00:00:00
[audio logo] [sinister music] narrator: On September
the 13th, 2007, a woman's body was
found in the burnt-out
00:00:12
remains of a stolen van in
Hillsborough County, Florida. Scott Harmon: When she was
jogging in the early morning
00:00:19
darkness, he abducted
her and dragged her into a secluded
location, just off of a main roadway,
where he raped
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her and stabbed her to death. Dale Bunten: She
did nothing wrong. She was just a victim
of an evil person.
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narrator: Investigators were
struggling to find any clues, but the killer's
loose lips soon
00:00:38
led detectives to his door. - When the news came on about a
body, he seemed kind of excited
00:00:45
about the whole conversation. It was almost as if he had
more information than what
00:00:49
she even heard on the TV. narrator: The man
in question was unemployed 25-year-old Kenneth Jackson.
00:00:57
Jane Monckton-Smith: Jackson
showed absolutely no remorse for what he had done. He's a psychopathic killer.
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- He was so proud
of what he'd done that he had to talk about it. narrator: Kenneth
Jackson had inadvertently
00:01:12
revealed himself as one of
the world's most evil killers. [theme music] ♪ ♪ [eerie music]
00:01:37
♪ ♪ On June 5, 2013. 30-year-old Kenneth Jackson
was sentenced to death after being found
guilty of murdering
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mother of three Cuc Tran. He'd ambushed her while she
was out on an early morning
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run in her hometown of Seffner,
a small community just outside Tampa in Florida.
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- We're talking about a very
small area of Florida. So you can imagine that
a murder would send shockwaves
00:02:08
through that small community. They were literally horrified. - I think the impact
only reinforced
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the notion that women aren't
safe running alone in the dark. They're an easy target.
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No matter how many self-defense
classes they may take or they may carry a pepper
spray, it's not enough.
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It's just the element
of surprise and the strength
of the predator is too much for any
woman to overcome.
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narrator: Kenneth Jackson
showed no remorse for taking the life of an innocent woman.
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- He had no emotion to the fact
that this was a woman with school-aged
children that she
00:02:59
was working to take care of. He didn't have respect
for life in general. He didn't seem to care.
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Everything was only about
himself at all times. narrator: This killer story
begins on June 26, 1982.
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Kenneth Ray Jackson was born in
Hillsborough County, Florida. He was the product
of an inappropriate and
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unlawful relationship. - It's hard to imagine
a less satisfactory childhood than Kenny Jackson's.
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His mother, when he
was conceived, was 14. Her partner at the time was 28. She gave him up effectively
at the age of six months
00:03:42
to her mother, his
grandmother, and her boyfriend. Scott Harmon: Kenny did
have a rough upbringing.
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He was moved around from
different family members. He suffered some abuse when he
was growing up, physical abuse.
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He saw a lot of abuse. narrator: And it
wasn't just at home where Jackson had
a difficult time.
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- Probably inevitably,
Jackson's school reports reflected that he
was aggressive.
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He was belligerent in class. He was just a really,
really difficult boy. Jane Monckton-Smith: His
teachers raised concerns
00:04:16
about his behavior,
about the way he turned out when he came to school. And they had huge
difficulties finding
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who his guardians even where,
who it who was supposed to be looking after this child.
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I don't think he had any
stability in his life, so not surprising that he
turned towards criminality.
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narrator: In 2003,
at the age of 21, Kenneth Jackson was sentenced
to five years in prison
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after a spate of car thefts. He was released four years
later on July 26, 2007,
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and headed to the small
residential community of Seffner
in Hillsborough County.
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Scott Harmon: When
he got out of prison, he ended up moving in with a
couple, the O'Neals, Linda and
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Wally O'Neal, and they
allowed him to move into the trailer with them. - Wally was Jackson's
grandmother's old boyfriend,
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the boyfriend who had
been with his grandmother when he arrived with her
at the age of six months.
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Although they must have had
a very strange relationship, it was probably
the only place in which
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Kenny Jackson felt at home. [eerie music] ♪ ♪ narrator: On September
13, 2007, 12 miles away
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in the neighboring
town of Gibsonton, Hillsborough County
Fire Rescue were called to a van engulfed
in flames at 7 o'clock
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in the morning. What they discovered
when they got there was a scene
of unimaginable horror.
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Dale Bunten: When
the fire department put the vehicle fire out,
they discovered a body inside.
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That, of course,
triggered phone calls to the homicide section. And supervisors had detectives
respond to the area.
