July 24, 2025 • 47 mins
This week on Scream & Sugar, we’re headed back to the place both Candace and Sahara used to call home—Chesapeake, Virginia—for a case that shook the Hampton Roads area to its core.
Known as the "Hampton Roads Killer," Elton M. Jackson preyed on young men throughout the late '90s and early 2000s. A normal guy by day, predator by night, Jackson led a double life—luring vulnerable men with promises of money or hookups and then brutally taking their lives. In this episode, we honor the lives of the victims, examine the disturbing patterns in Jackson’s crimes, and follow the long and frustrating investigation that finally brought him to justice.
We also discuss how homophobia, racism, and victim-blaming delayed the case for years. Big shoutout to Renee Davis and the Melanin Mayhem podcast, where I first heard about this case—go give her a listen!)
So hang with us as we sip on some La Victoria Coffee and remember to stay spooky, y'all!
Case Notes:
https://www.lavictoriacoffee.com/
Melanin Meyhem Podcast with Renee Davis: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/renee-davis07/episodes/The-Hampton-Roads-Killer-e2nni9r
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970914/09140087.htm
https://skdb.fandom.com/wiki/JACKSON_Elton_Manning
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1997/06/29/and-then-there-were-twelve/b1301584-7ee3-4645-8a7a-339d092cf62f/
https://prezi.com/yumdwqoamkaz/elton-m-jackson-hampton-road-killer/
Elton Manning Jackson v Commonwealth of Virginia :: 2000 :: Virginia Court of Appeals - https://law.justia.com/cases/virginia/court-of-appeals-unpublished/2000/2587981.html
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970914/09140087.htm
https://www.deseret.com/1998/10/28/19409196/suspect-in-virginia-slayings-sentenced-to-life-in-prison
https://crimesolverscentral.com/serialkillers/775
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/scream-and-sugar-true-crime-coffee-hour--6015946/support.
This content is not appropriate for all viewers; viewer discretion is advised. PS. Let's just umbrella all our content with a blanket statement: allegedly, supposedly! Stay spooky, squad.
Known as the "Hampton Roads Killer," Elton M. Jackson preyed on young men throughout the late '90s and early 2000s. A normal guy by day, predator by night, Jackson led a double life—luring vulnerable men with promises of money or hookups and then brutally taking their lives. In this episode, we honor the lives of the victims, examine the disturbing patterns in Jackson’s crimes, and follow the long and frustrating investigation that finally brought him to justice.
We also discuss how homophobia, racism, and victim-blaming delayed the case for years. Big shoutout to Renee Davis and the Melanin Mayhem podcast, where I first heard about this case—go give her a listen!)
So hang with us as we sip on some La Victoria Coffee and remember to stay spooky, y'all!
Case Notes:
https://www.lavictoriacoffee.com/
Melanin Meyhem Podcast with Renee Davis: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/renee-davis07/episodes/The-Hampton-Roads-Killer-e2nni9r
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970914/09140087.htm
https://skdb.fandom.com/wiki/JACKSON_Elton_Manning
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1997/06/29/and-then-there-were-twelve/b1301584-7ee3-4645-8a7a-339d092cf62f/
https://prezi.com/yumdwqoamkaz/elton-m-jackson-hampton-road-killer/
Elton Manning Jackson v Commonwealth of Virginia :: 2000 :: Virginia Court of Appeals - https://law.justia.com/cases/virginia/court-of-appeals-unpublished/2000/2587981.html
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970914/09140087.htm
https://www.deseret.com/1998/10/28/19409196/suspect-in-virginia-slayings-sentenced-to-life-in-prison
https://crimesolverscentral.com/serialkillers/775
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/scream-and-sugar-true-crime-coffee-hour--6015946/support.
This content is not appropriate for all viewers; viewer discretion is advised. PS. Let's just umbrella all our content with a blanket statement: allegedly, supposedly! Stay spooky, squad.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Scream and Sugar,
your true crime coffee hour, where we dive into the
darker side of humanity while enjoying a little sweetness on
the side. I am your host, Sahara, I'm Candace, and
today we're going to be covering Elton M. Jackson, the
Hampton Roads Killer. Welcome back, everybody. It's your girl's candy
(00:52):
and say hey Nay.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Like the fuck are you going with? Say nay name?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Hey Hey, We are back with another episode of bone
chilling mystery and just getting this one's been salt shit, yes,
and we are kicking our day off with a little
caffeine from La Victoria.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah. These are so fucking good and it's such a
cute little spot. So cute.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Do we have pictures? I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I do have pictures, excellent.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We'll probably post them up for y'all so you can
probably probably find them.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We remember, I have so many fucking pictures in my
camera roll right now. I need to go through them.
But I also have Rose and Its pictures of scrappy
because every time I try to take a picture of
my little dog, he moves. He does not stay still,
not even when he's sleeping, does he stay still?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
He says, pictures steal your soul, and I'm not interested.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I feel it. That's me all the way. He has
become my dog. I love him, Yes, me too. He
was so good at your birthday. I know, he came
out and said hi to everybody, and he let fucking
Megan's daughter pick him up and like.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
He was a good boy.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
He was just so stoked on everyone and give me
Hamburgers please.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It was so different, such a different dog. Now, you
guys did amazing with him, Thank you. It's really he's
smart warming.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Being on people's cars lately, he's got kidd I Like
yesterday we were walking him and he like lifted his
leg on someone's tire. Well, he lifted his leg on
my tire. First he peed on my car before I
realized it, and I was like, what the fuck Alex,
Like he was letting the pee on the car. And
then he like went by another row of cars he
(02:25):
went to lift his leg again. I was like, no,
why do cars?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Why the cars? It's like perfectly good grass right here.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
When he peas on Tesla's I'm like, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You're all unless they have about that elon.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Actually, I'm just gonna look the other way.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I was reading, like or reading, I was watching the
reels and people are like, this is the most unhinged
public breakup I've ever seen. And it's like him and
Trump just be like Trumpet like if he wants to
call me, I guess I didn't call me.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I like.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Living in a.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Stop and fucking yeah exactly. Or we get to see
everything collapse in real time.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's so serious, it's it's unreal.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But the other reason why I'm drinking a lot of beers.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Seriously though, honestly. All right, so we're gonna hop on
into it. I am taking you to a case that
is actually closer to home for me than usual, which
is interesting because I live in Renata. About it, But
before I lived here, I lived in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
That's where I was born.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Shut the fuck up. You were born in Chesapeake?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh my god, I lived there for a year. That's
fucking crazy. How long were you there?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Literally was born there and then we moved because my
dad was on the cook card.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
He yea, wow, holy shit. No, that is so crazy,
because I feel like Chesapeake is it's not norfilk. It's
not Virginia Beach like. It's kind of like a little
tiny guy. So that's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I couldn't tell you about it at all. It's pretty
that's what its again.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Last time I was there was a while ago, but
it was pretty small. That is fucking crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
You readad was on the I'll tell you to you though.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, my dad was army. We were at the joint base,
the Navy Army base out there.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So maybe army somewhere up in that big.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It's probably an intramural. Sorry. I also want to talk
really quickly. Just do a quick update on the Brian
Coburger case.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Oh shit, you guys, what happened?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Oh my god? Okay, so you know how Brian Coburger,
who was involved in the Idaho murders of those four
college kids that we covered. Quick update, motherfucker took a
plea deal. Shut the fuck up, please?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
For what?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
How is he getting a plea deal because he's playing guilty.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Hm. He has accepted a plea deal for guilty to
first degree murder of the dust of Ethan, Xanna Madison
and Kaylee. Okay, but he doesn't get sentenced by the
judge until next week.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh shit, so you're not okay, so we'll update, we'll update.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
You guys on that actually happens. Oh, the gag order
has been lifted. So yeah, once we actually get this,
uh this sentence in, I'll do an update. Maybe it'll
be like a half calf or something cool, and we
can just go through what the fuck happened? What's going
to happen to this guy? And yeah, we'll move forward
with that. Okay, So this case will actually happen in
(05:19):
like mostly Chesapeake, Virginia, which is crazy because it's one
of the most underdiscussed serial murder cases I think in
modern history.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ish.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, so today we're diving into the story of Elton M. Jackson.
He was also called the Hampton Roads Killer. Never heard
of it, right, and he was suspected of killing over
a dozen man a dozen man a dozen men across
the Hampton Roads region between the late eighties and mid nineties,
so ironically that would have been around the time yere
(05:53):
now one of your parents left there, like fuck this,
like actually it's not as safe as it SAMs, which
its crazy to me because chesapeakeer remember being fairly safe.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Sure, I mean I was also live. We moved back
to Virginia. I live in Stafford, and then my grandmama
told me not too like far off, like pretty recently,
that fucking Ted Kaczynski was hiding out in the woods
behind our house.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Basically, it's crazy. Didn't he Meredith send us a picture
of that?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
God sounds so funny. Oh my god, I get a
lot of weirdos out there. Just stay safe out there,
because there's a lot of woods in Virginia. His victims,
this Elton Jackson dude often dismissed, and the police really
dropped the ball because they didn't make a lot of
these connections early on. And can you guess why that was.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Because they weren't fucking communicating with one another.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, and the victims were great. Oh yeah, So surprise,
another gay.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
You know, looked into an axe.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I actually heard about this case from the Melan and
Mayhem podcast, so I stumbled upon Renee Davis. I got,
I don't know if she definitely has a reckless mouth, Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I love it, reckless reckless.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
She calls white people eight and a half by elevens
or mayo sapienss like a white sheet of papers. I
fucking died. I must peed my pants. But she specifically
looks at elevating black true true crime, black true crime
nice and she feels like a lot of times there's
(07:28):
like a myth that black people don't perpetrate certain crimes,
and she wants to help break down that myth.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Birh, that's like in my case for next week. So
oh shit ish, Like there's a mention of it, and
they're like, they say, like, black people wouldn't have done
this crime, and I'm like, but why not?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
People will be wild and it's just the facts of it.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Couldn't they be involved?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah? Seriously, so truly. Just shout out to Melan Mayhem.
I've been listening to it ever since, probably one of
the funniest true crime podcasters I've ever listened to.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Oh yeah, over to me.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yes I will, and I'll post it. I'll post it.
