories. Goodbye friend, m sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sassasssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss s
Climb Stories with Nancy Grace on Serious x M Triumph
Channel one thirty two. Now my mom and my mom
and breathing, breathing, breathing, not breathing, not breathing. You have
help on the world. We're going to help your mother.
Only right now. Imagine coming home in the evening and
(00:31):
you call out, hey, where is everybody? Anybody home? And
you walk through the home. You walk through your house,
you know it by heart. You don't have to turn
on all the lights, and you look and you look
from room to room. Nobody's there until you get to
your mom's room and you find your mom and you
(00:53):
find out why she's not answering and why she didn't
come to the door. She's dead, covered in blood, naked,
lying on her bed. Clearly a horrible, horrible struggle has occurred,
and the killer has rammed a waste basket over her
(01:18):
head and you can't even process it. This is a
story of Norah Jackson, a girl who finds her mother dead.
I Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for
being with us. What happened to Jennifer? What happened to
(01:42):
Norah's mom? The mystery goes on. I want to expose
the facts as we know them and joining me a
very special guest. I want you to meet her. Lisa
Hickman has written the book, literally written the book on
this murder mystery, Stranger to Truth, and it is awesome.
(02:07):
First I heard about it, then I got it on
Amazon dot Com and I read it immediately and couldn't
put it down. I mean, even the cover is captivating
to me, even the cover. Lisa, thank you for being
with us. I mean, that's an awesome book, the way
(02:29):
you compilated all the facts. But what's interesting to me
is I described just then the way Nora came in.
Nora Jackson came in and found her mother. But actually
that night there's a little more to the story of
her coming in. Also with me the Duke Alan Duke
(02:50):
joining me out of l A Alan. She comes home.
She's been out with her friends that night, and I'm
talking about the daughter Nora, and as spelled n O.
You are that that's Nora correct, because sometimes I've heard
her pronounced Nora. Lisa, is it Nora or Nora? Nora
pronunciation is the same as it's a slightly different spell.
I guess, gotcha. So she had been out with her
(03:13):
friends that night, Alan, and they had been to some
Italian festival. They live in the Memphis area, and they
have been out partying and drinking and having a good time.
So she gets home and immediately perceives that there has
been a burglary, that something's not right with the entry way.
(03:34):
Did you get that part? Alan? She didn't just walk in.
She knew immediately that the home had been burglarized. Did
you did you see that point? Yes, something that didn't
seem right according to what she said. What was it? Lisa?
So when she comes home, she doesn't just walk in,
and nobody answers it's not exactly how it happened when
she drove in. How did she know someone had been
(03:55):
in the home? I think, um, the glass. There was
glass all over the kitchen floor, and I believe that's
what the first thing that let her know something was
a myth she came in. That's right, there was glass.
There was one of those um doors between the garage
and the kitchen that you could I think, break through
(04:17):
and reach in and unlock it right there. That indicates
very strongly it's someone that knows the family. It could
be a neighbor, it could be a delivery person because
that door was not visible from outside. You had to
know to get into the garage, and there was something
(04:39):
hinky about the lock. You had to know how to
do it. Am I right on that? Am I remembering correctly? Yeah?
They described it as a secret butterfly lock that you
would have had you have reached your arm through the
hole that was in the glass and unlock it. And
you would had to have known it was there to
even have any idea that's what you would do. So
(05:00):
it was a very peculiar place question. Yeah, the glass,
the glass, The glass was on the in the um
on the kitchen floor, and it was a pretty pretty
um defined round hole UM in the center pane of
that dark where somebody punched through. Okay, all right, so
(05:23):
she comes in and she immediately sees that has happened.
Then where does she go to? Lisa? And I believe
she went down the hallway to toward her mother's bedroom
and um that was up of course when she discovered
her mother's body, and it was twilight, so it was
(05:45):
um that was such early morning hours. It was sort
of semi dark in the house. Now didn't she run?
Didn't she run to a neighbor and said, I think
someone's broken in our house, and the neighbor comes with us.