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So I went down
to the Gibsonton area. At that point, I was assigned
to be the lead detective
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on the case. - The body was charred
beyond recognition. It was literally a mess.
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narrator: With
no identification to be found
on the charred remains, detectives turned their
attention to the burnt-out car.
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- I was told at the time that
they had recovered a license plate off of the vehicle.
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And of course,
that was a start. We were able to make
contact with the owner. We learned that the vehicle had
been listed at the gentleman's
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job site as for sale. It had been parked
in the parking lot there. He worked part time
at an auto parts store,
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repairing it to sell it. He had a sign for sale
in the window. After we determined that this
vehicle must have been stolen,
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we had the van taken back
to our crime scene offices at the sheriff's office. But during this time, during
the course of the day,
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there were other
events unfolding that I wasn't immediately aware of. [pensive music]
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♪ ♪ narrator: In a seemingly
unrelated incident 12 miles north
of the torched car,
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a discovery had been
made in the grounds of a church in Seffner. Troy Morgan:
The sergeant was notified
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that there were some
clothing items, shoes, and some blood that
had been located
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in front of the St. Francis
Church on 579 north of MLK. Dale Bunten: There
had been a yard crew.
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And they had actually,
in mowing the lawns, found this bloody clothing,
and a sheriff's officer deputy
00:08:04
had gone out
there, and they had recovered some of that
clothing and items that were left behind.
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narrator: At this stage,
police were unsure about whether these two
events were connected,
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until a panicked young man
contacted them for help. [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ Dale Bunten: 3:00 in the
afternoon or so, I received
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a call from my dispatch, saying
there was a young man there who was looking for his mother,
and she'd been missing,
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that she had left
early in the morning and had never came back. We had this person that
we believed was a female
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and could not identify
at that point. It's like, yeah, we
need to check this out.
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Troy Morgan: Where they
were calling in from was just north of where
that St. Francis church was
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and where the clothes
and the blood was located. I went up there, and I
looked at the area.
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And that was when it was
very evident that there was not a little bit of blood. Somebody had-- somebody
had died there.
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narrator: The missing
woman was 50-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran. Meanwhile, more
information was coming
00:09:18
through about the unidentified
body found in the van. It was becoming
increasingly likely
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that the missing persons report
and the body were connected. - It appeared she
had Asian features.
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And in learning that this was
a Asian male that was reporting his missing Asian
mother, of course,
00:09:41
everyone was starting to think,
this is-- this is our woman. I asked for some details
about some particular jewelry,
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because this body that
was burned up in the van still had lots of jewelry on. Troy Morgan: We
were able to link
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jewelry from
pictures in the house to what was on her person. So at this point in time,
we were pretty positive
00:10:04
that Cuc Tran was our victim. narrator: The small community
of Seffner was left in shock.
00:10:10
Detectives had no clue who had
committed this terrible crime, but the killer
was about to make
00:10:16
a huge mistake that would lead
police straight to his door. [somber music] ♪ ♪
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narrator: On the morning
of September 13, 2007, in Hillsborough
County, Florida,
00:10:38
a pile of bloodied clothes
had been discovered in the grounds of a church. 12 miles away, the charred
remains of a woman
00:10:46
had been found
inside a burning van. Detectives believed
her to be 50-year-old
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Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran
from the town of Seffner. Dale Bunten: She was
a mother of three.
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She had an older son
who was off at college, a 16-year-old that was going to
high school, and a 10-year-old.
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Scott Harmon: She
worked a full-time job as a nail technician. She lived at home
in a trailer park,
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and she would get up
very early in the morning to try to find
a little bit of time
00:11:19
for herself to go
for a walk or a jog to try to take care of herself. narrator: Cuc Tran had
settled in Hillsborough County
00:11:28
after leaving her homeland
in search of a better life. Scott Harmon: Her and her
husband were part of the exodus
00:11:34
from Vietnam in the '70s
and '80s, after the communists took over South
Vietnam after the Vietnam War.
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- It sounded like
a pretty horrific struggle after the war for her
and her children
00:11:50
and her husband to come here. For Mrs. Tran
to leave a war zone and come to the United
States was an example
00:11:59
of the American dream. She was escaping
violence of the war and coming to a country where
people are believed to be safe
00:12:08
and given opportunity. narrator: For Cuc Tran,
however, the United States was far from the safe
haven she'd hoped for,
00:12:17
and her life had been cut
short in the most brutal way. With no immediate
suspects, police
00:12:25
started to look into Cuc
Tran's life for clues. Dale Bunten: There were some
issues with her marriage.