It's in my show notes, so.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You post it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
You can hear. I'm still a little I never really
truly came back from that sickness. I feel, I don't
know what it is, four or five big roads that
would like take you places, and then the rest were
like these weird little offs.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Like yeah, the back roads.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, so the bodies were pretty much, as far as
we could tell, all discovered. Each victim in this series
was a man who kind of maybe was out there
looking for money. So they were often driftlers, hustlers, or
individuals with substance abuse issues, and sometimes they were just
(08:41):
game in with closeted lives, okay, So their absences were
not always immediately alarming to friends and family, Like, if
you have somebody in your life who's kind of in
and out.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
You're not going to expect to see them for a
couple of days. Like that's a normal occurrence, exactly, Yeah,
not reported missing right away.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And the officers or the detectives believe that the killer
was exploiting this. In several cases, the victims were last
seen around Norfolk's adult playgrounds area, so the Ocean View
strip clubs, downtown gay bars on Granby Street, or portsmous
Truxton area known for cruising and drugs. So Jackson himself
(09:20):
was actually really familiar with these areas in these spots,
and many of the victims actually knew him casually. So notably,
nine of the twelve victims were confirmed strangulations, and all
except the first were found completely nude with their personal
belongings missing. It's suggested that because they didn't have any
of their personal belongings, Elton was maybe keeping trophies, or
(09:42):
at least was trying to keep them from being identified
after his first one. The Washington Post notes that the
pattern of stripping the victims could indicate that the killer
retain their clothes oft souvenirs, which is a pretty common
behavior of organized serial killers who relive their crimes through
collective personal items. Something we've seen I.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Think time and time again. Absolutely the eyes. I'm still though.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
I'm just like, I mean, I have all the trophies
to keep. You think it would be something small.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
He's obsessed with eyes. My eyes are They're portable. You
can keep a mind.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I was definitely talking about the clothes. Makes sense that
guy was unhinged, hinged.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Sorry anyway, we just need to have some Merchi says,
where are the jar fucking eyeballs?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Fucking serious? Okay, raise your hand if you want to
shirt that, says up, because I will make it because
I want one.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
No, I'm going to have I'm going to ask Meredith
to design it since.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
She's Please Meredith, we call upon you once again.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
If you're traveling right now, and you're catching up on
all of.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Our episodes summoning Meredith.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Oh and she's supposed to be here probably next month
to get that back in.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Here, Merridali, would you like to come.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Some as cases anyway?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Keeping their all of their possessions as trophies. You'd think
that that was like, what the fuck? Like, how do
you I don't know a fuck town of clothes? Okay,
I have a fuck ton of clothes. Where are you
keeping all the clothes?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I just I feel like wear them for me personally?
I feel like he just did it to prevent as
he probably kept some there's probably some things.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
For years the homicides went unsalved. They were not officially linked.
And part of that reason was these different police departments,
which were Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk, et cetera, Portsmouth, They all
handled the cases separately and there were no real clear signatures.
I mean there was, but it was pretty subtle. So
it was naked men being dumped strangled. Right. So, for
(12:00):
whatever reason, and I mean we say this all the time,
these fucking county police drop the ball.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I just don't get why there's not communication between departments
departments that are so close to one another, like county
is over like counties like touching one another.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, well like what is that like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, it's really everything's really fucking close together.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So you would think that people would be making these connections.
But kind of, like we said, it could be the
fact that these were believed to be gay men or
men who were on the outskirts of society, so they
just didn't take it seriously. Oh I girl, a great girl. Anyway,
it's not mad, No, it be.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
They should be doing their damnedest to fucking bring them
to justice, no matter who they fucking are.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I agree anyway, So I digress, drop my soapbox. Charles
Frank Chucky Smith, who was eighteen years old, was found
on July seventh, to nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's my fucking birthday. That's two years before.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Remember, Oh, oh my god. I had almost had a
panic attack. I was like, what if your Chucky reincarnated?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I mean it could be.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
So Smith's body was discovered in Chesapeake, Virginia, where you
were born and I lived for years. He was strangled,
and he was the first victim in the series. He
was found partially clothes, so he had jeans and sneakers on.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah. A later witness who was a prison inmate and
who was Smith's friend, so chucky. Smith's friend revealed that Jackson,
or the main perpetrator here, had been playing paying Smith
for sexual favors in the months before his death. Okay,
so a lot of this is this will be a
theme we see a lot as detectives finally put shit together.
(13:40):
Is like this guy Elton, he would pay men in
the neighborhood to basically do sexual things for him. Joseph A. Ray,
who was around thirty five. His body was found July nineteenth,
nineteen eighty seven. Wow, so very close together, just two
weeks after Smith was killed. Ray was also strangled. He
(14:02):
was jumped dumped in chests Peak as well, like other victims.
Was known to frequent gay bars and hustler hangouts in
kind of Norfolk area. Almost got robbed a couple times
in Norfolk actually, Jesus. The quick succession of Smith and
Ray's murders in nine and ewty seven did raise some
alarms because they were so close together, but the connection
between the cases was not established until like years later. Okay,
(14:24):
Stacy Renault, he was twenty one. He was found on
January seventh, nineteen eighty nine. He was strangled, found nude
on the side of the road. So he had been
lasting in Norfolk's nightlife district and his murder and then
another murder that may or may not have been connected
later that month caused a lot of concern, but then
fell off, you know, the books, nobody paid any more
(14:44):
attention to it. John W. Ross Junior, who was thirty seven.
He was found on January twenty first, nineteen ninety two.
So that was three and a half years, give or take.
And Ross was strangled, he was dumped, and he was
the first known killing in over three years that they
were able a pin on this guy.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Investigators noted that that gap may have been during a
time when the killer either left the area that's or
was inactive during that time. Personally, I would imagine that
they just missed some bodies because I mean, that area
is pretty.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And three and a half years is a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
To go, especially when you're doing this kind of stuff. Yeah,
So Ross, the guy we just chatted about. He his
death reawakened a lot of fears in the area that
there was a serial offender back doing shit. But still
the police had not put up, like, had not reallysed
information in the public about a ceial. They were not
(15:39):
telling gay bars about anything like right to keep your
eyes out.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, you say something, say something, Oh my god, that.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
They would start doing that. I think eventually they started
putting up posters or something in the gay bars.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
But that or fucking If you're looking for a serial killer,
you'd think that they would have someone staking out.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Like those areas, like looking around, yeah, or at least
like doing something, doing something right. But we expect too much.
What is it that they always say, Oh, once a
crime hasn't been committed yet, still there's a thing we
can do.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah. No, several men have shown up fucking bed and strangled.
Give me a break, Give me a break.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So Billy lead Dixon was our next victim. He was
thirty two. He was found on July second, nineteen ninety two.
He was strangled and was found in the Isle of
White County and west of Norfolk. He was known to
pose in gay erotic magazines, though his friends and family
never explicitly discussed his orientation. Okay, he may have been
(16:39):
more of a either closeted or somebody just out there
like trying to get extra cash.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, we don't know he's posing in a gay magazine.
I don't know that.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I don't know how much that pays either, don't know
how much. Listen, I'll pose in a game magazine. Give
a damn it.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't know if you're straight. And New had polls
on the gay men's magazine loves Now if you're looking,
if you're desperate enough for money, I feel.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Like, well, that's the problem is that a lot of
these guys were Yeah. Yeah, because his parents said that
he lived like a very Wanderer esque lifestyle, which to
me just means kind of nomad nomadic, So who knows.
Reginald Joyner thirty four. He was found March seventh, nineteen
ninety three. He was also strangled and dumped in Suffolk, Virginia,
another city in the Hampton Roads area. He was one
(17:27):
of several victims of color in the series. So that's
another thing is Elton didn't just go for a specific
type of man like he kind of like picked all
of it the spectrums, so like from teenager to mid thirties,
late thirties, and it was black, it was white, it
was hispanic didn't really matter to him. So by this
point six victims in the police still had not linked
(17:49):
all the cases. They still did not realize that there
was a serial going on here. So the murder spanned
multiple jurisdictions, and they lacked a sensational like a signature
thing like a When I tried to figure out what
that meant, I was like, they want him to write
like ruins on the body.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Killer there's the smiley face on it.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Or exactly. They wanted something a little more the zodiac
fucking sensational. So then there was Raymond Ray Bostik, who
was twenty seven. He was found on June twenty eighth,
nineteen ninety three. He was an unemployed truck driver from Norfolk.
He was found strangled and nude in a ditch beside
a rural road in Chesapeake. So it was actually ray
(18:31):
who helped link everything together suddenly, so the detective MJ. Fischetti,
it was his very first day as a homicide detective.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Oh shit.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And after the seventh killing, investigators convened a multi agency
task force, realizing for the first time that a single
serial killer was likely responsible for all of these.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Five years later, from the.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
First ninety three Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, because you said eighty seven, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Five years, dude, Jesus. The consistent uh pattern, So, the
ligature strangulation, the lack of struggle science, nude bodies gay
likely gay men are struggling men dump near highways became
clear when all of a sudden, detectives from different cities
we're comparing their notes together. Imagine that. Wow, it makes
(19:19):
you wonder how many of these things are just out there.
We have no idea.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So many, I'm sure, especially if someone's not staying in
like a specific city or town and they're moving around.
It's like, how how do you connect the dots if
they're all over the map before you? Like, I guess
it takes a.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
While, But you'd think that in the day in age
of twenty twenty five it would be kind of different,
Like you would have like an AI in the background going, oh,
it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well maybe if that's why they're developing AI. I don't know.
