he was funny. jake stepfather died in 2009, and the workload got heavier. now it was 23 year old jake and his mom running the ranch. except for that time that he took off to alaska to spend money on a fishing boat. but that was about the ranch. he was on the ship for three months. and came back with a good chunk of money. and he put all of that into the ranch to save it from going under. the only break that jake ever got was time with his friends. a kind of second family. we were all best friends. so, we would all hang out and know everything that we were doing. and do it together. that man s shooting pull at some local hangouts. and drinking beer. except for jake. who was always happy to be the designated driver.
she did a posting that said, big things are happening for the jackson family. a couple days later, she posts again, do you ever hear such great news in the morning that you can t stand it? or something like that. and her friend responded saying, oh. jake is gone. stephanie seem to be treating the sudden absence as some sort of opportunity. the prosecutor found that troubling. and she read through the interviews that jake s friends had given to investigators. and she saw comments like this. it was always pretty tense at the ranch whenever dave was out there. in fact, she know that no jake was afraid of dave. and taking up jiu-jitsu had not just been for the exercise. so he decided to start taking jiu-jitsu. because he had fear of his
here is josh mann koen s with trouble at the 7-11 ranch! home on the range. sometimes here in western colorado it is so quiet that all you can hear is the wind. beautiful meadows that wave in the breeze, it s a lovely part of the valley. it is beautiful, no doubt. at the same time, that lovely lonely valley can be unforgiving place to live. it can drive some people to extremes. no one understood that better than rancher, jake. he would always spend the majority out at the ranch, just working. and a ranchers work is never done. there is always a fence somewhere that needs mending. jake seemed cut out for that life. at least until one day at age 29, jake apparently gave up that life and disappeared. nobody ever got a call or a text or a facebook message? nothing? nothing.
by august, jake had been gone almost three months. and by then, it seemed even his mom was becoming concerned. she filed a missing persons report. that wasn t enough for jake s friends. they wanted to get his story out. so they contacted chris rourke. a reporter for the gunnison times. and she called jakes mom. hey deb, thanks for calling me back. no problem. what was deb like? small, wiry woman. very talkative. she liked to talk. i know he originally was gonna go on his motorcycle. but decided to go with somebody. while the reporters recorder ran. deb told her the same thing that she had told the sheriff s deputy. jake had run off. he had taken off in a truck with a friend. and the friend did not want the dog along. and he took enough stuffer to people. she started out a little reticent. and then, the details started
misrepresented your knowledge about the disappearance of the victim. is that correct? yes, sir. by then, forensics left little doubt who would actually pull the trigger. at jakes autopsy, they found the slug that killed him. the bullet was still there. and we were able to match it to the gun. deb s gun. a ladysmith and wesson revolver. they found it under debs bed. with deb s dna on the handle. you certainly do have the right to make a statement. in may of 2019, four years after she killed her son. deb pleaded to second degree murder. even then, deb maintained, she alone did the crime and the cover-up. but my daughter stephanie jackson, in no way knowingly, had anything to do with jake s death or subsequent cover-up. she was sentenced to 40 years. i would like to start out by saying thank you. for the opportunity to speak.