Going West: True Crime - Noura Jackson // 27

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

June 4, 2005 started out as a normal Saturday in Memphis, Tennessee. But sometime after midnight, tragedy struck when a teenager found her mother brutally murdered in their home. Within months of the attack, the teenage daughter is charged with her mother's murder after details in her timeline prove odd and she's caught lying to police. So, what really happened that night? This is the story of Noura Jackson. GET 20% OFF YOUR FIRST Hunt a Killer SUBSCRIPTION BOX.Go to HuntAKiller.com and use promo code GOINGWEST at checkout! **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN ANY NEWS CLIPS OR INTERVIEWS.** IN Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywjqRAmfUO0&t 20/20 ABC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdRTsPcvJYE&t Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. As always, we'd like to start off the show with some shout outs. Here are a few people who gave us some super nice reviews this week. Thank you so much to Danielle from Whisilla Alaska. And then we have Amy from Pennsylvania. Thank you Amy. And thank you to Junior Wyatt from Warnawshire, but thanks to Junior Wyatt. We also got a lot of really great reviews reviews but people forgot to leave their name in locations So we have no idea where you guys are from, but thank you so much for reviewing. We really appreciate that. Also, thank you so much to our new patrons

Ashley B and Sarah. You guys are awesome and if anyone wants to join our Patreon, go to patreon.com slash going west podcast, you get bonus episodes and special content. It's just five bucks a month. So without further ado, this is episode 27 of going west, so let's get into it. . . 39-year-old Jennifer Jackson was a mother of a teenage daughter. But four years ago, Jackson was found dead on her bedroom floor, stabbed more than 50 times.

It was her daughter Nora who was arrested for the murder. 18-year-olds fighting with their mother. Very calm. 18-year-old killing her mother almost never had. Oh my God, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, with the killing of your mother. No. Could it have been that you were high? You said you were smoking weed, you did drugs. Maybe you were in a drug haze and did. No, I wanted to know that. I smoke marijuana that night. We have been drinking amongst other things,

but no, I didn't kill my mother. Nora Jackson was born on March 17, 1987 as an only child in Memphis, Tennessee to her mother, Jennifer Jackson and father, Nazmi Hassani. Jennifer and Nazmi met at Memphis State University, and Nazmi was actually born in Lebanon and was described as the life of the party. So he was very well liked and super outgoing. The two married on December 13th, 1986 and Nora was born just four months later. Very soon after their marriage, Jennifer decided that she made a huge mistake and they really only got married since she was pregnant. And at that time, she thought it was a good idea. But in September 1987, so when Nora was just six months old, Jennifer filed for a divorce.

She asked Nazmi to leave their apartment and that's where things got physical. And Nazmi actually knocked Jennifer on the floor. She then filed court documents explaining the abuse, stating that he had beaten her and threatened to kill her and Nora. After this dispute, Nazmi was ordered by law to leave the apartment as Jennifer was granted custody of Nora. In 1992, when Nora was five, Jennifer married a farmer from Arkansas named

Jimmy Harris Jr. and that year Jennifer and Nora moved over to the state of Arkansas. But within three years Jennifer was out of that relationship because Jimmy was a compulsive gambler. He also stayed out most of the day and night and often cheated on Jennifer, which led to her contracting herpes. In turn, Jimmy paid her medical fees and granted her $180 a month to seek counseling. Apparently, he also abused her in front of Nora. So this was her second abusive marriage, and at that point, Jennifer and Nora moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she began working for insurance companies like all state and farmers. Shortly after this move, they moved back to Memphis, Tennessee, where Jennifer bought a

house in her name, 5-0-0-1 New Haven Avenue. In 1993, so a few years back when Jennifer and Nora first moved to Arkansas, Nazmi was charged with sexual molestation of a minor as well as serving alcohol to a minor. That same year, he was charged a felony offense involving sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. And at this time, his daughter Nora is about six years old. So Nazmi did not have much of a role at all in Nora's life.

And of course course Jennifer didn't want him to since he was abusive not only to her, but now to mineers. So he wasn't very involved, but he eventually bought a gas station convenient shop and named it Nora's Quick Stop. He also owned a limousine company, and both businesses were local to the East Memphis area. In January 2004, Nazmi was working the front counter at his convenience store when someone wearing a hat

and coat walked in and asked Nazmi if they can speak with him in the back. This encounter is actually captured on a surveillance video which is on our Instagram at Going West Podcast. The person shoots Nazmi in the head, but that part is not on video for the public, and then the person proceeds into Nazmi's office where they very clearly hide a tape of sorts like a VHS tape inside their jacket.

