Original subtitles

Law enforcement arrive expecting a home invasion,

and they arrive to something totally different.

The first thing I thought was,

'Whoa. A triple homicide of a family.'

This was something that I'd never seen before

There was a realisation that things...

weren't as they were reported.

We don't know what really happened here, but it's not this.

This is wrong.

I have not seen any cases

where a crime scene...

and a subsequent injury have been staged.

There was nothing about his story I was buying from the very beginning

There was no sign of forced entry.

There was no sign that anybody had been in or out of that home.

Everyone who knew Alex knew him

as somebody who would never do something like this.

This was somebody that was an Eagle Scout,

came from a good family.

You could see it on his face, moments where he...

had the realisation that he didn't think of that.

This is probably one of the most unique cases

I'll ever have or do in my career.

It will always stay, and you'll always have thoughts about it.

I just wonder why someone would do something like this.

I love Cedar Rapids.

I always describe it as a big little town.

We have more than 137,000 people that live here.

But if you grow up here, anybody that grows up here knows

you're likely to run into someone you know while you're out and about.

It's just such a friendly atmosphere.

Everybody always has each other's back.

You're walking down the sidewalk, you pass someone,

they're probably gonna tell you hello, wave at you,

might even ask you how you're doing, so people are friendly here.

There's been two major natural disasters

in my lifetime living here:

the flood of 2008, and then we had a derecho in 2020.

Both of those situations caused extensive damage,

and the community always comes together.

It feels safe here.

This is somewhere I am comfortable raising my son and my family.

I don't think that there's anywhere you can fully escape crime, but...

...compared to some of the larger cities in the country, yeah,

I think it's a safe, family-oriented place to live.

Jan, Melissa, Sabrina and Alex

were a pretty tight-knit family.

They tended to keep to themselves.

But, you know, from the outside, they seemed like a totally normal,

you know, all-American family.

The family, in 2011,

decided to move from Oregon to Cedar Rapids, Iowa,

to this very flowery, beautiful neighbourhood.

You had Jan the father, you had Melissa the mother,

Sabrina the younger sister, and then you had Alex.

Jan was retired. He was in IT. Melissa was retired.

She was also previously in IT

but had now taken to gardening and photographing.

Sabrina was a senior that was recently graduating,

and Alex had just came back from the University of Iowa,

where he was basically flunking out.

They kept close to themself.

Neighbours said that they were nice, they were polite,

but they weren't overtalkative.

They weren't over... let's go out and hang out.

They mostly just kept to themself as a family, to the four.

The pictures that we were shown, and the way it was described,

there were pictures of the family together throughout the home,

seemingly a loving family that would play games together

and spend time together, take trips together.

Sabrina's friends described her as outgoing,

great in school and just an all-around good person.

It sounded like they were a tight family unit

who would take vacations,

spend all of this time together, and something happened.

Something happened with Alexander's grades in school

showing that that shift happened, at least academically, for him.

Alex was kind of like a lone wolf.

He kind of disagreed with things about his views

that his sister had about politics.

He was getting in arguments with his father because of grades,

not having a job, not doing anything.

So I don't think that this was as tight of a family

as Alex wanted people to think.

I think there definitely was some cracks in the foundation.

Something had changed from when Alex was in high school

because we've heard things that they seem to be a good family,

to when he came back from college

that he wasn't the same type of person.

When the Dispatcher received the 911 call, right away,

she's getting this mixed information that doesn't make sense to her.

She's getting this call that there is this burglary

that happened in the bright early morning hours of day, of summertime,

here in Iowa, one of the hottest days of the year.

Alex is giving these details that's not adding up.

And you can even hear in the Dispatcher's voice,

like, she's asking, 'OK, so tell me what happened. Who's there?'

And Alex is kind of responding with a question to her question.

I think when he got the call,

he was expecting officers to arrive, and there won't be many questions.

The Dispatcher is asking him,

'Can you give me a description of this person?

Can you tell me who's there? Who is not there?'

And so officers, when they arrive at the scene,

they don't know what to expect.

There's a rehearsed quality to it,

like he's got some lines he wants to say.

When they begin to question him, he seems a little taken aback,

but he doesn't say, 'Just get someone here!'

He doesn't get angry, doesn't...

say, 'I need help. I need help now.'

He calmly delivers his address.

These are all red flags for...

not necessarily a call made by a guilty party,

but a call that needs deeper investigation.

You know, a quiet neighbourhood like this,

there's rarely even a cop car driving through.

And when this crime happened,

there was a giant fleet of authorities

descending upon this very safe neighbourhood.