After she actually been in her mother's bedroom, she ran
across the street and asked them to screaming at their
(06:07):
front door and asked them to help her that there
had been an intruder in their house. And that's when
the neighbor grabbed his gun and um, you know, walked
ahead of her for a while across the street, and
then she actually ran in in front of him. That
(06:28):
was a real problem for the why minute she got
in front of the neighbor who had the gun because
she ran in front of him. So they go in
and they find the mom. Allan, the description of the
crime scene is gruesome. Please describe the photos that I
saw blood, the mother laying with no clothing on the
(06:51):
bed and just an awful lot of blood. Is that
the best way to say at Lisa? Yes, And she
actually was on the floor when she was found, Um
at the footboo at the foot bed or the you know,
towards the bottom of the bed, but on the floor.
Her head was close to the door. What was it immediate?
(07:15):
Should it immediately have been apparent that she had been
stabbed or could it have been you would assume that
she had just been shot or was that obvious? Well,
I think anybody who just glanced in that room would
have just seen all the blood and they would not
have had any ideas it was she'd been stabbed or
murder shot. There's just blood everywhere, so I wouldn't say
(07:40):
it would be immediately apparent. Now, as a matter of fact,
it turns out the mom has been stabbed nearly thirty times.
That's a lot all around the torso neck, face. Jennifer
just complete, eatly, completely destroyed. Everything about her is covered
(08:06):
in stabs, including defensive stabs. Now, what has always intrigued
me is the fact that a wicker basket had been
shoved down over her head, over her face. Lisa and
a lot of um. I mean, I just made it
(08:28):
such a personal crime, uh that you know whoever it
committed this, I did not want to see her and
her eyes were open. She was just thirty nine years old,
just absolutely beautiful, is stunning, vivacious. A successful bond trader
can't be an idiot to do that, and a triathlete.
(08:51):
This is the mother, the thirty nine year old mother
found stab dead and I mentioned thirty times, it was
more like fifty times. Fifty stab wounds over fifty stab wounds.
There were so many stab wounds they could not count
them after a certain point because many of them overlapped
(09:12):
each other and the body was such a mess. They
know that it was over fifty stab wounds. At that point,
what happens to Nora because her her dad's already dead.
Her dad was shot. Let's see about a year before that,
Nasmi was his name now. The dad and Jennifer had
(09:35):
been living apart for a period of time, several years.
They were estranged. He was a successful business owner. He
owned several businesses in the Memphis area, and he was
at one of them one night and there was a
security surveillance camera and he's then he's in there and
you can see him, and an unknown assailant comes in,
(09:59):
manages to avoid the security camera, shoot him down execution style.
You can't tell who the person was, and leaves. There
is no attack, there is no theft, no burglary, nothing.
They come in, shoot him dead and leave. Then about
a year later, Jennifer is murdered. So this girl is
(10:25):
left without either a parent, Alan and a little bit
of an inheritance too. Why do you say things like that,
A little bit of an inheritance. It's only it's over
a million dollars. That's not an awful lot of money.
I mean, it's not like you told me that your
dad for the railroad, as did mind. So I don't
(10:48):
know what planet you're living on, but a million dollars
is a lot of money. Alan, Earth to Alan before
we talk about the inheritance. That night, Lisa, what happened
to Nora? Where did she go? Well, by the time
the her neighbors had been over and um they called
the first responder, it was close to early morning, and
(11:10):
she UM, she sat on the front curb and talked
with the neighbors and UM and then eventually some friends
showed up and picked her up and she left with
him and UM drove around and UH just was and
she was on and off at the crime scene because
(11:31):
there were times when you know, she was confronted by
a lot of people showing up, relatives and friends of
her mother, and they would have, you know, various conversations.
Isn't it true that she admitted that she was drinking
and smoking pot that night? She did admit that. Yes,
but she had been out and you know, so she
probably needed a couple of hours to cyber up. Yes. Um,
(11:55):
she did eventually, of course, ride downtown with um Detective Connie.
Just this and uh, she actually fell asleep. Um on
the ride down downtown. She was exhausted. Well well, well
wait a minute, she fell asleep in the car. Okay,
(12:17):
I'm projecting, Lisa. I know I'm projecting, and that's not
good when you're analyzing a crime or a crime scene.
But I remember two distinctly. After my fiancee was murdered.