And police believe that it's the surveillance footage, although there was a backup tape, so we are able to see this whole encounter unfold. The person then proceeds to sift through some desk drawers as if they're looking for something before heading out front and grabbing some cash out of the register and running outside. So this person likely thought this wasn't caught on camera

or that they took the security footage, but we have the video. Police believed that the cash grab was likely done to make it seem like this was a robbery, but Nazmi was doing some pretty sketchy things that could have made him a target. Nora's quick stop was located between a police station and a strip club, and they weren't directly on either side of him. More like a couple blocks away in each direction. One of Nazmi's friends later reported that on one occurrence, a police officer had used his office at the quick stop to have sex with one of the dancers from the strip club.

What they didn't know is that Nazmi was filming it. Not only did he have a camera in his office, but apparently he even had them in his limousines, any saved footage of different people having sex in the backseat. So to this day, Nazmi's murder has never been solved, but police believe it definitely could have been linked to one of these tapes. And again, if anyone wants to see the surveillance video, it's very sure, but it's up on our Instagram, which is at Going West podcast. It's pretty interesting to watch, even though the entire video hasn't been released, but we do see bits of the perps face, but unfortunately this is a surveillance

videos from 2004, so the quality is pretty terrible. But we see them very clearly putting the tape into their, inner jacket pocket and police speculate that it is the current security footage but I'm not sure how they got to that conclusion like was the original tape missing because I think it would make a lot of sense if that tape was in fact the one of the police officer having sex in the back or potentially somebody else higher up in the community like anybody who has seen the show The Killing, where the mayor, I think it's the mayor, or the governor,

or something, is involved in some sketchy stuff, and it involves a murder, and kind of shows the links that people will go to save their reputation. And I kind of think that's what probably happened here. Right. And he was also having a lot of sketchy dealings with different people. So clearly, if you go watch the tape that we're gonna post, you will see it. It looks to me like it's a hit. Oh, it's totally a hit.

And he was shot in the head, one shot. Like, that's what hitmen do. Yeah, exactly. One shot, and then they're pretty much out of there. And the fact that they were snooping around the office a little bit. I honestly think the footage is pretty decent for 2004. I mean, I've seen worse footage from that time period. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can definitely notice some things like I said. You can see some of the features on this guy's face. But like we said, if this was a robbery,

there's no reason for the perp to put the tape in his jacket pocket. And he probably wouldn't be snooping around through the office. I feel like he would have went, like directly to a safe or the cash register as quick as possible. Also, we've seen a lot of videos of people holding up gas stations or stores, just in general, and usually you just

go up to the counter, get out your gun, point it, say, give me the money, and they do it, and then you run, usually. But this guy wants to talk to him in the back, so that just doesn't say robbery to me. As Nora got a little bit older and entered high school, she became a total party girl. She would hang out with her friends and do a lot of drugs, drink alcohol and smoke weed, which of course is what a lot of teenagers do. Nora would say that she had a hard time fitting in because her parents were divorced and she was being raised by her single mother. Nora would also say that her mom was a pushover and she was very lax. Nora could get away with pretty much anything.

But when Nora was 18 years old, Jennifer started becoming more strict with her, even threatening to send her off to boarding school unless she moved out. Even though Nora was 18, it's unclear if Nora realized that legally Jennifer couldn't do anything. Jennifer was finally putting her foot down and was getting sick of Nora's constant partying lifestyle. She even started drug testing Nora. Jennifer had even confided in her coworkers and friends

and would ask them what to do because Nora was such a wild child and she wasn't going to school. On the morning of Sunday, June 5, 2005, some time between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., Jennifer Jackson was murdered and Nora was the one to find her body. Jennifer was found naked at the foot of her bed with over 50 stab wounds all across her body. She had a clump of blonde hair in her hand and a wicker basket covering her face. At the time of her death, she was a successful, single, 39-year-old investment banker

who is known to be a very caring and generous person who is always positive. At 5 a.m., 911 received this phone call from Nora Jackson. One one received this phone call from Nora Jackson. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I? No, I wasn't. But every place, I need a cookie ball. Hey, man, how old is your mother?

She's 39 years old. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, please, please help me. Please, please, please, anything. Okay, listen to me, ma'am. I need you to calm down, okay? So we can help your mother. Okay?

So please, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. You're so crazy. Okay, listen to me. Did you see what happened? No, I just got home. If someone broke into your home. He has hours, he'll get my kid out of the kitchen and his box everywhere.

Please, send it in your sleep. OK, this is it. We have to knock on the way. We're going to help your mother. Help me! Help me! Help me right now! Man, I need you to calm down while we can help her, OK? So that was a pretty disturbing phone call. And before we get into the details of this murder and the events leading up to it, let's

talk about this call. So like I said, Nora sounds incredibly distraught in it, but something that sticks out to a lot of people is the gunshot response. When the 911 operator asks Nora if anyone has been shot, Nora pretty confidently says no. This has been a major topic of discussion because there was so much blood at the crime scene, so it's like how would she be able to tell whether or not her mom had been shot? Unless she had gone up to her mother's