And suddenly, you know, neighbours,

everyone in the surrounding area was seeing this giant response.

So it set off tons of alarm bells.

When this happened, we first heard about it

on the police scanners here in the newsroom,

and it sounded like a home invasion.

And so that's what the initial impression was

as we sent our Reporter out to check out this home invasion,

even as police first arrived.

When Alexander Jackson first called 911,

he reported that a man broke into his home,

a masked man broke into his home, shot his father,

that he had been shot in the foot, as well.

And so that's what law enforcement thought they were arriving to.

Yeah.

Yeah. You're good there?

I think any first responder, no matter what their training,

would say, 'This is wrong.

We don't know what really happened here, but it's not this.'

We have to give Alex's story...

We have to treat it right away: let's give it some credibility.

Like, what if he is telling the truth?

What if this is a complete...

...unlikely series of events that he actually is telling the truth?

You're gonna go upstairs?

We have to bring canines

to search to see: can we find human scent?

Can we find a different odour to attach? How far do we extend this?

We went the whole neighbourhood.

And the reason why we're doing this is we're trying to see:

did anybody get a glimpse of this other person?

Did somebody come or go? Cos we have all these angles at this house.

Maybe we'll catch him.

We were thinking, when we went up there,

that there's no way that someone comes into this neighbourhood,

at this time of day, unseen,

there was no evidence that anything had been moved,

or disturbed, or stolen, or damaged.

There was no evidence of a struggle.

Law enforcement were searching the woods around the area.

There was a construction crew in the area.

They were checking all of the cameras:

many of these homes had surveillance video as well as the Jacksons' home.

They didn't see any sign of forced entry,

any sign of anybody else that would have been in the area

going to or from that home on any of these cameras.

You don't happen to have anything in there?

I remember it being hot that day.

We went there and were met at the door by the investigators

in the crime scene unit that were processing the scene

and essentially walked through the crime scene.

The first thing I thought was, 'Whoa.

A triple homicide of a family.

It shocked my conscience.

I knew immediately that this was a very personal...

...murder... murders.

That...

this was something that I'd never seen before.

When we walk in,

we find Melissa, on the ground

against the wall, gunshot to the face.

I stepped next to it.

And then we make our way down the stairs and then face-first,

we see Jan, pile of blood, multiple gunshots.

So we realise that he got shot more than once.

We go behind the couch: there's a bunch of shell casings,

indicating that someone was standing there sniping out...

Jan as he was coming down.

And then we walk to the back of the bedroom.

Down the hall to the right, there's Alex's room.

And then next door is Sabrina's room,

and then she's in her covers, blanket pulled up.

And we see that she's got a close shot to her face.

Obviously it takes your breath away when you see...

three individuals executed, as we would describe it,

in this manner.

And it's like a very personal...

...execution because...

Sabrina was done very closely,

because we found the shell casing into her covers.

And we also saw that she had been shot more than once.

And so what we are trying to piece when we get there is:

who was the first person to get shot?

Like, how did three people get shot and someone else didn't wake up?

The moment officers arrived on scene,

we knew that he was a suspect...

based off of that call to 911

Even in walking through,

after knowing what we were going to be walking into,

it was violent, it was personal.

It was...

It was... There were so many thoughts.

There was not a doubt in my mind

that the person who committed these offences

was the sole living family member.

I'm sorry.

With all homicide investigations,

you have to do what we call a victimology.

A victimology is a study of each one of your victims

to determine what was going on in their life,

any problem areas or whatever,

to determine what made them a target for this particular crime.

This would also include the surviving member.

What exactly was going on in his life,

particularly if we start to believe that he may be involved:

well, what is the reason?

What is the motive for him...

to have killed these other three members of his family?

So initially, we want to sit and talk with him and get him to, 'OK.

What exactly happened? What do you remember? What was going on before?'

The holes in his story were evident right from the start.

First of all, it didn't make any sense.

Secondly, the way he told it didn't match up

to things that they could see right away at the scene

without even much investigation.

So they really have to learn more about what's going on in his life.

How is he feeling? Was he angry?

What's happening? They have to explore more about his background.

Even though he's confronted with

all these inconsistencies, he still maintains what happened.

How does he admit that he killed three members of his family?

Or he's just hoping upon hope...

that the police maybe have got something wrong.

It was so minimal what he said to 911 operators.

It was... a little more detailed

what he initially said to investigators during his interview.

But as they probed him for more information,

it... I mean, and you could see it on his face,

moments where he had realisation that he didn't think of that,

or that didn't make that much sense.