There was no falling asleep, the shock and the just
(12:39):
trying to grasp and understand what was happening. There was
no sleeping. I remember even into the night, like one
or two o'clock in the morning. Um. Our family doctor
finally brought over some kind of sedative so I could
go to sleep. It didn't work. I was just so
(13:01):
strung out. So she fell asleep in the police car
after finding her mother's dead body. She did. Okay, that's
just weird. When did they notice the big cut on
her hand? That that they noticed that early? And um
they took photographs of it. Um when she was downtown
(13:22):
was detected Justice and um, like you know, she had
a she had for that A variety of different stories
as to how they cut occurred. What we were talking about,
Lisa Hickman, author of Stranger to the Truth about the
Jennifer Jackson murder, is the daughter had a huge cut
(13:44):
on her hand that cops had to notice. How did
she explain that away? Well, it was um actually covered
with some adhesive tape when by the time they were
at the police station, and um, they was never examined
underneath the tape. And she said that people were breaking
beer bottles at the Italian festival and that she um
(14:09):
tripped and cut it on one of the broken beer bottles,
And that's what she told Detective Justice. Did any of
her friends recall her tripping and cutting her hand, any
of the friends she was with that night, No, they
did not. Well, they really didn't have time to focus
on her tripping on and getting cut with a beer
(14:30):
bottle because of her of the mom, Jennifer's boyfriend, This
on again, off again boyfriend she had had called the
mom that very night. They had a very volatile relationship.
What was their relationship about the one the mother Jennifer
had been dating this guy. What do we know about him? Well,
(14:52):
he's a Methodist minister and um, at this point in
their relationship, just before the murder occurred, he was quite
insistent that they get married. He was he wanted um
to take it to the next level, and she was
hesitant to do that. Isn't that pushing the nuclear button?
(15:13):
I mean getting married? Well, what was the rush for him?
Apparently it was, you know, extremely important. And Jennifer, having
been married and divorced was twice by then, was you know,
reluctant to get married. And uh, it seems fairly content
to keep things as they were. So that led to
(15:37):
a number of breaking you know, breaking up and getting
back together. And that was a scenario at the time.
She had called even wanted to drive to he was
in Jackson, Tennessee, drive and uh see him for his birthday.
And um he was luke lukewarm to know about that idea.
(15:58):
And that very night he called her. Yeah, he was
having none of it. It was either get married or
I guess face his anger. He had tried and tried
to get her to get married. She wouldn't do it.
That night he called her. What was his excuse for
calling her. What did he say, Well, they never spoke. Um,
(16:21):
she didn't get the call, didn't take the call, and um,
we'll really never know what he was calling about. That
was about midnight. But he gave a story about why
he called. Didn't he say it was an accident like
a pocket dial? Um? He said he decided that it
was too late to be calling any hung up. He
(16:42):
was afraid she might be right? So what at? What time?
Did they place the time of death as best as
they could, Lisa, I believe they it was quite broad.
I want to say between one and three am there
was I wouldn't quite a window of time. And what
time was his phone call? Wasn't his phone call around twelve?
(17:07):
Around twelve? So just before the attack he's calling her
and he lived out of town, right, Yes, he was
in Jackson, Tennessee. Interesting, I mean, some would argue, some
would hypothesize that he was calling to make sure she
was at home before he came over. That could be
(17:28):
a very compelling argument. So police, of course, alan look
at the boyfriend, the X, the current spouse. That's where
they start every investigation because the statistics typically it's your
partner that kills you, sad but true, So they start
looking at this guy methodist minister. Right, Yeah, I'm wondering
(17:50):
why they weren't looking at the dead former husband Nasmi
who killed him? Because if just months earlier, or you're earlier,
one spouse is murdered and then another one is, don't
you just think they might be connected? Did they, Lisa?
Did they ever try to connect those two killings? I
(18:10):
do believe they looked into that, and um, they just
know there was just no evidence that um, you know,
connected the murders. Well, they couldn't find any evidence because
they never knew Alan who killed Nasmi. That still remains
a mystery. They have the killer on video, they have
(18:30):
well they have it in Missy Beavers too, but that
doesn't mean they've got him in jail. For Pete's sake,
they don't know, they don't know who did it. Well,
that's true, but the maybe there was some connection, I'm
just saying, and maybe they don't have a way of
knowing that. Well. I agree with you on that, Alan,
I agree. I mean it's just too coincidental that the
dad is murdered, there's no doubt whether it was an accident,
(18:53):
and the mother is murdered shortly thereafter. And it's no
accident that clearly we're both victor was of homicide. That's
just what one in a million. The reason we don't
know who murdered Nasmy Lisa Hickman. Can you see the
purps You can't. You can never see the perps face
(19:13):
in the in the ship, in the shooting death. Correct.