body and looked at the wounds, which she later says that she did go up to her and shook her, but it still kind of doesn't make that much sense that she would know for sure that she hadn't been shot. Instead of just saying, I don't know, or it looks like she was stabbed, she said a flat-out no. Yeah, and typically, if you're looking at this situation, it was dark in the house. I'm not sure which lights were on. I'm not sure how well she was able to see her mother's body. Obviously, we know that she said she went up and shook her mother, but as an 18-year-old who is probably kind of intoxicated at this point, how would you determine a gunshot wound from a stab wound? Right, and like I said, there was so much blood

at the scene. All of the investigators were like baffled by this statement that she made when she said no, because she didn't say, I don't know, or maybe, she said no. But let's move on because this is just one of the crazy details in this case. So let's look at Nora's night. She started the night of Saturday, June 4, 2005, at Italian Fest, which is an annual festival

that celebrates Italian culture and cuisine, and it's held at Marquette, Park, and East Memphis, Tennessee, which is just about a five-minute drive from Nora's house. There's live music there, and carnival, arts and crafts, and fun activities, and it's held at the beginning of every summer. So Nora went there with some friends and then afterwards went to her on and off again, boyfriend Perry's house with some friends. At Perry's house, around 12-10 AM, Nora got a call from her mom. Her mom had apparently been asking Nora to come home and that she was out too late, and I read somewhere that Nora had said she was going to come home.

Her mother was upset that she was out because she hadn't finished her schoolwork and she was also grounded. One of the girls at the party overheard Nora saying, after she got off the phone, my mom's a bitch and she can go to hell. Nora's friends explained that they had last seen Nora around midnight that evening. But in Nora's initial statement to police, she said that around 12.30 AM, she left her on again off again boyfriend Perry's house and went to go get cigarettes, which she did at 12.46 AM. Then she says she went to Taco Bell where she realized she didn't have her wallet.

So it's unclear if she got cigarettes with friends because this statement wouldn't make sense otherwise, like how did she buy the cigarettes without her wallet. She called Perry and asked him to look around his house for the wallet, and then she went back to her friend Carter's where she said she found her wallet. Then she got gas at 4.20am. She said after this, she drove to her friend Eric's house, but on the way there, she decided to head home instead. She was unable to tell police what time this occurred. She also mentioned that throughout the evening, she'd been smoking weed. Then she states that she spoke with Andrew Hammock on the phone. This detail is important,

so remember this. She said he was going to stop by her house to see her new kitten that she'd gotten earlier that day, and mind you, it's the middle of the night and she lives with her mom, but they were also supposed to have a talk. This didn't happen, and instead she went home alone. When she got home, she says she noticed her mom's door was open, so she looked inside and she found her dead. The weird thing is though, her activities between 1 to 4 a.m. are very blurry, and we'll get back to this point in a bit. That Saturday night, Jennifer had been at a wedding with a man named Jimmy Toul. They'd been going out a little bit since she and her boyfriend Mark Irvin, who was a Methodist minister in Jackson, Tennessee, had recently split up. He and

Jennifer had broken up just before Jennifer's murder. At around midnight, Mark called Jennifer. He told police and stated in court that he called Jennifer but then decided it was too late to call. So he hung up and they didn't speak. Mark told police that he was asleep in Jackson, Tennessee, which is an hour and a half drive from East Memphis at the time Jennifer was murdered. Apparently they had broken up because while out to dinner he told her that she was controlling and she got upset and left. Now, Jimmy and Jennifer stayed at the wedding from 6 p.m. until about 9 p.m. and they went to a

neighborhood bar called the Cock-Eid Camel for a drink. Jimmy later stated that Jennifer was not intoxicated, and Jennifer paid their tab at 11 o'clock at 6.06pm. Jimmy and Jennifer then drove to Jimmy's house where Jennifer's car was parked. Jimmy said that she wasn't acting unusual at all, but once they got to his house at around 11.30pm, she left to go home. She lived about a mile away from Jimmy's house, so no more than a five or so minute drive. So we can assume she was probably home by 11.40pm that Saturday night. So when she got home, she likely noticed that Nora wasn't home. She probably waited a little bit, maybe even spoke to Mark on the phone if his statement that he hung up before speaking to her was false. Because I read somewhere that she had

asked him if they could go to church together the next morning, and he said no. So the two were clearly still a little bit involved, they weren't completely done with each other quite yet. Then, at 12-10am, she called Nora and they argued about Nora coming home. Police believe that Jennifer was murdered sometime between 1am and 3am. So what happened next is unknown. On the morning of Sunday June 5th, Detective Scoured 5-001 New Haven Avenue, and one of the detectives, Tim Haldorfer, noticed

a TV in the kitchen. And he had an inkling to turn it on, and when he did, there was a home video on the screen. He pressed play and showed a video of Nazmi and Nora in 1990, so when Nora was just three years old. Nora was playing with a knife, and Nazmi said something along the lines of, you need to be careful with knives someone could get hurt, which I thought was just a very strangely earring thing to occur. Very strange occurrence. There's a door at their house that connects the garage to the kitchen and on that door there's three horizontal window panes and the middle one had been broken