00:12:33
They weren't necessarily
living together, but they were
still good friends. Both parents were
still very much focused
00:12:41
on taking care of the kids. She would get up,
do some exercise. Her husband would come
by in the mornings,
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help get the kids
ready for school. She would get back from her
morning exercise routine,
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and she would get
them to school, an. Then she would go to work. She was a responsible employee,
got along well with everyone.
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She was evidently well
liked by her customers. She did nothing wrong. She was just a victim
of an evil person.
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narrator: Cuc
Tran's daily morning run would take her past St.
Francis Church in Seffner.
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Dale Bunten: It was a very
large church property where it had quite a bit of
open land between the roadway
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and the church itself. - If a car was going
by at 5:00 in the morning, they wouldn't see you down there.
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narrator: Detectives started
working on the theory that Cuc Tran was
ambushed by her killer
00:13:40
while she was out
on her morning run. John Barry: She had a routine. She would run at 5:00 AM
in the morning before work.
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This was her only free time. It was really the only
time she had to herself, which was even more tragic.
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That's all she had. And she never dreamed that
there was this predator waiting there for her.
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Jane Monckton-Smith: This
isn't an area where there'll be lots of women to choose from.
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So this person had
probably gone to that area before, checked it
out, waited around,
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seen how many
people were around, whether they were
likely to get caught. I don't think that
this was opportunistic.
00:14:24
I think this was targeted. Dale Bunten: We
wanted to get the guy. I mean, that's
the whole goal, right?
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You want to solve this thing. narrator: Detectives
were convinced that Coltrane was killed
in the grounds of the church
00:14:39
and then her body driven
away in the van that was found on fire 12 miles away. The autopsy confirmed
the horrific circumstances
00:14:48
of her death. Dale Bunten:
The medical examiner was able to determine
there were multiple stab
00:14:53
wounds in the neck. The carotid artery
had been cut. - One of the stab wounds
had cut through the victim's
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windpipe and would
have probably prevented sufficient
air from being able to go through
the vocal cords
00:15:08
so that she could vocalize. Dale Bunten: She was dead
before the fire ever started.
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There was no soot
in the windpipe or carbon monoxide in the blood. narrator: The autopsy also
discovered a possible motive
00:15:25
for the crime. - She had been raped. The medical examiner
had collected blood slides and the vaginal
swabs and offered DNA.
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But we didn't have any
comparisons at that point. Jane Monckton-Smith:
Usually, when people use fire
00:15:43
to destroy a body, it's
because they want to eliminate any forensic evidence at all.
00:15:52
They think, I'm never
going to get caught, because I have destroyed every
single piece of evidence.
00:15:59
Well, fire doesn't
always destroy every piece of evidence. This would have been
an overconfidence,
00:16:07
I think, in that person. narrator: Desperate
to find Cuc Tran's killer, detectives started to hand
out flyers in the trailer park
00:16:16
where she'd lived,
appealing for information from her neighbors. - There was probably 100 or so
trailers in this trailer park.
00:16:24
We went house to house,
handing the flyers out, talking to neighbors. There was one trailer
that I actually
00:16:31
stopped at, which was within
eyeshot of where the victim's house was, her trailer.
00:16:38
And there was
an elderly individual that was there, a man, who
was very inquisitive as to why
00:16:44
I was there. So I finished walking through. It was extremely
hot out that day. I was thirsty, so I decided
to go to the gas station
00:16:55
at the corner of MLK
and 579, which is just to the south of where
St. Francis Church was.
00:17:00
And I walk in. I get my drink. And I'm soaking wet. I've got a shirt, tie. I walk up.
00:17:07
I pay. And all of a sudden,
something hit me. I was saying, you know what? I'm going to go get a flyer.
00:17:14
I come back. I give the flyer to the clerk. As I start talking
to her, she starts
00:17:19
explaining how there
was this individual who was in the store, and when the
news came on about a body and
00:17:28
an investigation,
he seemed kind of excited about the whole
conversation and the subject
00:17:34
matter and everything
that was being said. But also, it was
almost as if he had more information
than what she even
00:17:39
heard being said on the TV. Scott Harmon: What really
what stuck out to her, he was telling her he had
seen Cuc Tran jogging,
00:17:47
and the only time
she did that was very early in the morning,
right around 5:00,
00:17:52
5:30 in the morning. And that's when
she was abducted. So that was pretty critical.