Are they disguised or they just keep their face away
from the camera. Right, just had UM acknowledge of where
the cameras were placed and UM able to avoid them. Okay,
right there, knew how to avoid the surveillance cameras. Okay,
So we've got the killer of Nasmy as a potential suspect.
(19:38):
We have the boyfriend who called her that night. Some
would argue to make sure she was home before he
showed up. There is a break in. Now, was there
any evidence of a sex attack on Jennifer? No, there
was not. Umm, although she was naked, that's true. Yes,
(19:58):
and there was a used find him in the room,
but um, nothing that that linked that to Jennifer. Okay,
wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, So she's in her
bedroom naked and there's a used condom and they don't
think there was a sex attack. The medical examiner, you know,
it ruled that there was not. The examiner placed the
(20:20):
time of death between twelve thirty am and five ten am.
Was um. That was So what Lisa Hickman is saying
in a very delicate manner, is that, regardless of her
being in her bedroom completely naked and there's a used
condom in there, if the medical examiner did a rape
(20:43):
kit and there's no evidence on the body, then either
all of that was left from another incident or it
was staged. There's the only two choices, because I'm telling you,
even I looking under a microscope can tell the difference
(21:05):
as to whether there's any indication sperm is there. It's
it's very clear under a microscope. So if the emmy
says no sex activity, the emmy is right. So forget
about that now. That leads me to another question. Was
anything stolen from the home, Lisa UM. I believe there
(21:25):
were a few items missing that some some eventually turned
up in a bin in the sun room. I think
her driver's license, but as far as any valuables, no,
and her driver's license in a ben. I didn't know
that Jennifer's driver's like when you say, Ben, are you
talking about a trash can? No, No, just like a
(21:47):
storage you know container. Um, some stuff was just kind
of strewn around. Okay, I find that very odd. There's
no sex attack, nothing is stolen, no jewelry, no money,
the DVD, DVD play, nothing like that. And her driver's
license is displaced. Okay. Let's I want to get back
(22:09):
to where Nora was that night. She's saying she's at
the Italian festival. That's confirmed. I still don't did anybody
confirm her falling on the beer ball? No, no one
did that, that was not confirmed. All right, What can
you tell me about her being at a walgrains buying
(22:32):
bandages that night? Lisa? Right, that was um, that was
all caught on surveillance. Um. And she uh just walked
in of course, and um, you know, as the the
fellow checking you know, checking out, um, first of all
(22:52):
offers of paper towels, and he gave her some and
she used those on her hand and then bought a
number of medical supply What time was that, Lisa? I
believe that was around to a m um and she uh,
you know, had been on her phone pretty often on
(23:12):
all night basically except for a period of time when
it was quiet, and um, yes, went into Walgreens for
you Well, you're putting it. You're certainly putting perfume on
the big She lived on the cell phone. She was
on it constantly, but then there was a period of
time between let's say, like one and three, she went
(23:35):
totally quiet, not one single phone call. There was an
odd period of time she was not on the phone,
and then she picked right back up again. And during
this time, I think it's when she spotted on surveillance
video at the pharmacy buying bandages. So that was around
one o'clock. You're saying, um, right right in there, between
(23:58):
one and two. Okay, So you know what was interesting
Alan about when she went to the pharmacy to get bandages.
What the pharmacy employee said, did you see that? I
saw that. I saw the surveillance video that said she
was sure she was obviously bleeding and had a bandage
on her hand. Okay, there's a little bit more to it,
(24:23):
he said. The employees said it was openly bleeding, And
what I mean by that is it had just happened
unless she reinjured it and it started bleeding again. Lisa.
What did she say at the pharmacy as to what
happened to her hand? No, I don't remember exactly to
tell you the truth. Um if she gave any kind
(24:46):
of an explanation for her or not the hand. Um.