into and there was a hole in the glass so it looked like somebody punched through it. But the weird thing was that the obvious window to break would have been the bottom one, because that was the one that was closest to the door knob. But there was a second lock next to where the break in the window was, meaning that whoever broke the window probably knew that the door's second lock was higher than the door knob. Because the only way that you can see that other door lock is from the inside of the kitchen. So if you're on the outside of the door in the garage, you wouldn't know that it was there. So immediately police believed that whoever broke that

window had been inside that house before and knew that the window's second lock was parallel with the middle window pane. Another thing that shocked investigators was that the exterior door leading inside the garage was locked. So if someone had broken into the house, they would have had to break through the exterior door as well. Because the door that was broken into, again, was the door leading from the garage to

the kitchen. So how did this so-called intruder get into the garage? When investigators discovered this, they were confident that the break-in was staged. What's going on gang? If you're listening to this podcast, then you're probably into true crime. And in this golden age of television and podcast, we all know the value of a truly compelling narrative. So what if I told you about a brand new way to experience a story? Q Hunt a Killer, the murder mystery box that immerses you in an ongoing experience. So with every delivery or episode, you will dive deeper into what it's like to be a detective. You'll sift through piles of documents, evidence, audio recordings, and case files

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And on Facebook at Light the fright podcast. When we left off, we were talking about investigators discovering that the scene of the crime may have been staged. So please took Nora in for questioning and tried to unravel what exactly happened that night. We already told her side of the story, but there are some important things she left out. While police were investigating her car, they found a Walgreens bag that had hydrogen peroxide in it and liquid bandaid, along with some other first aid supplies that were purchased earlier

that morning. This interested detectives as she didn't mention this occurring, so they decided to go to that Walgreens and asked if they could view the security footage. Lowen be hold at 4am on the morning of her mother's murder, she's seen on camera going into Walgreens. In the video of her walking into the store, it looks like she has something in her left hand as she's seen on camera going into Walgreens. In the video of her walking into the store, it looks like she has something in her left hand as she's walking. It's white and it looks like some kind of towel.

Turns out she has an actively bleeding wound on the back of her hand between her thumb and her index finger. She goes up to the counter and the employee gives her a massive wad of paper towels so she can get the blood under control. Then she buys first aid supplies. and the employee gives her a massive wad of paper towels so she can get the blood under control. Then she buys first aid supplies. So why didn't she tell police about this injury? When police asked her what she had got the cut from,

she said that it was from Italian fest and there was a broken beer bottle on the ground and she fell on the ground and cut her hand. The investigators pointed out that when you fall on the ground, you catch yourself with your palms. There's not a logical way for someone to fall on the ground and cut the back of their hand. Another weird thing is that none of Nora's friends saw this supposed fall happen. Nora did any of them notice the whole night that she had an injury, and even weirder,

she told people different stories for how she got that cut later. Her stories included, she was in her house chasing her cat through the kitchen and cut it on glass, she cut it chasing her cat through the garage, and another is that she burned it cooking macaroni and cheese. The biggest reason I don't believe that she cut it at Italian fest, other than the fact that nobody saw the fall or the wound the whole night is that she went to Walgreens at 4 a.m. and she was attending to an injury that was actively bleeding. So it doesn't really make sense that she would have gotten the cut at Italian fest considering that was like at least six hours before she went to Walgreens. So if it happened

at Italian fest, wouldn't she have done this errand earlier on in the evening? Cause I mean, it was bleeding. Like when you see the clerk pull out the paper towels, he gives her a huge piece as if she needs that much. Right. And typically when you cut your hand, that's something that you kind of want to address, as soon as possible to stop the bleeding. Why would you wait until 4 a.m. to finally take

care of this wound? And furthermore, her statement to police is that she cut it on broken glass, but then we have all these people saying, well, no, she told me that she cut it this way, and when news reporters question her about this, why she changes her stories so many times, she simply just says, I told investigators what I told them. As many people are these days, and even in 2005, Nora seemed to live on her cell phone. She was always texting or calling someone. But the morning of her mother's murder

between 108 AM and 318 AM, Nora didn't use her phone at all. At 318 AM, she called her friend Eric, whose house she said she was going to, but then headed home instead. The call consisted of her wanting to come over and hang out at his house. Apparently she arrived at his house, but Eric was just leaving to take a friend home and she didn't want to go with them. So she talked to them for a couple minutes before leaving. This still leaves an hour and a half unaccounted for, except for her 4am trip to Walgreens,

which would have happened about 30 or so minutes after going to Eric's house. So if Nora did indeed kill her mom, let's talk about this cut. Investigators pointed out that she wouldn't have gotten the cut on the back of her hand from stabbing her mom. If anything, she'd probably have stabbed the palm or her fingers in the event that the knife slipped. But the place of the cut is very odd. There's not a lot of ways you could cut the back of your hand between your thumb and your index finger. And it isn't in the webbing, it's like on top of the hand. A very good explanation for this wound would be, she was punching out the window to stage a break-in