00:17:58
narrator: The stranger's
story confirmed what the police already knew
about Cuc Tran's morning
00:18:03
routine, but it
wasn't information they'd released to the public. Dale Bunten: This
guy is talking,
00:18:08
and he's saying
things that really haven't been publicly made. So that's a clue.
00:18:16
That was a very strong, OK,
we need to jump on this. And that started
the ball rolling.
00:18:26
Troy Morgan: I started
asking her questions. Well, you know, who is
this individual, you know,
00:18:30
where he lives? And she proceeds to tell
me that his name is Kenny. And he had just gotten
released from prison.
00:18:40
So I asked her, what
did he go to prison for? Do you know? And she said, I think
grand theft auto.
00:18:47
At this point in time,
now, in the investigation, we know that the van that was
burned with our victim in it
00:18:54
was stolen from
the Advance Auto Parts, literally two blocks
from where I was standing
00:18:59
at the gas station
and just south of where the victim was murdered. I said, where does he live?
00:19:06
Do you know anything about him? She said, yeah, he lives in
the trailer park north of here.
00:19:12
George Wansell: It
turned out that this man Kenny lived in exactly the same
trailer park as Cuc Tran.
00:19:20
narrator: Detectives finally
had a breakthrough in the case, but all they had to go
on was a single name, Kenny.
00:19:26
They knew they had to find
this man and fast before he killed again. [tense music]
00:19:39
♪ ♪ narrator:
On September 19, 2007, six days after the murder
of 50-year-old Cuc Tran
00:19:46
in Hillsborough County,
Florida, detectives had their first lead. A man called Kenny, who'd
aroused the suspicion of a gas
00:19:55
station clerk when talking
to her about the murder, lived in the same trailer
park as the victim.
00:20:02
Troy was reminded
of a strangely inquisitive man
he'd interviewed at the trailer park.
00:20:08
- Now, all of a sudden,
the red flags start going off even more,
because now I realize,
00:20:11
wait a minute. I wonder if this
Kenny guy is the guy that I was sitting
there and asking myself,
00:20:18
this guy is awful nosy. He's asking like a lot
of detailed questions. narrator: Troy made his way
back to the trailer park.
00:20:25
The man he'd
previously spoken to was Wally O'Neal, who had
once been in a relationship
00:20:31
with Kenny's grandmother. Wally confirmed that
Kenny was in fact 25-year-old Kenneth Jackson.
00:20:40
Police discovered this
wasn't the first time he'd been on the radar
of law enforcement.
00:20:48
Dale Bunten: He had had
several arrests in the past. He had recently
gotten out of prison.
00:20:53
He hadn't been
in the area long. narrator: Wally
confirmed that Jackson had been living with him,
but told Troy that he'd left
00:21:02
town just two days before. Dale Bunten: We learned that,
at the time of the murder
00:21:08
and the vehicle being burned,
that he was not at home. So they couldn't give an alibi
as to his whereabouts.
00:21:16
But they did know
for a fact that he did happen to be in the area
where the burned van was.
00:21:23
We haven't made contact with
our person of interest yet, but we are getting
verification that he's
00:21:29
in the right place at the right
times to be associated to it. narrator: Detectives
learned that Kenneth Jackson
00:21:37
had gone to live with his
girlfriend in North Florida. On September 20, a week
after the murder,
00:21:45
they drove upstate to find him. Dale Bunten: We went up
there and asked if he was willing to speak with us.
00:21:51
He rode with us in the car
over to the Carrabelle Police Department Office, where
we could sit down and
00:21:59
do an audio
recording and try and find out what he might know. narrator: While collecting
DNA samples from Jackson,
00:22:11
the detectives
got a lucky break. Dale Bunten: During the course
of this conversation,
00:22:15
we got around to the clothes
that he was wearing. And he said, I think this is
what I was wearing that day.
00:22:22
I was like, well, can
we get that for testing? And he said, well, I
don't have anything else.
00:22:28
I said, well, I'll take
you to go buy clothes. We went, and we bought
them new shoes, new shirt.
00:22:35
So he gave us permission
to take his clothes. - He considered himself
smarter than the police.
00:22:42
So that made him so careless. narrator: It was time for
investigators to sit down and
00:22:49
interview their prime suspect. They were certain
of Jackson's movements on the day of the murder,
but they wanted to hear
00:22:56
it from the horse's mouth. Troy Morgan: During the course
of our investigation, we put him down there,
where the van was burned.
00:23:03
And that was huge,
because he had a family member that identified
him being down in Gibsonton.