She told her her off on and off boyfriend Perry,
that she cut it in her house chasing her kitten.
She told her Aunt Grace she cut it. Um she
burned it making macaroni and cheese. There are just a
number of different stories about the cut on her hand.
(25:08):
And um, okay, hold on, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa? What
happened to falling on the beer bottle? That was one
of the stories too. There's several different accounts for how
the cut occurs. Alan are you hearing this? Mr? Innocent
until proven guilty? Well, at least O. J. Simpson stuck
to the story about how he cut his hand. At
(25:29):
least we have that but with that similarity. But you
think they're broken glass in the middle of consumption of alcohol,
right right? Exactly? What? So? He? I guess I do
have to give that decemps. And he did stick with
his story. Nora Jackson has multiple stories. Now. That is
when I got concerned about Nora Jackson. First of all,
(25:53):
knowing about that hinky lock and how to get in.
That's why I was asking you about the glass. Was
it on the kitchen floor or the garage floor? That
would tell me which way the intruder from which angle
they were punching the glass. Then the fact that the
waste basket was put over the mom's face. A random
(26:18):
killer doesn't take time to do that. They hit it
and quit it. They're gone. They don't care about the
victim looking at them. No sexist, sex attack, nothing stolen.
And now this cut on her hand. This is not
typically if you look at statistics a female crime, this
(26:41):
is statistically not committed by a woman. Also, matricide or
killing your mother less than one percent of all homicides,
less than one percent is the murder of your own mother.
(27:02):
So trying to pen this on Nora Jackson is statistically improbable.
But then enter the various stories she gives. I mean
to me, it was unlikely that you happened to fall
on a broken beer bottle number one, But number two,
I mean to me, you'd hit your knees first. Just
(27:24):
to me, that's an unlikely scenario. But I I could
go with it, but changing the story, that is a problem.
I want to go through her changing stories again. Who
did she tell what Lisa? She told Perry her Um,
as I said, her on and off again boyfriend. She
was chasing her kitty. She she picked up a little
(27:47):
kitten that day from a neighbor who was giving them away,
and Um cut it on the glass in the kitchen floor.
And then she told her aunt Grace that she burned
it making macaroni and cheese. And then of course the
police officers, she told you know that there was broken
(28:08):
glass at the Italian festival and as she fell and
cut it on that. I used to go through this
with defense attorneys in court all the time. The fact
that they would argue, well, your witnesses, your witnesses change
their story, and I would argue back, no, Alan, they
haven't changed their story. They have embellished their story. They've
(28:31):
added to this story because they're finally being asked the
right questions. They will never ask these questions before. There's
a big difference, Alan, in changing your story and adding
to your story. Once you start changing your story, you're
in hot water. But did she only tell one story
to police, to the police. Yes, yes, I believe to
(28:54):
the police it was so and that's what's relevant. What
do you mean that's what's relevant? I mean well, I
mean she to investigators, she did not tell multiple stories.
And this boyfriend, I mean, are there reasons we wouldn't
trust necessarily his memory? Well, I don't know. He was
partying too, but um, I couldn't. I don't know about
(29:17):
his memory. Okay, the wait a minute, you're saying because um,
he had been drinking that night, he didn't remember what
she said about the wound to her hand. Well, are
you trying to suggest he did it? He had been
using drugs, right, He had been using drugs right, Yes
he did. Um, he was using ecstasy that night. There
(29:39):
you go. Okay, So who did she tell about the kitten?
Who is that? Okay, that's um, that's tell His name
is Perry and he was on again, off again boyfriend. Andrew. Um,
the individual we were talking about earlier. Uh, he um
(29:59):
was also someone he was a friend, but at times
like they had more of a relationship than a friendship.
As he described, I've got three stories so far. What
Lisa he described on the witness stand. Uh, friends with
benefits with how he described his relationship to Nora Andrew Hamrick.
(30:20):
During her police investigate interrogation, Nora Jackson says she was
out at the Italian Festival that night. She went to
two parties after that at friends homes. At six a m.
She tells police she went to a gas station to
buy cigarettes, then went to another friends home at three
(30:42):
thirty a m. There's a big gap right there. Coincidentally,
at the time her mother is murdered. A m. She's
buying cigarettes. Three thirty a m. She's at a friend's house.