And there's fucking cameras literally everywhere, Yes, everywhere, TV footage.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yes, suck on that, Brian Kober.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, fucking dumb ass. Also, how many active serial kills
are in the United states, They like are assuming, like.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Is there like a stat for that?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
There's always a stat for that.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, there's always a stat for that. There's a staff
for that.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
But there's a stop for that.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
You can hear my keybook kicking. So they believe that
there were nearly three hundred known active serial killers in
the US, but by the twenty tens, the number had
dropped to fewer than fifty.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, there's less than fifty active serial killers, but that's still.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Why were there three hundred in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Dude, The seventies are fucking mild, Okay, So.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Why, I don't know. I think it was like a
time just where there was that migration from like super
strict to super liberal.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Maybe, I don't know. There was also this article that
I think Sierra sent me, and I was literally talking
about like chemicals in the air and water like and
making the gay Well, it was like the same area
from around where free damer.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh she sent me the same one. Yes, that was so.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Interesting, bitch. I don't know if that's I don't know,
but it is, But I mean that's something that links
them all together. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
But correlation isn't causation. However that is it was cool.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, I think it was easier to get away with
it then than it is now. And there's more mental
health resources now. So I feel like if you and
it's not as stigmatized, so you can actually be yourself,
go talk to people and you don't have to be well,
we'll see you don't have to be as closeted or afraid.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
That's an interesting idea. Yeah, I mean, at least in
larger cities, that's very true. Maybe they've just gotten better.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Like maybe maybe parents aren't ash no parents are so
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
If you have theories, Oh, there's all.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Those dating apps now so it's easier to find find connections.
But also some of these men were married and then
with the whole family.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, I did, I would, just I don't know. I
don't love to hear your theories.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
There's so many.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
We're all just sitting here, we all speculations. Why anyway, Annie,
who's are.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I am just gonna go through the rest of the
victims really quick, and then we'll kind of go into
exactly what happened with the police. Okay, okay, So after
the discovery of Ray Botsick, where they actually started putting
things together. We then see Robert A. Robbie Neil, twenty four,
who was found on September eighth, nineteen ninety three. He
(22:39):
was also found strangled in nude beside a road in Chesapeake.
He had a history of drug use and would vanish
on binges, which obviously means that he wasn't immediately missed.
Then there was Garland Taylor Junior. He was twenty four.
He was found on September seventeenth, nineteen eighty four. He
was discovered in Suffolk, strangled in nude like the others.
(23:01):
Samuel Eugene sam Ayliff thirty one, he was found on
May fourteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Okay, so this lasted.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Even more years, yes, like almost a decade, and he
was found strangled and nude in Chesapeak Like the others,
he was part of the local gay bar scene. By
this point, ten deaths and the task force was still
struggling to find fucking evidence. They said that the killer
showed a formidable intelligence and avoiding detection, so no fingerprints,
no useful DNA initially, and victims were so incapacitated, so
(23:32):
they were likely drugged so they showed no real resistance injuries.
The next victim was Jesse James Spencer Junior. He was thirty.
He was found on January twenty eighth, nineteenth ninety six.
He was nude, strangled, dumped in Chesta Peak. And then
that's when they really started hanging up sketches and putting
them on the walls of a Norfolk gay bar as
(23:53):
a warning.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Okay, sketches of did anyone in any of the victims
get away?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So people made composite sketches based on a drawing of
an unidentified man scene with Spencer before he disappeared.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Okay, so there was a witness that saw.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, people kind of saw this guy with Spencer, Jesse
James Spencer Junior, And so they made a composite sketch
and they tried to put that out. However, no arrest
was made. Detective Fischetti was his little pissed off. And
then Andrew d Andre Smith, thirty eight, was found on
(24:28):
July twenty second, nineteen ninety six. His body would prove
pivotal for the case. So a Virginia Power Company employee
discovered Smith's unclothed body and a drainage ditch in Chesapeake.
He had been strangled with a ligature like everybody else,
and he was the twelfth victim. But in this particular case,
(24:49):
police were able to develop a suspect, which was Alton M.
Jackson based on evidence. So Smith had actually been friends
with Garland Taylor, who was victim number nine in early
childhood and they lived in the same neighborhood as Elton Jackson.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
That's tragic, Oh my god. So they grew up together.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, this was the only murder for which Jackson Jackson,
Elton Jackson has ever been charged and convicted.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But because there's no physical evidence for the other ones.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Exactly, but they believe he was. All of them admit
to it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Please, Now we're going to kind of go into exactly
what happened. So it wasn't until mid nineteen ninety three,
after the seventh victim, which was Ray Bostick, which we
kind of mentioned, detectives really is they had a serial killer.
So Detective Fischetti organized and he was a Chesapeake PD,
so he organized an impromptu meeting with other investigators. That's
when they kind of figured out that there was something
(25:42):
going on in A serial killer task force was formed.
This is initially consisted of Fischetti and a Suffolk detective,
but was later aided by state police analysts and the FBI.
Damn so a la motherfucks up on here. The FBI's
Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit assisted with behavioral profiling
and for an support so like DNA testing and the
(26:03):
test force pursued various leads. One theory was that the
killer was maybe in the military. As we've talked about earlier,
there were a lot of military people there and then
there was that gap. So they said that that gap
coincided with the Gulf War deployment.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Yeah. Interesting, I wouldn't. I don't know, I don't put
two and two together.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, after really, well, military, you were only what
like one, it's you were just a baby. Yeah, So
they wondered if a soldier from the area, you know,
could have been behind this. Of course, this angle proved
a bust, and the pool of military personnel was absolutely gigantic,
so it's really hard to nail down any pattern or suspect.
(26:42):
Investigators also noted the unusual fact that the killer did
not stick to a specific race, which the first five
victims were white, the five of the next seven were black.
It was like harder for them to figure it out, right, right,
this complicated profiling. I think we've talked about it before.
But normally, if you're a serial murderer, you kind of
have a type A type, right, so kind of weird
(27:06):
at least for in this type of scenario.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Would you go like undercover of that situation, I would
a profile somebody.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
If you ask Olivia Benson Law and Order SVU, she
almost every three cases and somebody out undercover. I swear
to god, I'm all guys, come.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
On, you get to know people you have like an
informant or some shit. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I feel like you need informants for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I wonder if because of the time frame too, like
the seventies and eighties, like I or seventies, eighties and nineties.
I wonder if they're like, I'm not going to pretend
to be a gay man at where bite me, bite
my whole ASSM. So they believe that this unknown killer
was very organized. He was cunning enough to avoid leaving evidence,
(27:51):
I'm assuming, so maybe that's why he was removing the
clothes too.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Right, Right, So if there's any semen or anything found
on that's usually where they find it. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
He had to probably be physically strong to overpower these
men who were as large, sometimes as two hundred and
fifty pounds, but he was also socially adept enough to
lure victims into vulnerable situations. They believe he either incapacitated
victims with drugs or tricked them into consensual restraints, like
maybe under the pretense of erotic asphyxiation, since none of
(28:21):
the men showed typical defensive wounds. So indeed, police theories
that the murderer might gain a choke hold when they
were at their most vulnerable, like during sex, is what
they think happened, much like serial killer John Wyn Gasey
did in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I'm just playing.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, I'm just playing around, just goofing, just new book.
Even they matched what little evidence they had, and some
victims had signs of recent consensual sexual activity, but given
their lifestyles and multiple partners alone, that wasn't proof of
the killer's identity. So the big turning point that we
talked about was in May of nineteen ninety six, Fischetti,
who was the detective, stepped aside in a new detective
(29:00):
took over, and that was Detective Whitehurst. He was the
lead investigator, and he decided that another murder, if another
murder occurred, he would approach it fresh, focusing almost exclusively
on that single case as a way to catch a break.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So he said, instead of looking at this of the
lens of you all, here's what's been done in the past. Yeah,
And so Easton.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Treated victim number twelve, Andrew d Andre Smith's homicide as
if it might be isolated. So he kept details like
the cause of death secret from the public. He didn't
add it to the list. And interestingly, and I don't
know if I would have done that, because I feel
like people does. The public deserves to know that it's
part of a thing, but they also maybe already knew.
(29:42):
I don't know, But it paid off. In the ensuing
investigation of Smith's death, Elton Jackson's name surfaced very quickly
neighbors in Smith's Portsmouth community of Truxton. They reported that
Smith was acquainted with Jackson, who was a forty one
year old man who lived just a half a mile
from Smith's home. In fact, jack Sin's house on Portsmouth
Boulevard was so close that an interstate's on ramp Shadow
(30:04):
fell over. It a telling details since the killers clearly
favored quick escape routes like interstates when dumping bodies. Crucially,
police learned that on the night of July twentieth, nineteen
eighty six, Andre Smith had left home saying he was
going to go borrow money from Jackson.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Oh shit, okay, so people knew where he was headed.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, so he needed money for something and what that
meant in that community do in sentual favor. About twenty
nine hours later, Smith was found dead. The timeline made
(30:47):
Jackson the last known person Smith intended to see alive,
so when Detective Whitehurst approached Jackson on July twenty third,
nineteen ninety six to ask about Smith, Jackson lied and
was like, oh, I don't know Smith. I only know
that he died.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
From fucking huge red flag right, dumbas dumbassy on each
other for you, And they're like, oh, you don't know
this guy, then.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
How'd your DNA get on?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly how you get there? Oh?
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Oh that guy? Right, I just don't. I think what
he says is if I remember quictly, he says, I
didn't call him that he called him by a different name.
He called him Andre instead of Andrew. Did you know, Yeah,
I mean Andrew went by. But still, like, come on, dude.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Still kind of smart to be like, oh, that's not
the name that I call him by.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Still I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I was a oh you oh you mean Andre?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Oh of course, oh you mean Candy, not Candace. I
don't I'll have all of you know that every single
person wrote a different name for Candace on her birthday.
It was genius and it was unintentional, and it was
so funny.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I was like, oh, who was it. Someone spelled my
name wrong, William. William spelled my name wrong.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
He wrote it with an eye, like Candyce.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Brittany spelt my name can dance.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I spelled it canned ass.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
He spelled it candass. Anna spelled it can dance. Which's like,
I did it intentionally because you told me that everyone
like we had a conversation about this at one points,
so that it was intentional. And then someone got my name right,
and I was like, oh, I got like every.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I hope I get a Sierra, a Savannah.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I've had someone spell it ka and DS and I
was like, that's hideous.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Candace. Oh, I know a girl named Candace. That's how
her name is spelled. I'm sorry, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Anyway, anyway, Andre Andre.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
So the falsehood immediately raised whitehurst suspicions. So evidence and
forensics with now this Jackson fellow as a person of interest,
he started digging around in the background. He discovered that
Jackson's car, which was a Forida escort, the Ford Escort,
was in the possession of a local credit agency reprossession
most likely, and so in nineteen ninety six, in August,
(32:57):
a creative move to preserve potential evidence, Whitehurst actually purchased
the car oh from the agency on behalf of the police.