00:23:09
Why? He lives in Seffner. Why would you be
down in Gibsonton? So everything just
started falling in.
00:23:16
So we wanted to get him
locked into a timeline as to where were you at? What were you doing?
00:23:21
And we were able
to do that, but we were also able to get him to
give too many inconsistencies
00:23:26
in his interviews. They could prove
that he was lying, and he could not stick
with a solid alibi,
00:23:31
because he didn't have one. Scott Harmon: In all
of the lies that he told law enforcement, the one
thing he was consistent on
00:23:40
was that he did
not know Cuc Tran, and they showed him
photographs of her that were very good depictions
of her in the year or two
00:23:48
before her death. And he insisted,
I don't know her. I don't know
anything about her.
00:23:53
I've never seen her before,
even though she lived about five trailers down from his.
00:24:00
And you could step out from
the doors of those trailers and see the other trailer is
how close he lived to her,
00:24:06
but he insisted he'd
never seen her before. Jane Monckton-Smith: He was
obviously super confident
00:24:20
that he'd obliterated
all of the evidence and that he could sit and play
games with the police,
00:24:26
almost, because they were never
going to pin this one on him. - We both believed
that we had our guy.
00:24:34
After that first interview, we
had our DNA that he gave us. We had the clothing
that he gave us,
00:24:40
and Troy and I got in the car. And we drove from
Carrabelle, Florida, back to just north
of Gainesville
00:24:47
to meet up with one of the
detectives from Hillsborough here, who was
meeting us halfway,
00:24:51
so we could pass that off. So they could immediately get
that back to FDLE the next day
00:24:56
to start the DNA comparisons. narrator: Six days
later, on September 26, the DNA reports
came back from FDLE,
00:25:07
the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement. Dale Bunten: I received
a phone call from FDLE
00:25:14
stating that they had
just gotten the report from their DNA analysis that
said that the samples collected
00:25:23
from Kenneth Jackson
did match the semen that was collected from
the medical examiner
00:25:30
during the autopsy of Cuc Tran. Troy Morgan: At that
moment, it's, like, relief.
00:25:34
You realize, OK, we
knew we were on point. We knew we had our guy. narrator: Jackson had
lied to detectives,
00:25:42
but the evidence
gave away the truth. Dale Bunten: We had dealt with
Kenneth Jackson for hours,
00:25:47
and he said that he
didn't know this person. He had never met
this person, didn't
00:25:52
even know that she was
a neighbor in his trailer park. And now we have
his semen in her.
00:25:59
That is enough to get
an arrest warrant. - As soon as the DNA
samples come back and they are confirmed as being
Kenneth Jackson's, the police
00:26:09
fly by helicopter to his
new abode in North Florida to find him. But when they get
there, he's not there.
00:26:19
- We had the sheriff's
office up there and the local township PD and also
the girlfriend's
00:26:27
mother's assistants. She had some ideas, and she
thought, well, maybe they're over this one place fishing.
00:26:33
And they were, in fact. So this was like 1:00 in the
morning, but they were both
00:26:38
up there, sitting at the dock. narrator: Kenneth Jackson's
luck was about to run out.
00:26:44
Dale Bunten: I talked
with Kenny and said, we've got some new information
we need to talk to you about.
00:26:49
Would you mind coming with
us back to the station to talk about it? - No matter what it was
that we talked to him about,
00:26:57
he was very obstinate against
anything that we said. Even when we could point
out his inconsistencies,
00:27:06
it didn't matter. He just was like-- it was
like water off a duck's back, you know?
00:27:10
He just didn't care. narrator: But this
time, investigators were armed with a smoking gun.
00:27:17
Dale Bunten: I focused
on the point of DNA again. Because I had asked him
at the first interview,
00:27:23
will your DNA show up
on this lady at any point? And he was like, no, no,
no, I've never met her.
00:27:28
There's no way possible. He knew he had burned
up this victim in a van. He believed he had
absolutely nothing
00:27:36
to worry about, because that
was all burned up and there was
nothing to be found.
00:27:42
He felt that he was safe. Well, in fact, your DNA
is on her, Kenny. How did that happen?
