A former Eastern Kentucky University professor entered a plea deal Wednesday in connection with his wife’s 2019 murder, stopping a trial that was set to begin next week.
Glenn Jackson didn’t plead guilty to Ella Jackson’s murder, however. He entered an Alford plea, which is a convoluted plea that allows a defendant to acknowledge that they likely would be found guilty at trial without actually admitting guilt, WLEX reported.
Jackson entered to Alford plea to a manslaughter charge but pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence and now faces a maximum of 14 years in prison.
He will also likely be given credit for six years served on house arrest, meaning he’ll be free in less than eight years.
Ella Jackson, 47, was also a professor at Eastern Kentucky University, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Her husband reported her missing on October 22, 2019, saying he’d last seen her two days earlier. Oddly, she left behind her cellphone and her 6-year-old son when she vanished.
As investigators looked into her disappearance, they learned that she had seen a domestic violence advocate shortly before her disappearance, a discovery that prompted them to obtain a search warrant for the home and vehicle.s
That’s when they found evidence of foul play, secret recordings of Ella Jackson admitting she was afraid of her husband, and a significant amount of her blood in the trunk of Glenn Jackson’s vehicle.
She had also, apparently, secretly made recordings of arguments the couple had and told several friends that if anything ever happened to her, Glenn Jackson would be responsible.
Glenn Jackson was ultimately arrested in April 2020 and charged with murder/domestic violence and tampering with physical evidence. A week after his arrest, investigators found Ella Jackson’s partial skeletal remains in a wooded area near property he owned, WLEX said.
A medical examiner determined she died from a homicide but was unable to determine her exact cause of death, although she did have a skull fracture.
Jason Hans, Ella Jackson’s ex-husband who has been raising her child since Glenn Jackson’s arrest, told WLEX the Alford plea was disturbing.
“He will end up having done about 40 percent of his sentence sitting at his victim’s house, which is incredibly frustrating,” Hans said.
But, he said, “Justice will be protecting women and children before they’re harmed, not punishing people years after they’re harmed.”
Jackson will continue to live in his victim’s home on house arrest until he’s sentenced next month.
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