One thing he said was, 'It was my own gun.

The person entered and used our own gun and then left it.'

That just didn't make sense.

Like, someone breaks into your house...

...and does these brutal executions...

to your family, leave you there...

so that you could potentially identify him,

and then leave the murder weapon... makes no sense at all.

So, like, the fact that he gave us a story that made no sense,

that he had this superficial injury that made no sense,

and that he tried to present his family as something made no sense.

So immediately, I would say...

within probably less than hours, he was our suspect.

Alex has been removed from the scene.

Now they can process the house, which is where they clearly see

that his story has fallen apart, has holes and contradictions.

It's looking more and more like he's involved.

And as they find out more about the weapon,

it seems to have a very unique way

of being handled and loaded.

It's not a typical gun that you can just load and shoot.

Our officers actually had trouble figuring out how to load the gun,

because the gun had to be loaded in a particular way.

It had to be loaded on the butt of the gun,

which is kind of where you put the gun against your shoulder.

And then it had a rod that you had to pull out,

and you had to push the rod back in,

then you had to crank the chamber to get the bullet in there.

And so first off, it didn't make sense that some random stranger...

walked into a house, found a gun, a gun that was unique

where our officers didn't know how to load it.

That stranger knew how to load it, had time to load it,

and then was able to...

take out three people.

And then the biggest guy, the person that weighed the most,

the tallest, who could identify him,

wrestled with him, shot him in the foot, and said...

'We're good.'

So right there, that didn't make any sense to us.

And so what we wanted to figure out was trying to figure out...

what was the order?

I firmly believe that the sister

was the first person whom was shot,

and that the sound of that .22 rifle

are what brought the father downstairs from his office.

His office was located just at the top of that stairway,

and her bedroom was down in the basement in the furthest corner.

I believe that the sound from the two shots...

that happened in that back bedroom are what brought him downstairs.

And then the mother was the final victim to have been killed.

What the forensic experts found,

the bloodstain examiners found was that...

there was evidence of blood spatter that had been caused by a firearm

on the floor of one of the bedrooms.

And there were also bloody footprints leaving the bedroom,

but no footprints of that type entering the bedroom.

This undermines Alex's account,

because their view is that...

...he was shot in the foot...

in that bedroom, and then walked from that bedroom to the basement.

In addition to that, the fingerprint examination of the weapon

suggested that it had been held in such a way

that could enable him to shoot himself in the foot.

So the hypothesis there is that...

he shot himself in the foot after he had shot the three victims

to make it look as if it had been caused by an intruder.

Police were out searching for...

whoever this intruder was, the so-called intruder.

They went through all the surveillance video around the home

from neighbours as well as the Jacksons' home.

There was no sign of forced entry.

There was no sign that anybody had been in or out of that home.

We did get a copy of the criminal complaint,

and in that criminal complaint, it was listed that Alexander Jackson...

was being charged with killing his whole family,

and that at the time he had told police that his father told him

he needed to get a job or move out.

So when we're talking about the why, there's a lot of question:

what would motivate someone to do this?

That was kind of the floating theory,

was that his dad had told him that he needed to move out of the house.

Maybe that could have been a reason.

This tight-knit community, they're under the impression that...

some crazy, scary intruder is the one who's come in

and committed this violent crime.

But then when police release the news that it's actually...

Alex who's been arrested and charged for doing this to his own family,

the horror that's come over that community,

I mean, they could not imagine this young man

ever doing something like that.

The fact that Alex is a fabricator who...

has already created an elaborate story

and has pre-planned the 911 call, and all of that,

means that he's gonna have a psychological investment...

in his version.

And even though they might charge him

with three counts of first degree murder,

he's not gonna... he's not gonna admit into that.

He's going to maintain his story

until such time as they can prove their case.

He obviously knows his story has holes.

But I think he's done enough research to realise

that he's just got to stick to it and make them prove it.

He's a young man who wants to control things.

And he believes he still can do this.

We have 45 days from the date of arrest.

So he gets arrested, sees a judge.

Our clock starts: 45 days to file those official charges.

And then he's arraigned, which is when he...

gives his official plea of not guilty.

And then court dates are scheduled from there, and a trial date is set.

The case is building constantly.

Obviously, the first 48 hours, we...

we all knew that we had our suspect, Alex Jackson.

And to completely verify, without a doubt...

I think probably within a few weeks, we were confident,

by getting footage back from the house,

as well as two neighbours that were close by

and having investigators comb through hours and hours

of surveillance footage and never, ever finding anybody else.