00:27:50
Denial, denial, denial. Dale Bunten: And he
finally said, well, if you have such
good information,
00:28:20
why don't you arrest me then? It's like, OK, [laughs]
we will do that. narrator: On September,
December 27, 2007,
00:28:32
two weeks after
the murder of Cuc Tran, Kenneth Jackson was
formally arrested. Despite his constant denial,
detectives were convinced
00:28:41
he was a dangerous predator. - He planned that entire event. He stole the van from
the Advance Auto Parts,
00:28:49
left it parked where he knew
he could ambush Cuc Tran, because he knows she walks,
runs in the mornings,
00:28:57
and he targeted her
and as evil as it gets. - This type of attack,
a stranger in the dark jumps
00:29:05
out of the bushes
to attack you, is the nightmare that sits in
the head of every single woman.
00:29:15
And if it actually happens
to you, all of those nightmares come to life at once.
00:29:23
So for Cuc Tran, that must have
been the most terrifying moment that she had ever experienced.
00:29:33
- He thought everything
through all the way up until the getaway. But once he burned the van,
he didn't have a plan of what
00:29:40
he was going to do after that. But I am convinced that he
would have killed again.
00:29:45
Given the opportunity had
we not have caught him, he would have killed again. narrator: After
he was arrested,
00:29:54
information on Kenneth
Jackson continued to come in. George Wansell: One
of the other significant pieces
00:29:59
of evidence that
the police received was from a relative
of Jackson's, who gave them a DVD, which he
apparently habitually watched.
00:30:10
It was a pornographic
DVD, which included particularly
Asian women and also had
elements of bondage.
00:30:19
- Everything lines up that
he's living out his fantasy. Jane Monckton-Smith:
To me, Jackson
00:30:24
appears to be
on his first outing as a potential serial killer. He wasn't responding
to some provocation.
00:30:32
He was acting
to please himself. And I think the violence
pleased him. The fire pleased him.
00:30:40
The cat and mouse he
thought he was going to have with the police excited him. This is a really
dangerous individual.
00:30:49
narrator: Prosecutors felt they
had enough evidence to charge Kenneth Jackson with murder.
00:30:55
Scott Harmon: He was
charged with first degree premeditated murder. He was charged with sexual
battery with a deadly weapon.
00:31:03
And he was charged with grand
theft motor vehicle of the van that he stole so that he could
dispose of Ms. Tran's body.
00:31:11
narrator: Despite denying
everything to detectives, Kenneth Jackson
suddenly rediscovered
00:31:17
the loose lips that had
put him on the police's radar in the first place. - While he was in custody
for all that time, again,
00:31:26
that man talked. He ran his mouth to everybody. He did discuss about
how he raped the woman.
00:31:35
He killed the woman. He burned her up in the van. But one of the common
threads from each
00:31:40
of these statements
we got was that he never was talking in remorse. He was bragging about it.
00:31:49
John Barry: He was
so proud of what he'd done that he had to talk about it. narrator:
But if Jackson thought
00:31:56
his fellow inmates would listen
to his secrets in confidence, he was gravely mistaken.
00:32:02
Dale Bunten:
Multiple inmates came forward with all the stories
Kenny was talking about.
00:32:06
- There were two
of them that were in federal custody being
held in the local jail
00:32:10
on federal charges. He made statements
to each of them independently, where he
talked about the fact
00:32:17
that he had seen her running. He'd seen her jogging,
had determined that he was going to abduct her.
00:32:23
He gave descriptions
of the murder and how he went
about stabbing her and what was going on, how
she was reacting to him.
00:32:33
He used a pretty offensive
pejorative in describing how he sexually assaulted her.
00:32:39
So it was pretty
compelling evidence to have that in front of the jury. Troy Morgan:
Getting those leads
00:32:46
and that information
from other prisoners, saying that he's bragging
about what he did,
00:32:52
only boosted our case. narrator: With the trial
on the horizon, prosecutors
in Hillsborough County
00:32:59
had DNA evidence,
witness statements, and jailhouse informants. But would the jury find
Kenneth Jackson guilty,
00:33:07
or would he be able
to outsmart everyone and get away with murder? [eerie music]
00:33:19
♪ ♪ narrator: In October 2012,
five years after the death of 50-year-old mother of three
Cuc Tran, Kenneth Jackson,
00:33:29
the man accused of her rape and
murder, stood trial in Florida. John Barry: It was one of
the most heinous murder rapes
00:33:36
that had occurred that year. So there was a lot of TV
there and print media. - We had many,
many witnesses, and
00:33:46
it went on for several weeks. We were seeking the death
penalty in this case. The DNA was direct
scientific evidence,
00:33:54
but we wanted to give
the jury an understanding of how the crime occurred
and why it occurred.
00:34:00
So we had lots of different
types of evidence in this case, from DNA scientific evidence
to jailhouse snitches,
00:34:07
to other witnesses that he
had made statements to that connected him to the crime.