and probably with a towel or a shirt covering her hand, and a piece of glass ended up cutting the back of her hand when she punched it. And I mean, this seems like an incredibly plausible way to get that area a cut given the situation. And to go even further, if she did have her hand wrapped with a towel or something, a lot of people say, well, if she punched out the glass and the glass cut her, why was there no blood on the floor? Well, my theory to this is that possibly when she cut her hand,

the blood soaked into whatever towel or shirt she had over her hand when she punched out the glass. The only thing that doesn't make sense with her cutting it on the window while potentially staging the break-in is that at 3.30am she went to her friend Eric's house and then at 4am she went to Walgreens. So if this cut had occurred before 3.30, because she probably would have broken the window last like when she was on her way out after killing her mom. So why didn't she go to Walgreens first? Because when she goes into Walgreens, there was a towel over her hand.

So wouldn't it have looked suspicious for her to be at Eric's house with a towel on her hand, covering a fresh wound? Unless she staged the break-in after going to Eric's house and then went to Walgreens. Meaning Nora would have had to go back to her house after briefly being at Eric's. The other situation I thought of is that after Eric's house she decided to discard the murder weapon and her bloody clothes somewhere. And in the process of this, she somehow cut her hand. That's the only other thing I can think of because I really believe that that cut had and her bloody clothes somewhere. And in the process of this, she somehow cut her hand.

That's the only other thing I can think of because I really believe that that cut had to have been really fresh. Yeah, I agree with the ditching the murder weapon. If, of course, she did, in fact, kill her mom because it would make sense, because there's that 30 minute time gap when she's at Ericsson when she goes to Walgreens,

but it just doesn't make sense. Her cutting her hand at the house, then driving at Erics and when she goes to Walgreens but it just doesn't make sense. Her cutting her hand at the house then driving to Erics house and then driving to Walgreens. That doesn't make sense and I don't think it would still be profusely bleeding after almost an hour of cutting yourself. Right and I think the only reason for this trip to Erics house is to put her out of the house and maybe establish an alibi of some sorts like hey I wasn't at the house the whole time kind of thing you know. Oh absolutely I totally agree. When Nora got home at 5 a.m. and discovered her mom was dead she went screaming and running to her

neighbor's house asking him to help. He was fairly young and happened to have a pistol in his closet, which he used for protection. But he noticed something weird that morning. After he grabbed his gun, he and Nora began running towards Nora's house. But Nora ran inside first. The neighbor thought this was incredibly odd because he was confident the perpetrator could still be in the house. And she was running in willingly before the man with the gun did as if she wasn't afraid. Her response to this was, I don't think they have a handbook for this kind of thing. It's definitely possible that

her adrenaline was pumping and that she wanted to run in there and help her mom, but it does seem odd because if she's innocent, for all she knew the killer was still in the house, so it could have been a very dangerous situation. On September 29th, 2005, so about three months after Jennifer's death, Nora Jackson was arrested and charged with second degree murder of her mother. The trial didn't begin until February 9th, 2009 in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. During the trial, many people made statements that were against Nora and or the statements she had made to police. Clark Shafani, one of Nora's friends, stated that at 12.59am on the morning of Jennifer's murder, he got a call from Nora's home phone.

Within a few minutes, Nora had called him from her cell phone. Police believed that she picked up the house phone to call him before realizing that she wasn't supposed to be at the house at that time. So then she called from her cell phone because Jennifer Jackson wouldn't have had Clark's cell phone number. Only Nora would have made that call, which pretty much puts her in the house at 1 a.m. Even though she states she was driving around smoking weed at this time. All of Jennifer's brothers and sisters, so Nora's aunts and uncles, took this stand to paint a detailed portrait of how much of a brat they all thought Nora was. Nora later

stated that she didn't think it was fair because they never liked her anyway, so of course they think she murdered her mom. So basically her whole family is pretty much against her on this. Another interesting testimony is that of Andrew Hammock, who identified himself as being a friend with benefits of Nora. He testified in court that Nora told him that she was home at some point that night. He claimed that she asked him to meet her at her house and walk her in, but he declined to, and he said that she had never asked him to do this before. The defense attempted to point to DNA evidence that could prove Nora was not the murderer.