So he was like, okay, I'll go buy that shit.
And so FBI forensic experts then looked through the vehicle
and in the ashtray they found six cigarette butts, and
on those butts, an analyst detective biological material suitable for
(33:17):
DNA testing. The DNA from the cigarette butts matched the
DNA from Andre Smith. So that told the detectives that
Smith had been inside Jackson's car shortly before his death,
likely smoking a cigarette. While the exact significance of the
match was debated, it placed the victim in Jackson's car,
but it didn't like prove murder. It was the first
concrete evidence that tied Jackson to any of the crime scenes,
(33:39):
so encouraged detective Whitehurst obtained search warrants in early ninety
seven for Jackson's home and person in request of the courts.
He noted that the offender responsible for this series of
death is an organized killer who might want to keep
personal items from victims as trophies hidden in his residence,
so that was signed off on. The searchers yielded thirty
four items from Jackson's house, including a gold belt, a
(34:00):
cigarette butt, a gay newspaper. What the fuck is a
gay newspaper? They're turn of the frogs. Yeah, bottles of cologne,
and though the police did not reveal if any definitively
came from the victims, so it was kind of a
wild little turn of events. The gay newspaper really speaks
to me, the investigators the gay newspaper magazine, I'm assuming
(34:23):
that's what it.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Means because their gay newspapers.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Guys are their gay newspapers out there, because I'd like
to sign up. Investigators also collected Jackson's blood saliva and
hair samples for DNA and comparison. As of mid ninety seven,
they had not disclosed publicly whether jackson samples matched any
evidence from earlier murders. So by April of ninety seven,
the circumstantial case was growing. So Jackson had lined about
knowing the victim. He's placed with the victim that night
(34:47):
and the victims DNA was in his car. Chesapeake prosecutors
decided they had enough, so the DA went ahead and said,
let's fucking this. Get this bitch. So they took the
unusual step of presenting an indictment to the grand jury
without the suspects name, identifying him only by a number
to avoid leaks.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So they wanted to see, like will this work? In
May of ninety seven, grand jury returned a murder indictment
against Jackson for the killing of Andre Smith. So they
quietly arrested Eltonham Jackson at his ports With home on
May six, nineteen ninety seven, took him into custody without incident,
and at first Jackson again denied knowing Smith, but once
confronted with the evidence at the station, he admitted he
(35:26):
did know the victim. I claim they actually had consensual
sex on the night that this that Smith died, which
was July twentieth, don't they always I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Sure, you had consensual sex, but you then you murdered him.
I mean, can't that also be something that happens? Yeah, right,
He's like, I just like trying to explain why his
DNA would be.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, as they always do. They always do this, like
really quick, let's just go into Elton John's background.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
So, Welton John, very very famous pop singer My bad.
He's also gay.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
He was also gay, got gays on the brain. Elton
Jackson was born in nineteen fifty six. He was raised
and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, so he yeah, pretty close
to where you were. And by the nineties he was
living in Portsmouth with his elderly mother, whom he was
primary caregiver.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Oh fuck what it ask.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
At the time of his arrest in ninety seven, he
was unemployed in a bond hearing. His attorney described him
as a scared middle aged man, devoted to his mother
and unlikely to flee the area. Physically, Jackson was large,
about six feet tall to thirty with massive forearms. Not
much as publicly documented about his early life. He did
have a minor criminal record prior to the murderer. So
(36:45):
in eighty seven he was convicted of solicitation and frequenting
a body house b a wd y, which Bowdy, I'm
assuming that's like a it's like a sex house kind
of thing, a sex house. That sounds essentially charges relating
(37:07):
to seeking sex from a prostitute and of a known
vice location about what he has. This is notable because
in ninete eighty seven, when the first killings began, it
places Jackson in the local illicit sex scene at the
outset of the murder series. Jackson's sexuality was not overtly
discussed in trial, but evidence suggests that he was closeted
or not open about being gay. He was clearly pursued
(37:30):
sex of men, often paying hustlers, yet one of the
psychological dynamics that play may have been shame or conflicted
feelings about his orientation. Community members who knew him described
him as an ordinary person, just an everyday averatitude. He
was in the local gay bar scene, but again like
(37:51):
secretive about it, okay, I was, like what, very secretive
about it. One person from the area recalled hearing that
Jackson struggled with depression over and was very embarrassed about it. Yeah,
that's sad, very sad, and I feel like this is
a common theme. So at trial, it emerged that Jackson
had a pattern of bondage and assault in his encounters.
(38:12):
So he would often lure men with offers for like
money for sex, and then attempted to tie them up
or restrain them in a way that could facilitate strangulation. Damn,
So that was his was precicing, but he was practicing. Yeah, yeah,
Several survivors of these attacks testified escalating. Maybe, yeah, I agree.
So people were they were able to find people who
had like kind of hooked up with him and then
(38:33):
survived the attacks. So in December of ninety six, Jackson
picked up a man named Kevin Benton, took him home,
convinced him, in exchange for seventy five dollars to let
Jackson tie his hands with a necktie for a massage.
When Benton was faced down and bound, Jackson tried to
slip a leather strap over his head, but he fought
back and escaped. Bitch and May ninety five, Jackson solicited
(38:54):
Tommy Anderson for sex after driving to a remote spot,
Jackson suddenly became rough, held Anderson down with an arm
to the neck, and later drove him to an isolated
area and threatened to kill him. And it's then testified
that Jackson came up behind him with a strap, but
he managed to kick free and flee.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
And these men didn't go to the police.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I don't think so, I'm assuming honestly, because nothing happens.
They were like, well, nothing happened, and then you don't
want to out out yourself to the cops. Another man,
willie Ce Swimson Junior, lived with Jackson in the summer
of ninety five and had a sexual arrangement with him.
So one night, Jackson took Swimson to a secluded area
for sex. When Swimson saw Jackson approach from behind with
(39:35):
a strap in hand, he bolted into the woods to
save himself. Smart like he knew something was up.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, you're probably the fucking hair on the back of
his neck was just like nope.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Seriously, these incidents never resulted in his arrest at the
time they occurred, but in hindsight, they demonstrated a clear
modus operandi. Absolutely, he would lure vulnerable men often tied
to the street or the drug scene, and an attempt to
mobilize them and strangle him. He probably had kind of
thrill or got some control from these acts. And the
fact that he took Anderson to the approximate spot where
(40:05):
one of his victims had been dumped. Oh yeah, suggests
he may have been rehearsing or reliving aspects of his crime.
Oh fuck, I know, dude. Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
It gives me the hebs?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
So clearly his stuff was because of sex. He's called
a lust killer. An FBI profiler commented that most serial
killers are motivated by sex.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, yeah, from what From what we can tell you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
They have a profound inability to form normal romantic or
sexual relationships. Which, yeah, I feel like we cover that
a lot.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
So.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Elton Jackson's trial for the murder of Andre Smith began
in August of ninety eight in Chesapeake, Virginia. They faced
the challenge, which is that they only had charged him
with the one murder, even though he was strongly suspected
of the entire series. Their goal was to secure conviction
on the strongest case and implicitly connect him to the pattern.
So yeah, I mean, I think that's fair. So towards
(41:01):
that end, they introduced evidence of Jackson's other bad acts
under exception to evidentiary rules, which basically said, like, we're
showing a pattern. So they said, look look at all
these other things that we think he did. We can't
get him on them, but look at the pattern, and
they were able to kind of get that in through
the judge. The forensic evidence against Jackson in the Smith's
murder was damning, so a DNA analyst testified that that
(41:24):
a blood stain on Jackson's mattress matched Andre Smith's DNA,
so they were able to get a little bit of
DNA from his mattress. Moreover, seaman swabbed from Smith's boody
was tested and was found to contain DNA matching Elton Jackson. Okay,
so they were also able to get him that way.
In other words, Jackson had sexual intercourse with the victim
(41:44):
shortly before or after death, and Smith's blood was found
in Jackson's home. This powerful physical evidence placed him squarely
in Jackson's bedroom and aligned with Jackson's own admission that
he had had sex with him, but starkly contradicted his
claim of innocence in the death m M. The prosecution
argued that Jackson murdered Smith during or right after their
sexual encounter and then dumped his body, and the defense,
(42:06):
led by a court appointed attorney if you cannot afford One,
tried to cast out. They pointed out that Jackson did
not fit the popular profile of its serial killer. He
was a black man of average intellect, whereas many notorious
killers are perceived as intelligent white males. Oh shut the fuck,
I know, Rene Davis to the RESCO. They argue that
(42:29):
the same person killed all twelve victims, as police believed,
and they didn't have any evidence tying Jackson to the
elever the other eleven victims, and considered it strong circumstantial
evidence that Jackson was not the killer in the Smith
case either. So they're saying, you can't prove that he
did these other ones, So how can you prove that
he did this one? Which is goofy?
Speaker 2 (42:47):
That is goofy?
Speaker 1 (42:49):
All right, buddy, excuse me, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I don't see the logic there.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
No, I mean neither, and neither did the jury. So
on August, Elton Jackson was found guilty of person murder
in the death of Andre d Smith. A few months later,
on October twenty seven to ninety eight, a judge sentence
him to life in prison for that crime. At forty
three years old. Jackson was effectively removed from society for
the rest of his life. He is incarcerated in Virginia's
(43:14):
Augusta Correctional Center, serving his life term.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Okay, so he's still alive.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, the Virginia had no parole for first green murder
convictions at that time. Good. Yeah, so he's not coming out, baby.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
No, he's a fucking serial killer. He shouldn't fucking be
reintroduced to society. I'm sorry, Well that's what would freak
me out, dude to so sorry.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
If you only get one, like you only have him
on one, it's like hard for me. I'm always like,
oh shit, like what if. But the fact they were like, nah,
no parole is nice.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
It's just it sucks too when those other victims aren't
given justice.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So hey, Elton Jackson, just admit that you and plead
guilty to all the other fucking people that you murdered.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All yeah, why not?