And also when we had our K-9 Officer verify there was no other tracks,

or other scents, or anything else that would indicate

a second person leaving the area.

We knew that we had a strong case,

so the rest of the things we were doing was just adding...

the extra toppings that we needed to just seal the case.

Throughout the next several weeks, if not a couple of months,

additional information trickled in that required review,

and required adding to our paperwork

to make sure that the charging documents that we filed

had all of the information included in them.

After his initial appearance,

there is still investigatory work that happens.

It's a fact that defence attorneys don't win cases

because they found some type of new forensic evidence.

They win cases because they can go back

and show that the police did something wrong,

either in the collection or how it was analysed.

This is why it's absolutely critical

that when you're involved in a crime scene examination,

you have to do everything exactly by the book.

You cannot take shortcuts,

or you'll see it in court.

When his trial began, everyone was invested.

Everybody wanted to know what happened.

Was he really capable of doing this

or was there maybe something else at play here?

Everyone wanted answers.

The whole community, and everyone that knew Alex and this family,

were searching for reasons

why he could possibly do something like this,

and the fact that there were no signs indicating that...

he was struggling, that he had some issues,

or anything along those lines, made it all the more terrifying.

How would they be able to pinpoint that

in somebody else, maybe, down the line?

There was truly no indication that anything was going on with him.

I can't remember another case prior to this

where we had somebody charged with killing their whole family.

And so it was completely shocking. It was very sad.

And we heard from friends of Sabrina,

we heard as much as we could about the family,

who was described as a loving family.

And they had a lot of people that cared about them.

I was not at the school when they had a vigil for Sabrina.

We had a different crew out there that night,

but I still remember watching our coverage,

and you could just feel sadness, you know?

She was full of life. She was young, and she was taken suddenly.

The Jacksons' extended family, at this point,

they've lost key members of their family in such a horrific way.

And then to find out that Alex himself

is the one that could have caused all this,

and also, they also may be losing him and their family,

was just an absolute tragedy.

And they could not understand why

he would ever be driven to something like this.

Any time you have somebody kill their whole family,

obviously that's something that's going to be covered in the news.

Alexander Jackson, as people knew him prior to this happening,

was... he was successful in high school.

He was a musician. He was great in band.

And then he's being charged with murdering his whole family.

I think the shock of that shift really fascinated people.

And I think they were wondering why. Why would this happen?

I think that on the top of the fact of his story, you know,

of him sticking to his story, saying, 'It wasn't me.

Somebody broke into my house and did this.'

I mean, that story was wild enough.

I think people were really interested in it.

They were interested in the why and in what really happened here.

He was the sole heir and was potentially,

if he was found not guilty, could get a very large amount of money...

and estate from this.

And so I think that got people's attention.

And the fact that it was just here in Iowa

that we had somebody kill three people within matters of seconds.

I mean, we had national attention.

Preparing for any trial requires a very in-depth look

at all of the evidence that we've gotten.

When we review evidence in preparation for trial,

we are asking ourselves what pieces of the puzzle do we need

to create a full and completed picture?

Whether that is through witness testimony or photographs,

or scans of the home that would be, you know,

digital renditions of what the crime scene looked like,

and just really making sure that we have...

a piece of evidence for every piece...

of the puzzle that we need to put together.

There had been a year-and-a-half gap between...

when this happened and when it came to trial.

We knew that he was sticking with his story of not guilty.

So I expected the defence was going to try to say

that this wasn't really Alexander Jackson that did this.

What does stick out to me, and this was very unique about this case

versus others that I've covered:

usually with a defendant, their family will be there,

their parents will be there, their siblings will be there,

their friends are there to support them.

And Alexander Jackson killed his whole family.

So he did not have his mom in the courtroom,

his dad in the courtroom or his sister there.

All right. We are on the record.

We have Counsel and Mr Jackson present.

Alexander Jackson...

...wants you to think that he had the perfect family life.

On the Eagle Scout badge, there are two stars.

Those stars stand for truth... and knowledge.

The evidence is gonna show you what the truth is...

about this family dynamics.

And it's not what...

Mr Jackson claimed it to be.

The onset of our presentation

started with the 911 call.

It was literally unbelievable.

And so that's how we intended to present it.

The initial call, the initial arrival of officers,

the moments where...

there was a realisation that things...

weren't as they were reported.

The interview of the defendant where...

...Investigators Denlinger and Lacina were just...

poking holes in everything...

that he was trying to get them to believe.

A lot of cases are very based on what there is.

This case was different in that...

the absence of evidence in this case

was just as important as the physical evidence that was found.