Aside from the cut on the back of her hand, she had no wounds, bruises, or injuries that would have likely occurred if she'd been in a fight or a struggle. They also noted that her manicure was not chipped. So the day before Jennifer's murder, Nora had gotten a manicure. She got fake acrylic white nails. So this is kind of one of the main things that sticks out to me in this case and it's something that was definitely mentioned in court. I think that everyone can agree that when you get something under your nail or in the crease,

like on the side of your nail, it's pretty hard to get it out because depending on what it is, it can get into like the nooks and crannies of your nails. And with acrylic nails, it's even worse because this is a fake nail on top of your real nail. So you would imagine blood would have been incredibly hard to get out. If Nora had indeed gotten that cut on her hand from murdering her mom, I just don't see how it was possible for her not to get any blood on or under her nail, because her mom was stabbed 51 times and that's an incredible amount of blood. So you would imagine that she would have gotten blood on her hands and I've never gotten blood on my hands so I don't know how hard it is to get blood

out of your nail but I just feel like they're probably would have been some there. Yeah, I think in most cases, I mean you could definitely scrub underneath your nails by using some sort of brush or something. I don't know if she would have done this or not, but that does make you kind of question whether or not she was involved in this murder. Another important thing to note that goes hand in hand with this point is that while searching the home, someone noticed the shower was wet as if someone had recently taken a shower.

Jennifer was also naked when she was murdered, but she wasn't sexually assaulted. So had Jennifer taken a shower and that's why the shower was wet, or did she maybe sleep naked, or did Nora take a shower after she killed her mom, and that's when she scrubbed her fingers and such to remove the trace of blood. And one quick thing to note is that wet blood is a lot easier to get off than dry blood. I also know that someone stated that morning that her mom died, that Nora smelled and looked clean, even though she'd been out all night smoking cigarettes and weed and drinking alcohol. So this person was kind of surprised

that she didn't smell like any of these things, but it's also entirely possible that she put perfume on. It's just kind of hard to say since we didn't smell her ourselves. If you've ever been out with your friends and had an all-nighter, when you come home, sometimes you're gonna smell like you pulled an all-nighter. So the fact that she smelled clean, like you pulled an all-nighter. So the fact that she smelled clean and she didn't smell like cigarettes which if you're a smoker you know that that smell lingers but it's just strange to me that she wouldn't have smelled like that and that the investigators like were keen enough to pick up on that. It's also possible that the person who noted this was a male and doesn't realize that maybe

she just doused herself in perfume throughout the night so that's also possible that the person who noted this was a male and doesn't realize that maybe she just doused herself in perfume throughout the night, so that's also very possible. Oh yeah, I totally agree. It could have been perfume, honestly. And then you're like, oh, she smells nice. It's like, okay, well, that's perfume covering up all the weed and alcohol. But it's also possible that she did smell genuinely clean, because she took a shower. Another strange detail is that Nora's DNA wasn't found anywhere in Jennifer's room,

not on the bed or the walls or the light switch. But what's weird is that she lived in that house, so it's almost weirder that her DNA wasn't found in her mother's bedroom. There's also a photo of a light switch in Jennifer's room and the light switch, along with with the wall has blood on it. Like it looks as though someone who had blood on their hand had gone and turned on the light. And that's just weird to me because Jennifer bloodied and stabbed wouldn't have gone over to the light switch. I mean, it would make

sense for her to turn on the light if there was someone in a room trying to kill her, but it seems like the murder happened on her bed. So did the killer turn on the light if there was someone in a room trying to kill her, but it seems like the murder happened on her bed, so did the killer turn on the light switch? And if they did, there wasn't anyone else's DNA found on it. So were they using gloves? Because to me, gloves says premeditation. But if Nora did it, I see it being more heat of the moment situation, not a planned attack. But it's possible. So while Nora's DNA was not found in Jennifer's room, someone else's DNA was, and it was on Jennifer's bed.

Apparently, there were two sources of female DNA that did not match Jennifer or Nora. So the defense used this in Nora's favor, but it was also argued that the DNA could have gotten on the bedsheet well before the murder and even on a different day, so it's not necessarily exclusive to this crime. At the same time, though, this investigation was completely botched. They didn't even tape off the crime scene, and there were at least 22 people who were walking in and out throughout the day. Norris' cat was even at the crime scene just walking around. So the state argued that the female DNA could have been brought in after the murder was

committed, either by the cat or by someone else. There's also this chunk of blonde hair in Jennifer's hand when she died. And to this day, this hair has not been tested. The reason the state didn't want to test it is because they wanted to pin the murder on Nora, who was Brunette, and they determined that it was probably Jennifer's own hair since she herself was blonde. Nora is still baffled that no one tested that hair, but the defense also had the ability to test it, but Nora's lawyer didn't want to. Not only did they probably want to use this against the state so they

could complain that the perpetrator was obviously blonde, and that the state didn't do their due diligence and test important DNA, but Nora's lawyer said she didn't have it tested because the crime scene was so horribly botched that they wouldn't have been able to prove that the DNA on the hair was accurate. I'm sure that's true, but I also believe that the hair could have been genifers, and if Nora's lawyer had tested it, and it turned out to have indeed been genifers, they wouldn't have been able to complain about it or use it as an example that the purp was blonde. Because if the killer had taken enough time to stab Jennifer 50 times, they would have taken the time to remove their own hair from the victim's hand,

