Three years ago, a 25-year-old North Carolina man told a pastor at his church that he and his brothers had sexually molested their younger sister for more than 11 years–virtually her entire life. The pastor did what any halfway decent person would do–he immediately called the police, who eventually discovered that the parents knew what was happening and did absolutely nothing. On Thursday, the man and three of his brothers pleaded guilty to essentially stealing the girl’s life, and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 20 months to 15 years in prison. A fifth brother is expected to plead guilty later, while a sixth brother and his parents are going to take their chances at trial.
The saga began in December 2012, when Eric Jackson told Dan Horn, a pastor at Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, a suburb of Raleigh, that he had a terrible confession to make. Eric said that he and his five brothers–Jon, Matthew, Nathaniel, Benjamin, and Aaron–had molested their sister from the time she was four until she was 15 at their home near Hertford, just west of Elizabeth City and almost an hour south of Hampton Roads. Eric had just become a born-again Christian, and felt terrible about how he’d victimized his sister for so long. According to Perquimans County sheriff Eric Tilley, Horn told Eric that this was “not the way normal families are,” and he needed to confess.
Two days later, they made the two-hour drive to Hertford, where Eric confessed to a detective. Two of Eric’s younger brothers confessed soon after the investigation started. In April 2014, all six brothers were indicted on charges of child rape, statutory rape, and first degree sex offense. Their mother, Nita, and their father, John, were indicted on charges of felony child neglect for knowing about the abuse and doing nothing. According to one of the brothers, Nita saw them abusing their daughter at least once and just walked away.
Incredibly, Nita and John were released on $15,000 bond. Tilley was dumbfounded; he believed the parents were responsible for the abuse because “somewhere down the line, they failed.” That injustice has since been corrected. Shortly after their sons bonded out, the parents were arrested on fresh charges of felony child abuse and accessory after the fact to sexual abuse, and have been in jail ever since on $400,000 bond each. Apparently they failed in other respects as well. The Jacksons were all supposedly homeschooled in their compound-like house, but when Eric first met with investigators, he had a hard time writing his own name.
It initially didn’t look like this case was going anywhere. Nita and John took their daughter to the Colorado Springs area and initially refused to let their daughter talk to police. However, when Colorado authorities took the girl into custody, she corroborated virtually everything her brothers had told Tilley’s investigators earlier. Among other things, she said she had been assaulted at least twice a week, and feared going to hell if she told anyone about how she was being victimized.
On Thursday, Eric and Matthew pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree sex offense, and were sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. They both made tearful apologies to their sister, now 17 years old, and promised to do what they could to make up for their terrible crimes. While they begged for forgiveness, their sister isn’t quite ready to forgive them for the way they victimized her. She said that they needed to take it up with God.
Nathaniel and Benjamin pleaded guilty to four and three counts of incest, respectively. They were sentenced to 20 to 24 months in prison and three years’ probation. Under North Carolina law, Eric, Matthew, Nathaniel, and Benjamin will have to register as sex offenders for 30 years, and won’t be able to seek removal from the registry for at least 10 years.
A fifth brother, Jon, opted not to enter a plea due to a conflict of interest; his lawyer is from a firm that was owned by a relative of the presiding judge in the case, Walter Godwin. However, when he returns to court on July 20, prosecutors expect him to plead guilty. The youngest brother, Aaron, has opted to go to trial, as have his parents. To put it mildly, this is a pretty big gamble. Under North Carolina sentencing guidelines, Aaron faces a minimum of 18 years in prison if convicted on all charges and a maximum of 30 years, while his parents could get life.
I can’t even begin to imagine being victimized like this for any length of time, let alone 11 years. That girl faces a lifetime of healing, and hopefully Thursday’s hearing helped that along.