Based on your training and experience, Investigator Bosenberg,

did you form an opinion as to whether or not

there were any signs of forced entry to this backdoor?

I did not see any of those signs on this door.

The back door was not the only...

point of entry or exit from this home, correct?

Correct. Investigator Bosenberg.

Anywhere in the house,

was there any sign, or anything that indicated to you,

that... entry into this home was forced in any way?

No.

Not having proof that there was someone else

is evidence that Alex did it: his fingerprints were on the gun,

he talked about this was actually his gun.

He had cleaned the gun the night before

to make sure it would work properly.

Talking about making sure that the gun only held so many rounds,

and that the amount of rounds that he used showed

that he had to reload the gun, which also shows that he...

deliberately, specifically, and with,

you know, malice did this, that this wasn't an accident.

And ladies and gentlemen, there's a whole lot missing...

from those cameras.

And there's a whole lot missing from those cameras

because there was not an intruder.

Investigator Denlinger told you that he watched six hours...

of footage from the Nest camera from the Yang house,

and there was nothing.

I have seen numerous cases...

where evidence has been hidden.

But I have not seen, I don't think any cases,

where a crime scene...

and a subsequent injury have been staged.

The walking back and forth, the intentional leaving...

the firearm in the location where he...

reported the struggle occurred,

and that that firearm was knocked out of his hands:

I've never seen staging like that.

Discussion about staging and trying to come up with this story

that it wasn't him, and that he got hurt too,

definitely helped show this was

something he had been thinking about.

He... murdered his family...

and then went to his bedroom, sat on his bed,

shot himself in the foot...

...drug the gun out with him,

staged it next to his father, and then called 911.

When you look at your jury instructions,

and you look at the elements of the crimes

that the state is required to prove, motive isn't on there.

We can lodge some guesses.

He talked about being the kid home from summer vacation,

and his dad wanting him to get a job,

and him getting ready to be kicked out of the house.

And if he doesn't have a job, then... he's out,

with $30 in his bank account: is the money the motive?

Is the fact that he's going to inherit houses,

and assets, and all of that: is that motive?

I don't know, but guess what. I don't have to prove that motive.

Some acts...

are so cruel and irrational...

that regardless of what the motive is,

it's never going to be enough.

It's never going to make someone understand why,

because rational people don't think irrationally, by their very nature.

We just focused on...

regardless of the reason, these are the things that happened.

And no reason is ever going to be good enough

for him to have committed the atrocities he committed that day.

Members of the jury, has the jury reached a verdict in this matter?

We have.

As to each of the three counts,

we, the jury, find the defendant, Alexander Jackson,

guilty of the offence of murder in the first degree.

And is that the verdict of the jury?

It is, your honour.

Alexander Jackson will spend the rest of his life in prison.

That's the automatic sentence

for first degree murder in Iowa with no chance at parole.

But you can never bring the Jacksons back,

so I don't know how much closure

you can truly have with a loss like that.

After he was found guilty,

and I was speaking with the family in kind of the lobby area

of the Linn County Courthouse,

they had pre-written this statement.

It says, 'We want to thank the prosecution team and the jury

for giving our family justice.

Alex wanted the world to think he was a victim

of this horrendous crime, but we know that is not the case.

And now everyone knows the truth of what happened that day.

Alex murdered three members of our family,

and that pain will never go away.

Jan, Melissa and Sabrina were loved: they will live in our hearts,

and the hearts of those who knew them, forever.

The Jackson Family.'

This is probably one of the most unique cases

I'll ever have or do in my career, so yeah,

it will always stay, and you'll always have thoughts about it.

I just wonder why someone would do something like this.

I don't think you can forget it: if you...

were a neighbour, or if you knew the family.

If you covered the story, if you were here when it happened,

and you heard it on the news, I think this is something that...

people remember the story.

It's definitely one that I think I'll always remember.

For the family, this was something that was going to affect them

for the rest of their lives.

It was something that they're going to have to cope with moving forward.

While the rest of the community, or other people,

can tune in and out of the trial and walk away from it,

that's something that they'll never be able to walk away from.

This is...

the family that...

that I grew up in.

I grew up with an older brother and...

parents who were married, in a less affluent house,

but in a house that was filled with love.

And so this is one of those cases that...

...is oddly relatable...

to everyone,

while at the same time...

being incomprehensible.

Because how does...

...that picture-perfect...

...loving family...

get destroyed... in this manner?

It's...

easy to relate...

...to the...

...pre-murder family...

and impossible to reconcile that with...

...the post-murder family.

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