especially because they would have known if a chunk of hair had been taken from their head, so I don't really see this being the murderer's hair. Right, I think on both sides, it was a bad situation that they didn't test the hair. I still definitely think that it should have been tested though. Oh 100% and in this case I think every detail is important, especially a chunk of hair in the victim's hand. The state also argued that Jennifer's body was found with a wicker basket over her face, which is usually done because whoever committed the murder doesn't want to look at the victim. They also pointed out that this is very rarely done, but when it is, it's usually because the

killer knows the victim. Also, apparently this is usually done by women, and they used this to say that Nora murdered her mother and covered her face because she couldn't bear to see her dead mother staring back at her. The defense didn't put any witness on the stand, even Nora herself didn't take the witness stand. The defense believed their case was so strong that it wasn't even necessary. Even though the state had so many people saying all these horrible things about Nora, the defense believed that the immense lack of DNA would set Nora free. Also another good point to make is that only about 2% of murders are matricide murders, which is when a mother is murdered by her child, and a small percentage of

that 2% is actually done by a female child. So basically this is super freaking rare. Yeah, it's a very rare thing to happen. And I think that the defense kind of leaned on that a little bit as well. It took the jury of eight women and four men, nine hours to deliberate their verdict. On February 21st, 2009, so about four years after Jennifer was murdered, Nora Jackson was found guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years and nine months with no possibility of parole at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in downtown

Memphis, Tennessee. Over the next couple years, Nora would file two separate appeals and both were denied. In 2011, Nora was found guilty of drug use in prison after they were covered more fiend from her. She was sentenced to 10 days in solitary and was fined $4, which was about two full days of work because she only made about 25 cents per hour working in the prison laundry. In 2014, the Tennessee Supreme Court threw out Nora's second-degree murder conviction because they believed the prosecution violated her constitutional rights to remain silent and not testify at trial.

Also, the state's attorney broke a legal rule in court because she aggressively said to Nora during her closing argument, just tell us where you were. That's all we're asking Nora. The prosecution also withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense when they didn't disclose Andrew Hammock's original statement, and this original statement conflicted with the one he gave in court. When Andrew was originally questioned after Jennifer's murder, he said that he was high on ecstasy and didn't have his phone on him the night of the murder. Yet in court, like we mentioned earlier, he stated that Nora had called him and asked him to come over, saying she was home. I think his statement in court personally was true and his original one was a lie and because I mean one of them has to be a lie but I don't

really see him lying in court because what would he gain out of that like maybe he lied originally because he was scared and didn't want to make Nora look guilty but then after letting it marinate and maybe starting to believe that she's guilty he decided that he wanted to be honest. Right, I think he was kind of just nervous at the time. I mean, if you think about it, you know, you were not involved in this crime, obviously, but you were with a person who potentially could have been.

And so that may have made him nervous and he also was probably not used to talking to police. Also in his original statement, he says that he was on ecstasy so he doesn't really remember what happened that night. But as far as I know, ecstasy doesn't really inhibit your memory and it's also important to note that Andrew and Nora were romantically involved. So it's possible that's why he was trying to cover for her originally. I think the most interesting thing that he says in court during his testimony is that she wanted him to come over and walk into the house with her, because that just seems like it would be true, because if she's guilty, she probably wanted it to be like, oh,

I was with him and we stumbled into the house and just found her dead. Right, establishing another alibi as well and putting her with another person, slash there being another witness there to discover Jennifer's body. Nora was given the option of taking an Alfred plea, which is something many people do in court where they legally accept the responsibilities of a crime Yet can usually say that they didn't do it. So the benefit of this is that Nora wouldn't have to serve any more jail time If on paper she accepted guilt for her mother's murder

Which would go on her record, but she'd be released from prison. If she declined She'd have to carry out her remaining ten or so years in prison and could continue fighting for her innocence. She also would have to endure another trial, which could have gone either way just like the first one did. On May 20, 2015, Nora Jackson signed the Alfred plea. 15 months later, after serving over 11 years in prison, Nora Jackson was free. One of her family friends, Anseli Larson, has been advocating for Nora's innocence for years.

And once Nora was released, Anseli let Nora live with her as she got a job in a kitchen of a bar and grill in Memphis and got back on her feet. After being released, Nora began fighting her mom's side of the family for her fair share of her inheritance. It was then decided to be split amongst them, so although we don't know the amount, Nora did get some money from that as well. Since Nora's release, she's done different interviews

where she tries to spread her story and her innocence and even worked with Amanda Knox to help women who have been wrongfully villainized in the media. Other than Nora, one of the main persons of interest in this case was Mark Irvin, who, like we said, was a Methodist minister in Jackson, Tennessee, and again, he and Jennifer had broken up just before her murder. At around midnight, Mark called Jennifer, and he later told police that she called him and asked if she could go to church with him the next morning, but he apparently said no.