That's a two and a half hour, two hour and
forty five minute gap. Then at four twenty a m.
(31:03):
She buys gas and heads home. Cops point out no
activity on her cell phone between one and three a m.
She forgot to tell police. She went to a Walgreens
at four a m. The surveillance video shows she asked
a cashier for a paper towel, not just to buy
(31:27):
band aids. She has to get a paper towel to
stop the bleeding from her hand. Then she buys bandages
in a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Okay. Cops believe Jennifer
was murdered between one and four a m Several prosecution
witnesses state that Nora gave them different excuses from broken glass.
(31:53):
She told one person a barbed wire, another person cooking
mac and cheese, and then the other person says she
said a cat scratched her, a kitten scratched her while
she was trying to get it out of the garage.
M hmm, okay, it's starting to look bad for her.
Take a listen, judge for yourself. Here is Nora Jackson's
(32:16):
nine one one call from What's Good that doesn't one
knew even avenue. What's the phone coming back? My mom?
Because my mom is breathing. She's breathing, breathings, not breathing,
not breathing. Blease them with anyone's shot like every clease,
(32:41):
I need a puttying. I didn't a mother burying nine
years old? Oh my god, oh my god, clean, please
help me, please in come Okay looking to me, ma'am,
I ne can't calm down. Okay, so we can help
(33:01):
your mother. Okay, breezy, okay, listen to me. Did you
see what happened? No, my good, fe long if someone
broken through your home, he had one still get my
kicking out of the kicking in his gloss everywhere in
(33:23):
your three Okay, we have help on the way. We're
going to help your mother. Only right now, man, money
canna come now, we can help her. Okay. Prosecutors say
(33:51):
that Nora Jackson murdered her mother to get access to money.
I'm talking about a lot of money. In fact, Nora's uncle,
Eric Sherwood, Jennifer's brother, states he heard Nora and her
mother discussing the mom's assets and life insurance policies just
(34:17):
one week before his sister is found stabbed dead. Alan,
you have questions, as do I about some evidence found
at the scene. What's your concern? Well, why didn't they
test the blonde hair found in the grasp of the mom?
Nora didn't have blonde hair? Whose hair was that? I mean?
(34:38):
Did they not want to know? This reminds me so
much of the O. J. Simpson crime scene and that
there should be a lot of evidence around footprints, DNA
from the perpetrator, that kind of thing. But that's completely
absent from this crime scene. Is she's so brilliant in
cleaning up and that did she stage the blonde hair
in her mother's grasp? Why didn't they test it and
(35:00):
find out. Lisa, what do we know about that? I
don't know why they didn't test it, and that's just
been a nagging question. Um. The judge said, he offered
the money to actually have that test performed to the
defense team, and they chose not to test the blond hairs.
But is it their job to do that? Oh? Whoa,
(35:22):
you're so right about that? Hold on Alan before he
started crying and sobbing about a hair that wasn't tested.
I agree with the prosecution, who has to do that?
Quite a minute. The prosecution doesn't have to do anything.
The prosecution has to carry a burden, and they didn't
(35:42):
test the hair. Now, if it were me, I would
have wanted the hair tested. But let me point out
that the mom had her hair bleach blonde and the
daughter had her hair bleached blonde. I don't know if
it was blonde at the time though, but they both
had put highlights in their hair. And it's interesting to
me that neither side wanted to test the hair. Um,
(36:05):
So the the defense could have had it tested for free. Right,
they can ask for tests just like the state does.
The state doesn't have to do that, and if the
defense wanted it tested. They could have it detested. Have
it tested. I've got another issue. The phone calls around
UM three eighteen a m. Nor Jackson starts using her
(36:28):
phone again. She calls a friend named Eric Whittaker, asking
him wanting to come over to his house and hang out.