00:34:12
- He planned this entire
thing out to the point of stealing a van so that
he can then stalk his prey.
00:34:18
Scott Harmon: This
was an extremely premeditated murder, driven by
an extremely evil motivation.
00:34:27
narrator: Prosecutors
were ready to present their case of what they
believe happened on the morning
00:34:32
of September 13, 2007. Scott Harmon: He
had seen her jogging in the early morning
hours before he had become
00:34:40
obsessed with her,
apparently, and with the idea of abducting her. He positioned
himself in an area
00:34:47
in front of St. Francis
of Assisi Church, where he knew she would
be running or jogging.
00:34:53
And when she came
along in the darkness, he grabbed her, probably
put the knife to her throat,
00:34:59
and forced her off
of the roadway. John Barry: Mrs. Tran
was surprised by this man
00:35:05
leaping out of the darkness. There was no way she could
have defended herself. It was just all too sudden.
00:35:11
- He took her down into this
little valley, which was concealed from
view from the roadway,
00:35:17
and he forced her
down on the ground. He took her clothes off
of her, probably ripped them
00:35:21
off of her, and he raped her. And when she was screaming
or yelling in pain and begging for her
life, he began
00:35:31
to stab her in the throat. He knew he was
going to kill her. He knew he was
going to rape her.
00:35:38
This just speaks
to an extremely depraved level of evil. Dale Bunten: He
made the decision
00:35:47
to take advantage
of someone in the dark that he felt he
could overpower. Then, when he was in fear
for maybe being found out
00:35:58
because they were struggling,
they were fighting, they were screaming,
decided he could kill them.
00:36:05
And then at that
point, to think that he could make all this go
away by destroying this person,
00:36:12
literally by trying to burn
them up, that is evil. narrator: On October 15,
2012, Jackson's trial
00:36:24
began at the Hillsborough
County Circuit Court. Scott Harmon:
In my opening statements,
00:36:29
I told the jury he was trying
to burn his biological evidence out of her body. His intent was to try
to destroy her body,
00:36:36
because her body was evidence
of the rape and the murder. - It was all pre-planned.
00:36:41
It was extremely cold
blooded, calculated. It stayed with me
for a long time, even today.
00:36:51
narrator: Jackson,
who'd been all too keen to blab about the murder
to his fellow inmates,
00:36:56
suddenly didn't seem able
to speak up in the courtroom. - He didn't show any emotion
at all throughout the trial.
00:37:04
He just was sat quietly. It was kind of eerie. He had an eerie presence,
this sort of calm,
00:37:14
strange demeanor throughout. I thought he didn't mind being
caught that much, watching him.
00:37:21
I think he had always
wanted from the beginning to be able to boast about it. - He appeared to enjoy
the attention of the trial.
00:37:30
He seemed to be very immature. He smiled a lot. He just didn't seem
like he was taking
00:37:36
the whole process seriously. Jane Monckton-Smith: He
has got all eyes on him. This is his moment in the sun.
00:37:44
He's not even
thinking about what's going to happen afterwards. He couldn't hide his enjoyment
at getting so much attention.
00:37:58
narrator: Troy
Morgan, the detective who'd made the initial
breakthrough in the case,
00:38:03
was called to testify. Troy Morgan: It's
a great pride in being able to get up
there and testify,
00:38:09
finding out
the information that kind of linked everything to him. And that was pretty much all
the testimony that I really
00:38:16
had to bring to the table,
was being in the right place at the right time and asking
the right question.
00:38:23
narrator: The gas
station attendant who Troy Morgan had spoken
to wasn't the only witness
00:38:28
called by the prosecution. Scott Harmon: There
were witnesses who put him near the area
where the van was found,
00:38:36
and that was in the city
of Gibsonton. The murder happened
in the city of Seffner,
00:38:40
and they were separated
by about 10, 11, 12 miles. So it's a significant distance.
00:38:47
And there were
witnesses, one of which knew him, put him walking on
foot in Gibsonton that morning.
00:38:55
And that really
stood out to her. Why is Kenny down here
in Gibsonton walking? How did he get here.
00:39:02
That was significant,
because he told the detectives and never would
come off of the fact
00:39:07
that he rode a bicycle from
Seffner down to Gibsonton through the night, and that's
why he was in Gibsonton.
00:39:16
narrator: With the overwhelming
evidence laid out, the prosecuting attorneys
began their closing arguments.