Speaker 2 (43:55):
All those men that were taken.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
It they liked that control man, They like it.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Of course they do. But it's like, what do you
got to lose. You're fucking rotten. You're rotten, rotten to
the core.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
To the core. No other charges were ever filed against
him for the other killings, so lacking direct forensic evidence,
prosecutors likely concluded they could not meet the burden of
proof and court sure. So, like you said, it would
be nice if he would just admit it. But as
of the late nineties, the Hampton road killing stopped after
Jackson's arrest, so local law enforcement in the community have
little doubt that Alton Jackson was indeed the Hampton's killer. Yeah, yeah,
(44:29):
and a police chief in ninety eight. A Virginia police
chief in ninety eight openly stated that Jackson was suspected
in all twelve homicides.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
I wonder if they could go back over the evidence, right,
because clearly well write, but I don't know how long
they hold on to yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Well, and if I got lost quote unquote.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Well, and if he was careful with all of them
mixed up like that was one of his last victims.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Correct, right, And they do sometimes get sloppy, yes.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Because they've gotten away for it for nearly a decade,
like for a decade, right, Yeah, this was last Yeah,
so for an entire decade he was he was.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Just out there being a fucking psycho. Yeah. So that
is the case of the Hampton Roads killer, which is
just wild to me. Where we once were, where.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
We once lived.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
So yesh, that was you.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Thanks for sharing that case.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Uh, rest in peace to all the absolutely folks, all
those men who lost their lives just trying to fucking
get some money, yeah, or just have a safe hook up.
You know, be careful with these people out there, not
just gaze straights, took kays and straits, be careful. But otherwise, yeah,
(45:42):
case corrections, thoughts, feelings, prayers. Hit us up on Instagram,
Scream dot and Dot Sugar Dot podcast on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Scream and Sugar, True Crime Coffee Hour on TikTok, Scream
Dot and Dot Sugar.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Hit us up on the email Scream and.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Sugar Wena at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Other ways, thanks for listening. We'll see y'all in the
next one. And remember stay smoky stage smoky babies. Bye bye,
(46:43):
it's been it's been one week since I got some sleep.
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Scream and Sugar,
your true crime coffee hour, where we dive into the
darker side of humanity while enjoying a little sweetness on
the side. I am your host, Sahara, I'm Candace, and
today we're going to be covering Elton M. Jackson, the
Hampton Roads Killer. Welcome back, everybody. It's your girl's candy
(00:52):
and say hey Nay.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Like the fuck are you going with? Say nay name?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Hey Hey, We are back with another episode of bone
chilling mystery and just getting this one's been salt shit, yes,
and we are kicking our day off with a little
caffeine from La Victoria.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah. These are so fucking good and it's such a
cute little spot. So cute.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Do we have pictures? I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I do have pictures, excellent.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We'll probably post them up for y'all so you can
probably probably find them.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We remember, I have so many fucking pictures in my
camera roll right now. I need to go through them.
But I also have Rose and Its pictures of scrappy
because every time I try to take a picture of
my little dog, he moves. He does not stay still,
not even when he's sleeping, does he stay still?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
He says, pictures steal your soul, and I'm not interested.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I feel it. That's me all the way. He has
become my dog. I love him, Yes, me too. He
was so good at your birthday. I know, he came
out and said hi to everybody, and he let fucking
Megan's daughter pick him up and like.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
He was a good boy.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
He was just so stoked on everyone and give me
Hamburgers please.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It was so different, such a different dog. Now, you
guys did amazing with him, Thank you. It's really he's
smart warming.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Being on people's cars lately, he's got kidd I Like
yesterday we were walking him and he like lifted his
leg on someone's tire. Well, he lifted his leg on
my tire. First he peed on my car before I
realized it, and I was like, what the fuck Alex,
Like he was letting the pee on the car. And
then he like went by another row of cars he
(02:25):
went to lift his leg again. I was like, no,
why do cars?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Why the cars? It's like perfectly good grass right here.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
When he peas on Tesla's I'm like, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You're all unless they have about that elon.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Actually, I'm just gonna look the other way.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I was reading, like or reading, I was watching the
reels and people are like, this is the most unhinged
public breakup I've ever seen. And it's like him and
Trump just be like Trumpet like if he wants to
call me, I guess I didn't call me.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I like.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Living in a.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Stop and fucking yeah exactly. Or we get to see
everything collapse in real time.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's so serious, it's it's unreal.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But the other reason why I'm drinking a lot of beers.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Seriously though, honestly. All right, so we're gonna hop on
into it. I am taking you to a case that
is actually closer to home for me than usual, which
is interesting because I live in Renata. About it, But
before I lived here, I lived in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
That's where I was born.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Shut the fuck up. You were born in Chesapeake?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh my god, I lived there for a year. That's
fucking crazy. How long were you there?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Literally was born there and then we moved because my
dad was on the cook card.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
He yea, wow, holy shit. No, that is so crazy,
because I feel like Chesapeake is it's not norfilk. It's
not Virginia Beach like. It's kind of like a little
tiny guy. So that's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I couldn't tell you about it at all. It's pretty
that's what its again.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Last time I was there was a while ago, but
it was pretty small. That is fucking crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
You readad was on the I'll tell you to you though.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, my dad was army. We were at the joint base,
the Navy Army base out there.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So maybe army somewhere up in that big.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It's probably an intramural. Sorry. I also want to talk
really quickly. Just do a quick update on the Brian
Coburger case.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Oh shit, you guys, what happened?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Oh my god? Okay, so you know how Brian Coburger,
who was involved in the Idaho murders of those four
college kids that we covered. Quick update, motherfucker took a
plea deal. Shut the fuck up, please?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
For what?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
How is he getting a plea deal because he's playing guilty.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Hm. He has accepted a plea deal for guilty to
first degree murder of the dust of Ethan, Xanna Madison
and Kaylee. Okay, but he doesn't get sentenced by the
judge until next week.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh shit, so you're not okay, so we'll update, we'll update.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
You guys on that actually happens. Oh, the gag order
has been lifted. So yeah, once we actually get this,
uh this sentence in, I'll do an update. Maybe it'll
be like a half calf or something cool, and we
can just go through what the fuck happened? What's going
to happen to this guy? And yeah, we'll move forward
with that. Okay, So this case will actually happen in
(05:19):
like mostly Chesapeake, Virginia, which is crazy because it's one
of the most underdiscussed serial murder cases I think in
modern history.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ish.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, so today we're diving into the story of Elton M. Jackson.
He was also called the Hampton Roads Killer. Never heard
of it, right, and he was suspected of killing over
a dozen man a dozen man a dozen men across
the Hampton Roads region between the late eighties and mid nineties,
so ironically that would have been around the time yere
(05:53):
now one of your parents left there, like fuck this,
like actually it's not as safe as it SAMs, which
its crazy to me because chesapeakeer remember being fairly safe.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Sure, I mean I was also live. We moved back
to Virginia. I live in Stafford, and then my grandmama
told me not too like far off, like pretty recently,
that fucking Ted Kaczynski was hiding out in the woods
behind our house.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Basically, it's crazy. Didn't he Meredith send us a picture
of that?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
God sounds so funny. Oh my god, I get a
lot of weirdos out there. Just stay safe out there,
because there's a lot of woods in Virginia. His victims,
this Elton Jackson dude often dismissed, and the police really
dropped the ball because they didn't make a lot of
these connections early on. And can you guess why that was.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Because they weren't fucking communicating with one another.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, and the victims were great. Oh yeah, So surprise,
another gay.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
You know, looked into an axe.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I actually heard about this case from the Melan and
Mayhem podcast, so I stumbled upon Renee Davis. I got,
I don't know if she definitely has a reckless mouth, Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I love it, reckless reckless.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
She calls white people eight and a half by elevens
or mayo sapienss like a white sheet of papers. I
fucking died. I must peed my pants. But she specifically
looks at elevating black true true crime, black true crime
nice and she feels like a lot of times there's
(07:28):
like a myth that black people don't perpetrate certain crimes,
and she wants to help break down that myth.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Birh, that's like in my case for next week. So
oh shit ish, Like there's a mention of it, and
they're like, they say, like, black people wouldn't have done
this crime, and I'm like, but why not?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
People will be wild and it's just the facts of it.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Couldn't they be involved?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah? Seriously, so truly. Just shout out to Melan Mayhem.
I've been listening to it ever since, probably one of
the funniest true crime podcasters I've ever listened to.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Oh yeah, over to me.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yes I will, and I'll post it. I'll post it.
It's in my show notes, so.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You post it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
You can hear. I'm still a little I never really
truly came back from that sickness. I feel, I don't
know what it is, four or five big roads that
would like take you places, and then the rest were
like these weird little offs.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Like yeah, the back roads.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, so the bodies were pretty much, as far as
we could tell, all discovered. Each victim in this series
was a man who kind of maybe was out there
looking for money. So they were often driftlers, hustlers, or
individuals with substance abuse issues, and sometimes they were just
(08:41):
game in with closeted lives, okay, So their absences were
not always immediately alarming to friends and family, Like, if
you have somebody in your life who's kind of in
and out.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
You're not going to expect to see them for a
couple of days. Like that's a normal occurrence, exactly, Yeah,
not reported missing right away.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And the officers or the detectives believe that the killer
was exploiting this. In several cases, the victims were last
seen around Norfolk's adult playgrounds area, so the Ocean View
strip clubs, downtown gay bars on Granby Street, or portsmous
Truxton area known for cruising and drugs. So Jackson himself
(09:20):
was actually really familiar with these areas in these spots,
and many of the victims actually knew him casually. So notably,
nine of the twelve victims were confirmed strangulations, and all
except the first were found completely nude with their personal
belongings missing. It's suggested that because they didn't have any
of their personal belongings, Elton was maybe keeping trophies, or
(09:42):
at least was trying to keep them from being identified
after his first one. The Washington Post notes that the
pattern of stripping the victims could indicate that the killer
retain their clothes oft souvenirs, which is a pretty common
behavior of organized serial killers who relive their crimes through
collective personal items. Something we've seen I.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Think time and time again. Absolutely the eyes. I'm still though.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
I'm just like, I mean, I have all the trophies
to keep. You think it would be something small.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
He's obsessed with eyes. My eyes are They're portable. You
can keep a mind.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I was definitely talking about the clothes. Makes sense that
guy was unhinged, hinged.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Sorry anyway, we just need to have some Merchi says,
where are the jar fucking eyeballs?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Fucking serious? Okay, raise your hand if you want to
shirt that, says up, because I will make it because
I want one.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
No, I'm going to have I'm going to ask Meredith
to design it since.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
She's Please Meredith, we call upon you once again.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
If you're traveling right now, and you're catching up on
all of.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Our episodes summoning Meredith.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Oh and she's supposed to be here probably next month
to get that back in.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Here, Merridali, would you like to come.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Some as cases anyway?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Keeping their all of their possessions as trophies. You'd think
that that was like, what the fuck? Like, how do
you I don't know a fuck town of clothes? Okay,
I have a fuck ton of clothes. Where are you
keeping all the clothes?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I just I feel like wear them for me personally?