This isn't three eighteen in the morning. He agreed. She
drove to his house, but when she got there, he
was just leaving by the time she got there, so
they only chatter for two or three minutes and she
(36:49):
left all right. Next four oh one a m. About
one hour before she calls nine one one. That's when
she goes to Walgreen. But there's another phone call, isn't
there a phone call to a friend Around twelve fifty nine,
that's one am in the morning, a friend of Nora's
(37:12):
gets a hang up from Norah's home phone where the
mother is murdered. We don't know whether it was nor
that made the call, but just ten minutes later one
oh nine, she calls from her cell phone and leaves
a voicemail, but she says she wasn't home. Is that true? Um? Uh?
(37:38):
The friend you know who received a phone call from
the landline just said that. Um. There's no way that
Jennifer would be calling him, and that Nora always called
his cell phone. But there was a phone call from
the Jackson home land line um at that time. I mean, Alan,
(38:00):
has my mother ever called? You know? She's never done that? Okay,
So don't you think it would be a little odd
for Nora to now argue it was her mother callowing
calling her friends at one o'clock in the morning. It
had to be here. He's at home at the time
of the murder. Alt If I'm looking for my daughter
(38:21):
at one o'clock in the morning, I might call one
of her friends. I probably have done that before, so
that's not unusual. But but the fact that she called
would never called before. Ever, she had not even called
Nora looking for Nora, according to the phone call the
phone records. Don't you think if she was looking for
Nora should call Nora first, of a friend she doesn't
(38:43):
even know. I'll give you that, But I think it's
more unusual, believe it or not, that there's no DNA
evidence linking this Nora to the crimes. Would there be?
There was no sex attack, blood dripping blood, Where are
her bloody clothes? You can't stab somebody fifty times and
not get blood on you. Let's talk about clothes, because
(39:04):
Nora changed her clothes. Mm hmmm. She began wearing immediately,
including at the funeral, long sleeves and with then hold
the sleeves over her hands with her fingers up under
the sleeves. I'm glad you brought that up, Alan, thank
you so the clothes. She did change her clothes that evening.
(39:26):
But you're right. The defense points out the lack of
forensic evidence that an evidence that points away from Nora.
Beside the cut on her hand, no bruises or any
other injuries. Even her manicured nails were not chipped. Norah's
blood was not found at the scene, and the mother
(39:47):
had blonde hair in her hand. Now, preliminary tests excluded
Nora as the source of those hairs, but it no
one tested it any further. There was no d NA
known from anyone on the victim's pillow or the blood
(40:10):
soaked bedsheet. So you're right. The d n A does
not help the state at all. Um, Why would somebody
go out and start partying at four o'clock in the morning, Alan,
It's hard for me to relate to that at this age.
But when I was eighteen years old, I did that.
(40:31):
I did that. I didn't attack anybody. I didn't. That's
just me. Hey, no place where we left off, we
were talking to thank you? Uh question regarding the money.
As we speak, Nora Jackson is waging a battle to
(40:53):
get her mother's over one million dollar estate. Just so
you know, Nora Jackson was convicted in her mother's murder,
but as fate would have it, the prosecution failed to
turn over a piece of evidence and the whole thing
was reversed. She was set free. She then pled guilty
(41:20):
under an Alfred plea, which means I don't admit and
I don't deny, but I'm pleading guilty. Her lawyers say
the reason she did that is to avoid any more
jail time. Nora Jackson is walking free today. The death
(41:40):
of her father remains unsolved, his murder, and she is
mounting a battle for her mother's estate. Lisa, is that true?
That is true? But I believe they have reached a private,
confidential agreement on the on the money. Um, what do
you you what? What's the amount of the estate. It
(42:03):
was um a million and a half and um the
siblings Jennifer's two sisters and brother would have received that
money and had received it, but they did reach an
agreement with Nora. There was some sort of a settlement
that was confidential there. So that's so because of their conviction,
(42:25):
Jennifer's siblings got the money and then they had to
wait a settlement to give a portion of it. Genera,
is that what you believe happened. They didn't have to
they they could have had a civil trial, and um
they had. They had filed the paperwork for that because
you have to do that within one year of the murder,
(42:45):
and but instead of proceeding with that civil trial, they
chose to reach an agreement with Nora. Thank you for
being with us, Lisa Hickman, author of Stranger to the
Truth on Amazon dot com. You can also go to
Stranger to the Truth dot com. It has its own website.
Nancy Grace Climb Stories. Goodbye friend, m sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sassasssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss s
Host
Nancy Grace
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