00:39:23
Scott Harmon: I remember
arguing to the jury, there is probably no crime
that is as personally
00:39:29
invasive as a crime
where a person is putting part of their body
into another person
00:39:36
against their will. And I think this may have
impacted the women on the jury. And I argued to the jury
the last voice she heard
00:39:45
and the last person's face she
saw in her life on this Earth was this defendant.
00:39:51
narrator: The jury
took less than a day to reach their verdict. - The jury determined
that he was
00:39:58
guilty for the murder, the
sexual battery, the grand theft auto, and the arson. narrator: It seemed the jury
had no doubt in their minds
00:40:09
about Jackson's guilt. Scott Harmon: When a jury
returns a guilty verdict, the defendant is entitled
to have the jury polled.
00:40:17
A clerk asks each
of the individual jurors to confirm that that
is their verdict,
00:40:23
and I've never heard this
before in any case I've tried. Several of the jurors,
when they responded yes,
00:40:29
didn't just say yes,
that's my verdict. They said, yes! I know two of the women looked
directly at the defendant
00:40:38
and said it very
vehemently like that. So that's what kind
of stood out to me, was how much they believed
in that verdict of guilty.
00:40:50
narrator: The verdict
was exactly the outcome the hardworking
detectives had hoped for.
00:40:56
Troy Morgan: To be able
to get a positive result, it's what you want
for every case.
00:41:00
With this one here,
just everything just kind of fell right into
place, being at the right place
00:41:03
at the right time. Sometimes it's better
to be lucky than good. Dale Bunten: I
mean, it's horrible
00:41:09
what the people
went through and the families, what
they've gone through, but it's a huge
feeling of satisfaction
00:41:17
when you can conclusively
say, this is what happened. We got the guy. It doesn't change
what happened.
00:41:26
It's still a tragedy. But this is what we can give
you for some sort of closure.
00:41:35
[pensive music] ♪ ♪ narrator: A week later,
on November 1, 2012, the next phase of Kenneth
Jackson's trial began.
00:41:44
John Barry: The murder
conviction comes first, and then there's basically a
second trial with the same jury
00:41:51
to consider the death penalty. And then they come back to the
same jury and ask for a vote.
00:41:58
In this case, it was 11
to 1, which, at the time, was all that the state needed.
00:42:05
narrator: On June 5, 2013,
30-year-old Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to death. John Barry: When death
penalty was imposed,
00:42:14
he had absolutely no reaction. I don't even know
that he cared. I couldn't tell.
00:42:20
He just looked
blankly ahead, and he didn't offer any remorse
or anything like that.
00:42:29
Troy Morgan: I will say it was
very satisfying to find that he was found guilty, number
one, but number two,
00:42:32
that he was given
the death penalty. narrator: That wasn't the end
of Kenneth Jackson's story,
00:42:41
however. In 2016, the United
States Supreme Court agreed that Florida's
capital sentencing scheme
00:42:49
was unconstitutional, which
led the Florida Supreme Court to abolish the state's
existing death penalty law
00:42:57
and require that a jury's
recommendation for death must be unanimous. Scott Harmon: Any case where we
didn't have a unanimous verdict
00:43:04
in the penalty phase was now
subject to collateral attack, and that's what happened
with Mr. Jackson's case.
00:43:11
The case got reversed,
because we didn't have a unanimous verdict. The decision was made
to allow him to plead to life,
00:43:18
and that's what happened. And he was resentenced
to a life sentence. Dale Bunten:
Whether he does life
00:43:28
in prison without parole
or whether he does death penalty, either way,
he's off the street.
00:43:34
Troy Morgan: I know for a fact
that that person won't be hurting anybody outside
of those prison walls,
00:43:40
and that's what we're after. John Barry: This case
really haunted me, I think, because it was the first
time I had encountered what I
00:43:49
thought was a true psychopath. I think there was
every possibility that Kenneth Jackson,
if he had not been caught,
00:43:57
would have gone
on to kill other women and that one day he might have
been labeled a serial killer.
00:44:08
narrator: Kenneth
Jackson stalked, raped, and killed 50-year-old
Cuc Tran, an innocent
00:44:14
woman who'd done him no harm. He burned her
body in an attempt to destroy any evidence.
00:44:20
But he wasn't as clever
as he thought. And when his DNA was
found on the victim,
00:44:25
his fate was sealed. He showed absolutely no remorse
for leaving three children
00:44:31
without a mother, proving
that Kenneth Jackson is one of the world's
most evil killers.
00:44:37
[theme music] ♪ ♪