I feel like he just did it to prevent as
he probably kept some there's probably some things.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
For years the homicides went unsalved. They were not officially linked.
And part of that reason was these different police departments,
which were Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk, et cetera, Portsmouth, They all
handled the cases separately and there were no real clear signatures.
I mean there was, but it was pretty subtle. So
it was naked men being dumped strangled. Right. So, for
(12:00):
whatever reason, and I mean we say this all the time,
these fucking county police drop the ball.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I just don't get why there's not communication between departments
departments that are so close to one another, like county
is over like counties like touching one another.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, well like what is that like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, it's really everything's really fucking close together.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So you would think that people would be making these connections.
But kind of, like we said, it could be the
fact that these were believed to be gay men or
men who were on the outskirts of society, so they
just didn't take it seriously. Oh I girl, a great girl. Anyway,
it's not mad, No, it be.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
They should be doing their damnedest to fucking bring them
to justice, no matter who they fucking are.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I agree anyway, So I digress, drop my soapbox. Charles
Frank Chucky Smith, who was eighteen years old, was found
on July seventh, to nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
That's my fucking birthday. That's two years before.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Remember, Oh, oh my god. I had almost had a
panic attack. I was like, what if your Chucky reincarnated?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I mean it could be.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
So Smith's body was discovered in Chesapeake, Virginia, where you
were born and I lived for years. He was strangled,
and he was the first victim in the series. He
was found partially clothes, so he had jeans and sneakers on.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah. A later witness who was a prison inmate and
who was Smith's friend, so chucky. Smith's friend revealed that Jackson,
or the main perpetrator here, had been playing paying Smith
for sexual favors in the months before his death. Okay,
so a lot of this is this will be a
theme we see a lot as detectives finally put shit together.
(13:40):
Is like this guy Elton, he would pay men in
the neighborhood to basically do sexual things for him. Joseph A. Ray,
who was around thirty five. His body was found July nineteenth,
nineteen eighty seven. Wow, so very close together, just two
weeks after Smith was killed. Ray was also strangled. He
(14:02):
was jumped dumped in chests Peak as well, like other victims.
Was known to frequent gay bars and hustler hangouts in
kind of Norfolk area. Almost got robbed a couple times
in Norfolk actually, Jesus. The quick succession of Smith and
Ray's murders in nine and ewty seven did raise some
alarms because they were so close together, but the connection
between the cases was not established until like years later. Okay,
(14:24):
Stacy Renault, he was twenty one. He was found on
January seventh, nineteen eighty nine. He was strangled, found nude
on the side of the road. So he had been
lasting in Norfolk's nightlife district and his murder and then
another murder that may or may not have been connected
later that month caused a lot of concern, but then
fell off, you know, the books, nobody paid any more
(14:44):
attention to it. John W. Ross Junior, who was thirty seven.
He was found on January twenty first, nineteen ninety two.
So that was three and a half years, give or take.
And Ross was strangled, he was dumped, and he was
the first known killing in over three years that they
were able a pin on this guy.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Investigators noted that that gap may have been during a
time when the killer either left the area that's or
was inactive during that time. Personally, I would imagine that
they just missed some bodies because I mean, that area
is pretty.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And three and a half years is a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
To go, especially when you're doing this kind of stuff. Yeah,
So Ross, the guy we just chatted about. He his
death reawakened a lot of fears in the area that
there was a serial offender back doing shit. But still
the police had not put up, like, had not reallysed
information in the public about a ceial. They were not
(15:39):
telling gay bars about anything like right to keep your
eyes out.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, you say something, say something, Oh my god, that.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
They would start doing that. I think eventually they started
putting up posters or something in the gay bars.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
But that or fucking If you're looking for a serial killer,
you'd think that they would have someone staking out.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Like those areas, like looking around, yeah, or at least
like doing something, doing something right. But we expect too much.
What is it that they always say, Oh, once a
crime hasn't been committed yet, still there's a thing we
can do.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah. No, several men have shown up fucking bed and strangled.
Give me a break, Give me a break.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So Billy lead Dixon was our next victim. He was
thirty two. He was found on July second, nineteen ninety two.
He was strangled and was found in the Isle of
White County and west of Norfolk. He was known to
pose in gay erotic magazines, though his friends and family
never explicitly discussed his orientation. Okay, he may have been
(16:39):
more of a either closeted or somebody just out there
like trying to get extra cash.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, we don't know he's posing in a gay magazine.
I don't know that.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I don't know how much that pays either, don't know
how much. Listen, I'll pose in a game magazine. Give
a damn it.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't know if you're straight. And New had polls
on the gay men's magazine loves Now if you're looking,
if you're desperate enough for money, I feel.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Like, well, that's the problem is that a lot of
these guys were Yeah. Yeah, because his parents said that
he lived like a very Wanderer esque lifestyle, which to
me just means kind of nomad nomadic, So who knows.
Reginald Joyner thirty four. He was found March seventh, nineteen
ninety three. He was also strangled and dumped in Suffolk, Virginia,
another city in the Hampton Roads area. He was one
(17:27):
of several victims of color in the series. So that's
another thing is Elton didn't just go for a specific
type of man like he kind of like picked all
of it the spectrums, so like from teenager to mid thirties,
late thirties, and it was black, it was white, it
was hispanic didn't really matter to him. So by this
point six victims in the police still had not linked
(17:49):
all the cases. They still did not realize that there
was a serial going on here. So the murder spanned
multiple jurisdictions, and they lacked a sensational like a signature
thing like a When I tried to figure out what
that meant, I was like, they want him to write
like ruins on the body.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Killer there's the smiley face on it.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Or exactly. They wanted something a little more the zodiac
fucking sensational. So then there was Raymond Ray Bostik, who
was twenty seven. He was found on June twenty eighth,
nineteen ninety three. He was an unemployed truck driver from Norfolk.
He was found strangled and nude in a ditch beside
a rural road in Chesapeake. So it was actually ray
(18:31):
who helped link everything together suddenly, so the detective MJ. Fischetti,
it was his very first day as a homicide detective.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Oh shit.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And after the seventh killing, investigators convened a multi agency
task force, realizing for the first time that a single
serial killer was likely responsible for all of these.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Five years later, from the.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
First ninety three Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, because you said eighty seven, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Five years, dude, Jesus. The consistent uh pattern, So, the
ligature strangulation, the lack of struggle science, nude bodies gay
likely gay men are struggling men dump near highways became
clear when all of a sudden, detectives from different cities
we're comparing their notes together. Imagine that. Wow, it makes
(19:19):
you wonder how many of these things are just out there.
We have no idea.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So many, I'm sure, especially if someone's not staying in
like a specific city or town and they're moving around.
It's like, how how do you connect the dots if
they're all over the map before you? Like, I guess
it takes a.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
While, But you'd think that in the day in age
of twenty twenty five it would be kind of different,
Like you would have like an AI in the background going, oh,
it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well maybe if that's why they're developing AI. I don't know.
And there's fucking cameras literally everywhere, Yes, everywhere, TV footage.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yes, suck on that, Brian Kober.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, fucking dumb ass. Also, how many active serial kills
are in the United states, They like are assuming, like.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Is there like a stat for that?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
There's always a stat for that.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, there's always a stat for that. There's a staff
for that.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
But there's a stop for that.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
You can hear my keybook kicking. So they believe that
there were nearly three hundred known active serial killers in
the US, but by the twenty tens, the number had
dropped to fewer than fifty.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, there's less than fifty active serial killers, but that's still.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Why were there three hundred in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Dude, The seventies are fucking mild, Okay, So.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Why, I don't know. I think it was like a
time just where there was that migration from like super
strict to super liberal.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Maybe, I don't know. There was also this article that
I think Sierra sent me, and I was literally talking
about like chemicals in the air and water like and
making the gay Well, it was like the same area
from around where free damer.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh she sent me the same one. Yes, that was so.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Interesting, bitch. I don't know if that's I don't know,
but it is, But I mean that's something that links
them all together. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
But correlation isn't causation. However that is it was cool.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, I think it was easier to get away with
it then than it is now. And there's more mental
health resources now. So I feel like if you and
it's not as stigmatized, so you can actually be yourself,
go talk to people and you don't have to be well,
we'll see you don't have to be as closeted or afraid.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
That's an interesting idea. Yeah, I mean, at least in
larger cities, that's very true. Maybe they've just gotten better.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Like maybe maybe parents aren't ash no parents are so
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
If you have theories, Oh, there's all.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Those dating apps now so it's easier to find find connections.
But also some of these men were married and then
with the whole family.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, I did, I would, just I don't know. I
don't love to hear your theories.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
There's so many.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
We're all just sitting here, we all speculations. Why anyway, Annie,
who's are.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I am just gonna go through the rest of the
victims really quick, and then we'll kind of go into
exactly what happened with the police. Okay, okay, So after
the discovery of Ray Botsick, where they actually started putting
things together. We then see Robert A. Robbie Neil, twenty four,
who was found on September eighth, nineteen ninety three. He
(22:39):
was also found strangled in nude beside a road in Chesapeake.
He had a history of drug use and would vanish
on binges, which obviously means that he wasn't immediately missed.
Then there was Garland Taylor Junior. He was twenty four.
He was found on September seventeenth, nineteen eighty four. He
was discovered in Suffolk, strangled in nude like the others.