Mark told police that he was asleep in Jackson, Tennessee, which was an hour and a half drive from East Memphis at the time Jennifer was murdered. Nora says that he was incredibly controlling and manipulative and that she was afraid of him. She also stated that he would sometimes look down her shirt and that he was a total creep. She usually hated all the men that her mother dated, but in Nora's defense, Jennifer did seem to date some pretty scummy men, which we talked about earlier on in this episode. And Mark apparently often had violent arguments with Jennifer, which he denied in court. When police asked Nora who she thought would do this to her mom, she said that her mom's

boyfriend was an asshole, but even he wouldn't do something like this. They did test Mark's DNA against the unknown blood at the scene of the crime, but it was not a match. One of the Memphis detectives on this case thought it was Mark Irvin at first. Apparently, Mark kept calling the detectives and would talk a lot and they thought he was either genuinely concerned about what was going on or that he was guilty and he wanted to know what the detectives knew. Especially since Mark didn't have a tight alibi, he was definitely looked into.

He said he was asleep until 7am, but he was by himself, so there is no one else who can confirm or deny this. Mark was put on the back burner, but once they started realizing the strange details surrounding Nora, they focused on her. And for anybody who was wondering about the guy Jimmy Toul, who Jennifer was with at the wedding the night that she was murdered, we couldn't find any information on him, so I'm assuming that he was probably cleared by police in some way. There's also the possibility that Jennifer was

murdered by someone else entirely, but nothing was taken from the house. Jennifer was a pack rat, so at first glance, it was hard to tell if her home had been ransacked or if it was just a complete disaster anyway. Her siblings and friends stated that her house was very much a mess. She used her shower rod as a second clothes rack and her bathroom floor was covered with different pairs of shoes, clothes, and handbags, almost like a second closet.

She would order things from different stores and never open boxes. In one part of her home, she just had piles and piles of boxes, and Nora's room on the other hand was actually very organized. It seems unlikely that Jennifer would be murdered by a stranger because the break-in really did seem staged, but also because nothing was stolen and the crime was so violent. People commit random acts of violence all the time, but this one really seemed personal. And also, she wasn't sexually assaulted, so the murder probably then wasn't sexually motivated. Another theory is that Jennifer's murder is connected to Nazmi's murder.

Nazmi, nor his dad, was involved in some very sketchy things throughout his life, so his murder is definitely less of a shock than Jennifer's. Also, Nazmi was shot, and Jennifer was stabbed 50 times. These are very different M.O.s, and as far as we know, Jennifer and Nazmi didn't have a relationship at all or any communication, so it seems unlikely that someone involved with Nazmi would go after Jennifer, especially if Nazmi was already dead. So that leaves us with a big question.

Why would Nora want her mom dead? About a week before Jennifer's murder, Nora had been arguing with her mom regarding life insurance policies. When Nazmi died, Jennifer was granted the money from his life insurance policy, which was about $1.5 million. It's unclear if all of that money went to Jennifer, but regardless, Nora wanted her fair share. A neighbor overheard them arguing in the driveway one day and apparently Nora said, just give me the fucking money. Jennifer's brother and Nora's uncle also stated in court that Jennifer had told him about

this conversation and Nora's interest in the life insurance money. And I believe the reason why Jennifer didn't want to give Nora this money is because Nora was not very responsible. She wasn't going to school and I remember reading somewhere that she even asked Jennifer if she could have $150 to get her hair done and Jennifer was like, no, that's a lot of money and you're clearly not using this money responsibly so I'm not going to give it to you. To me the biggest potential smoking gun in this case is what Nora was wearing that night. I wish that we knew if she was wearing the same outfit that she was wearing in Walgreens earlier on in that night because what she's wearing it's like a gray long sleeve shirt and then either white shorts or a white short skirt and The reason why I think this is so important is because if she did murder her mom in this outfit

Then obviously she would have gotten blood all over it like I said she was wearing white and even if it wasn't white There would have been blood on it So if we knew that she was wearing this outfit the whole night, what are the chances that she would go home, take the outfit off, put on a different outfit, murder her mom, put on the original outfit and continue the evening. It's like so unlikely. If her friend said no, she wasn't wearing that outfit, then we would know that Nora went home and changed and then she would have then

had to have killed her mom. Because then we would know that she was home before she said she was. Right, I think that this is a very, very important detail and I'm very surprised that I actually couldn't find that information on the internet or any other sources because I think that that could crack this case for us. I think what's most frustrating though is that Nora has taken this Alfred plea, so basically at this point in the state's eyes, this case is closed, and they can't go back and try her for anything else because she's taken responsibility for the crime.

So even if new DNA evidence comes about, they're not really going to do anything about it, so we may never know who actually killed Jennifer Jackson. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everybody, and we'll have a new episode for you guys next Monday. And we would love to hear everybody's thoughts on this. Do you think North guilty? Do you think somebody else is guilty? Go to our Instagram at GoingWestPodcast and leave us a comment with your thoughts.

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