(23:01):
Samuel Eugene sam Ayliff thirty one, he was found on
May fourteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Okay, so this lasted.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Even more years, yes, like almost a decade, and he
was found strangled and nude in Chesapeak Like the others,
he was part of the local gay bar scene. By
this point, ten deaths and the task force was still
struggling to find fucking evidence. They said that the killer
showed a formidable intelligence and avoiding detection, so no fingerprints,
no useful DNA initially, and victims were so incapacitated, so
(23:32):
they were likely drugged so they showed no real resistance injuries.
The next victim was Jesse James Spencer Junior. He was thirty.
He was found on January twenty eighth, nineteenth ninety six.
He was nude, strangled, dumped in Chesta Peak. And then
that's when they really started hanging up sketches and putting
them on the walls of a Norfolk gay bar as
(23:53):
a warning.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Okay, sketches of did anyone in any of the victims
get away?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So people made composite sketches based on a drawing of
an unidentified man scene with Spencer before he disappeared.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Okay, so there was a witness that saw.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, people kind of saw this guy with Spencer, Jesse
James Spencer Junior, And so they made a composite sketch
and they tried to put that out. However, no arrest
was made. Detective Fischetti was his little pissed off. And
then Andrew d Andre Smith, thirty eight, was found on
(24:28):
July twenty second, nineteen ninety six. His body would prove
pivotal for the case. So a Virginia Power Company employee
discovered Smith's unclothed body and a drainage ditch in Chesapeake.
He had been strangled with a ligature like everybody else,
and he was the twelfth victim. But in this particular case,
(24:49):
police were able to develop a suspect, which was Alton M.
Jackson based on evidence. So Smith had actually been friends
with Garland Taylor, who was victim number nine in early
childhood and they lived in the same neighborhood as Elton Jackson.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
That's tragic, Oh my god. So they grew up together.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, this was the only murder for which Jackson Jackson,
Elton Jackson has ever been charged and convicted.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But because there's no physical evidence for the other ones.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Exactly, but they believe he was. All of them admit
to it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Please, Now we're going to kind of go into exactly
what happened. So it wasn't until mid nineteen ninety three,
after the seventh victim, which was Ray Bostick, which we
kind of mentioned, detectives really is they had a serial killer.
So Detective Fischetti organized and he was a Chesapeake PD,
so he organized an impromptu meeting with other investigators. That's
when they kind of figured out that there was something
(25:42):
going on in A serial killer task force was formed.
This is initially consisted of Fischetti and a Suffolk detective,
but was later aided by state police analysts and the FBI.
Damn so a la motherfucks up on here. The FBI's
Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit assisted with behavioral profiling
and for an support so like DNA testing and the
(26:03):
test force pursued various leads. One theory was that the
killer was maybe in the military. As we've talked about earlier,
there were a lot of military people there and then
there was that gap. So they said that that gap
coincided with the Gulf War deployment.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Yeah. Interesting, I wouldn't. I don't know, I don't put
two and two together.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, after really, well, military, you were only what
like one, it's you were just a baby. Yeah, So
they wondered if a soldier from the area, you know,
could have been behind this. Of course, this angle proved
a bust, and the pool of military personnel was absolutely gigantic,
so it's really hard to nail down any pattern or suspect.
(26:42):
Investigators also noted the unusual fact that the killer did
not stick to a specific race, which the first five
victims were white, the five of the next seven were black.
It was like harder for them to figure it out, right, right,
this complicated profiling. I think we've talked about it before.
But normally, if you're a serial murderer, you kind of
have a type A type, right, so kind of weird
(27:06):
at least for in this type of scenario.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Would you go like undercover of that situation, I would
a profile somebody.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
If you ask Olivia Benson Law and Order SVU, she
almost every three cases and somebody out undercover. I swear
to god, I'm all guys, come.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
On, you get to know people you have like an
informant or some shit. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I feel like you need informants for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I wonder if because of the time frame too, like
the seventies and eighties, like I or seventies, eighties and nineties.
I wonder if they're like, I'm not going to pretend
to be a gay man at where bite me, bite
my whole ASSM. So they believe that this unknown killer
was very organized. He was cunning enough to avoid leaving evidence,
(27:51):
I'm assuming, so maybe that's why he was removing the
clothes too.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Right, Right, So if there's any semen or anything found
on that's usually where they find it. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
He had to probably be physically strong to overpower these
men who were as large, sometimes as two hundred and
fifty pounds, but he was also socially adept enough to
lure victims into vulnerable situations. They believe he either incapacitated
victims with drugs or tricked them into consensual restraints, like
maybe under the pretense of erotic asphyxiation, since none of
(28:21):
the men showed typical defensive wounds. So indeed, police theories
that the murderer might gain a choke hold when they
were at their most vulnerable, like during sex, is what
they think happened, much like serial killer John Wyn Gasey
did in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I'm just playing.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, I'm just playing around, just goofing, just new book.
Even they matched what little evidence they had, and some
victims had signs of recent consensual sexual activity, but given
their lifestyles and multiple partners alone, that wasn't proof of
the killer's identity. So the big turning point that we
talked about was in May of nineteen ninety six, Fischetti,
who was the detective, stepped aside in a new detective
(29:00):
took over, and that was Detective Whitehurst. He was the
lead investigator, and he decided that another murder, if another
murder occurred, he would approach it fresh, focusing almost exclusively
on that single case as a way to catch a break.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So he said, instead of looking at this of the
lens of you all, here's what's been done in the past. Yeah,
And so Easton.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Treated victim number twelve, Andrew d Andre Smith's homicide as
if it might be isolated. So he kept details like
the cause of death secret from the public. He didn't
add it to the list. And interestingly, and I don't
know if I would have done that, because I feel
like people does. The public deserves to know that it's
part of a thing, but they also maybe already knew.
(29:42):
I don't know, But it paid off. In the ensuing
investigation of Smith's death, Elton Jackson's name surfaced very quickly
neighbors in Smith's Portsmouth community of Truxton. They reported that
Smith was acquainted with Jackson, who was a forty one
year old man who lived just a half a mile
from Smith's home. In fact, jack Sin's house on Portsmouth
Boulevard was so close that an interstate's on ramp Shadow
(30:04):
fell over. It a telling details since the killers clearly
favored quick escape routes like interstates when dumping bodies. Crucially,
police learned that on the night of July twentieth, nineteen
eighty six, Andre Smith had left home saying he was
going to go borrow money from Jackson.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Oh shit, okay, so people knew where he was headed.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, so he needed money for something and what that
meant in that community do in sentual favor. About twenty
nine hours later, Smith was found dead. The timeline made
(30:47):
Jackson the last known person Smith intended to see alive,
so when Detective Whitehurst approached Jackson on July twenty third,
nineteen ninety six to ask about Smith, Jackson lied and
was like, oh, I don't know Smith. I only know
that he died.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
From fucking huge red flag right, dumbas dumbassy on each
other for you, And they're like, oh, you don't know
this guy, then.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
How'd your DNA get on?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly how you get there? Oh?
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Oh that guy? Right, I just don't. I think what
he says is if I remember quictly, he says, I
didn't call him that he called him by a different name.
He called him Andre instead of Andrew. Did you know, Yeah,
I mean Andrew went by. But still, like, come on, dude.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Still kind of smart to be like, oh, that's not
the name that I call him by.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Still I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I was a oh you oh you mean Andre?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Oh of course, oh you mean Candy, not Candace. I
don't I'll have all of you know that every single
person wrote a different name for Candace on her birthday.
It was genius and it was unintentional, and it was
so funny.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I was like, oh, who was it. Someone spelled my
name wrong, William. William spelled my name wrong.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
He wrote it with an eye, like Candyce.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Brittany spelt my name can dance.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I spelled it canned ass.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
He spelled it candass. Anna spelled it can dance. Which's like,
I did it intentionally because you told me that everyone
like we had a conversation about this at one points,
so that it was intentional. And then someone got my name right,
and I was like, oh, I got like every.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I hope I get a Sierra, a Savannah.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I've had someone spell it ka and DS and I
was like, that's hideous.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Candace. Oh, I know a girl named Candace. That's how
her name is spelled. I'm sorry, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Anyway, anyway, Andre Andre.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
So the falsehood immediately raised whitehurst suspicions. So evidence and
forensics with now this Jackson fellow as a person of interest,
he started digging around in the background. He discovered that
Jackson's car, which was a Forida escort, the Ford Escort,
was in the possession of a local credit agency reprossession
most likely, and so in nineteen ninety six, in August,
(32:57):
a creative move to preserve potential evidence, Whitehurst actually purchased
the car oh from the agency on behalf of the police.
So he was like, okay, I'll go buy that shit.
And so FBI forensic experts then looked through the vehicle
and in the ashtray they found six cigarette butts, and
on those butts, an analyst detective biological material suitable for
(33:17):
DNA testing. The DNA from the cigarette butts matched the
DNA from Andre Smith. So that told the detectives that
Smith had been inside Jackson's car shortly before his death,
likely smoking a cigarette. While the exact significance of the
match was debated, it placed the victim in Jackson's car,
but it didn't like prove murder. It was the first
concrete evidence that tied Jackson to any of the crime scenes,
(33:39):
so encouraged detective Whitehurst obtained search warrants in early ninety
seven for Jackson's home and person in request of the courts.
He noted that the offender responsible for this series of
death is an organized killer who might want to keep
personal items from victims as trophies hidden in his residence,
so that was signed off on. The searchers yielded thirty
four items from Jackson's house, including a gold belt, a
(34:00):
cigarette butt, a gay newspaper. What the fuck is a
gay newspaper? They're turn of the frogs. Yeah, bottles of cologne,
and though the police did not reveal if any definitively
came from the victims, so it was kind of a
wild little turn of events. The gay newspaper really speaks
to me, the investigators the gay newspaper magazine, I'm assuming
(34:23):
that's what it.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Means because their gay newspapers.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Guys are their gay newspapers out there, because I'd like
to sign up. Investigators also collected Jackson's blood saliva and
hair samples for DNA and comparison. As of mid ninety seven,
they had not disclosed publicly whether jackson samples matched any
evidence from earlier murders. So by April of ninety seven,
the circumstantial case was growing. So Jackson had lined about
knowing the victim. He's placed with the victim that night
(34:47):
and the victims DNA was in his car. Chesapeake prosecutors
decided they had enough, so the DA went ahead and said,
let's fucking this. Get this bitch. So they took the
unusual step of presenting an indictment to the grand jury
without the suspects name, identifying him only by a number
to avoid leaks.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So they wanted to see, like will this work? In
May of ninety seven, grand jury returned a murder indictment
against Jackson for the killing of Andre Smith. So they
quietly arrested Eltonham Jackson at his ports With home on
May six, nineteen ninety seven, took him into custody without incident,
and at first Jackson again denied knowing Smith, but once
confronted with the evidence at the station, he admitted he
(35:26):
did know the victim. I claim they actually had consensual
sex on the night that this that Smith died, which
was July twentieth, don't they always I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Sure, you had consensual sex, but you then you murdered him.
I mean, can't that also be something that happens? Yeah, right,
He's like, I just like trying to explain why his
DNA would be.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, as they always do. They always do this, like
really quick, let's just go into Elton John's background.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
So, Welton John, very very famous pop singer My bad.
He's also gay.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
He was also gay, got gays on the brain. Elton
Jackson was born in nineteen fifty six. He was raised
and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, so he yeah, pretty close
to where you were. And by the nineties he was
living in Portsmouth with his elderly mother, whom he was
primary caregiver.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Oh fuck what it ask.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
At the time of his arrest in ninety seven, he
was unemployed in a bond hearing. His attorney described him
as a scared middle aged man, devoted to his mother
and unlikely to flee the area. Physically, Jackson was large,
about six feet tall to thirty with massive forearms. Not
much as publicly documented about his early life. He did
have a minor criminal record prior to the murderer. So
(36:45):
in eighty seven he was convicted of solicitation and frequenting
a body house b a wd y, which Bowdy, I'm
assuming that's like a it's like a sex house kind
of thing, a sex house. That sounds essentially charges relating
(37:07):
to seeking sex from a prostitute and of a known
vice location about what he has. This is notable because
in ninete eighty seven, when the first killings began, it
places Jackson in the local illicit sex scene at the
outset of the murder series. Jackson's sexuality was not overtly
discussed in trial, but evidence suggests that he was closeted
or not open about being gay. He was clearly pursued
(37:30):
sex of men, often paying hustlers, yet one of the
psychological dynamics that play may have been shame or conflicted
feelings about his orientation. Community members who knew him described
him as an ordinary person, just an everyday averatitude. He
was in the local gay bar scene, but again like
(37:51):
secretive about it, okay, I was, like what, very secretive
about it. One person from the area recalled hearing that
Jackson struggled with depression over and was very embarrassed about it. Yeah,
that's sad, very sad, and I feel like this is
a common theme. So at trial, it emerged that Jackson
had a pattern of bondage and assault in his encounters.
(38:12):
So he would often lure men with offers for like
money for sex, and then attempted to tie them up
or restrain them in a way that could facilitate strangulation. Damn,
So that was his was precicing, but he was practicing. Yeah, yeah,
Several survivors of these attacks testified escalating. Maybe, yeah, I agree.
So people were they were able to find people who
had like kind of hooked up with him and then
(38:33):
survived the attacks. So in December of ninety six, Jackson
picked up a man named Kevin Benton, took him home,
convinced him, in exchange for seventy five dollars to let
Jackson tie his hands with a necktie for a massage.
When Benton was faced down and bound, Jackson tried to
slip a leather strap over his head, but he fought
back and escaped. Bitch and May ninety five, Jackson solicited
(38:54):
Tommy Anderson for sex after driving to a remote spot,
Jackson suddenly became rough, held Anderson down with an arm
to the neck, and later drove him to an isolated
area and threatened to kill him. And it's then testified
that Jackson came up behind him with a strap, but
he managed to kick free and flee.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
And these men didn't go to the police.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I don't think so, I'm assuming honestly, because nothing happens.
They were like, well, nothing happened, and then you don't
want to out out yourself to the cops. Another man,
willie Ce Swimson Junior, lived with Jackson in the summer
of ninety five and had a sexual arrangement with him.
So one night, Jackson took Swimson to a secluded area
for sex. When Swimson saw Jackson approach from behind with
(39:35):
a strap in hand, he bolted into the woods to
save himself. Smart like he knew something was up.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, you're probably the fucking hair on the back of
his neck was just like nope.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Seriously, these incidents never resulted in his arrest at the
time they occurred, but in hindsight, they demonstrated a clear
modus operandi. Absolutely, he would lure vulnerable men often tied
to the street or the drug scene, and an attempt to
mobilize them and strangle him. He probably had kind of
thrill or got some control from these acts. And the
fact that he took Anderson to the approximate spot where
(40:05):
one of his victims had been dumped. Oh yeah, suggests
he may have been rehearsing or reliving aspects of his crime.
Oh fuck, I know, dude. Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
It gives me the hebs?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
So clearly his stuff was because of sex. He's called
a lust killer. An FBI profiler commented that most serial
killers are motivated by sex.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, yeah, from what From what we can tell you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
They have a profound inability to form normal romantic or
sexual relationships. Which, yeah, I feel like we cover that
a lot.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
So.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Elton Jackson's trial for the murder of Andre Smith began
in August of ninety eight in Chesapeake, Virginia. They faced
the challenge, which is that they only had charged him
with the one murder, even though he was strongly suspected
of the entire series. Their goal was to secure conviction
on the strongest case and implicitly connect him to the pattern.
So yeah, I mean, I think that's fair. So towards
(41:01):
that end, they introduced evidence of Jackson's other bad acts
under exception to evidentiary rules, which basically said, like, we're
showing a pattern. So they said, look look at all
these other things that we think he did. We can't
get him on them, but look at the pattern, and
they were able to kind of get that in through
the judge. The forensic evidence against Jackson in the Smith's
murder was damning, so a DNA analyst testified that that
(41:24):
a blood stain on Jackson's mattress matched Andre Smith's DNA,
so they were able to get a little bit of
DNA from his mattress. Moreover, seaman swabbed from Smith's boody
was tested and was found to contain DNA matching Elton Jackson. Okay,
so they were also able to get him that way.
In other words, Jackson had sexual intercourse with the victim
(41:44):
shortly before or after death, and Smith's blood was found
in Jackson's home. This powerful physical evidence placed him squarely
in Jackson's bedroom and aligned with Jackson's own admission that
he had had sex with him, but starkly contradicted his
claim of innocence in the death m M. The prosecution
argued that Jackson murdered Smith during or right after their
sexual encounter and then dumped his body, and the defense,
(42:06):
led by a court appointed attorney if you cannot afford One,
tried to cast out. They pointed out that Jackson did
not fit the popular profile of its serial killer. He
was a black man of average intellect, whereas many notorious
killers are perceived as intelligent white males. Oh shut the fuck,
I know, Rene Davis to the RESCO. They argue that
(42:29):
the same person killed all twelve victims, as police believed,
and they didn't have any evidence tying Jackson to the
elever the other eleven victims, and considered it strong circumstantial
evidence that Jackson was not the killer in the Smith
case either. So they're saying, you can't prove that he
did these other ones, So how can you prove that
he did this one? Which is goofy?
Speaker 2 (42:47):
That is goofy?
Speaker 1 (42:49):
All right, buddy, excuse me, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I don't see the logic there.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
No, I mean neither, and neither did the jury. So
on August, Elton Jackson was found guilty of person murder
in the death of Andre d Smith. A few months later,
on October twenty seven to ninety eight, a judge sentence
him to life in prison for that crime. At forty
three years old. Jackson was effectively removed from society for
the rest of his life. He is incarcerated in Virginia's
(43:14):
Augusta Correctional Center, serving his life term.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Okay, so he's still alive.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, the Virginia had no parole for first green murder
convictions at that time. Good. Yeah, so he's not coming out, baby.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
No, he's a fucking serial killer. He shouldn't fucking be
reintroduced to society. I'm sorry, Well that's what would freak
me out, dude to so sorry.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
If you only get one, like you only have him
on one, it's like hard for me. I'm always like,
oh shit, like what if. But the fact they were like, nah,
no parole is nice.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
It's just it sucks too when those other victims aren't
given justice.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So hey, Elton Jackson, just admit that you and plead
guilty to all the other fucking people that you murdered.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All yeah, why not?
Speaker 2 (43:55):
All those men that were taken.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
It they liked that control man, They like it.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Of course they do. But it's like, what do you
got to lose. You're fucking rotten. You're rotten, rotten to
the core.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
To the core. No other charges were ever filed against
him for the other killings, so lacking direct forensic evidence,
prosecutors likely concluded they could not meet the burden of
proof and court sure. So, like you said, it would
be nice if he would just admit it. But as
of the late nineties, the Hampton road killing stopped after
Jackson's arrest, so local law enforcement in the community have
little doubt that Alton Jackson was indeed the Hampton's killer. Yeah, yeah,
(44:29):
and a police chief in ninety eight. A Virginia police
chief in ninety eight openly stated that Jackson was suspected
in all twelve homicides.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
I wonder if they could go back over the evidence, right,
because clearly well write, but I don't know how long
they hold on to yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Well, and if I got lost quote unquote.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Well, and if he was careful with all of them
mixed up like that was one of his last victims.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Correct, right, And they do sometimes get sloppy, yes.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Because they've gotten away for it for nearly a decade,
like for a decade, right, Yeah, this was last Yeah,
so for an entire decade he was he was.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Just out there being a fucking psycho. Yeah. So that
is the case of the Hampton Roads killer, which is
just wild to me. Where we once were, where.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
We once lived.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
So yesh, that was you.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Thanks for sharing that case.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Uh, rest in peace to all the absolutely folks, all
those men who lost their lives just trying to fucking
get some money, yeah, or just have a safe hook up.
You know, be careful with these people out there, not
just gaze straights, took kays and straits, be careful. But otherwise, yeah,
(45:42):
case corrections, thoughts, feelings, prayers. Hit us up on Instagram,
Scream dot and Dot Sugar Dot podcast on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Scream and Sugar, True Crime Coffee Hour on TikTok, Scream
Dot and Dot Sugar.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Hit us up on the email Scream and.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Sugar Wena at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Other ways, thanks for listening. We'll see y'all in the
next one. And remember stay smoky stage smoky babies. Bye bye,
(46:43):
it's been it's been one week since I got some sleep.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com