Curtis Jackson’s sisters are asking Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to spare his life, even though he killed four of their children, paralyzed another and stabbed one of the sisters.
The 47-year-old convicted killer is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. today at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
He killed the four children, ages 2 to 5, in 1990 during a rampage that started when he went to his mother’s home in Leflore County’s Rising Sun community to take drug money from a safe, in part, to hire a prostitute, court records show.
His mother was at church that day, but Jackson’s adult sister, Regina Jackson, was at the home with her two daughters and four nieces and nephews. Regina Jackson was stabbed five times. Her two daughters and two nephews had their throats slit. Another niece was so severely injured that she was paraplegic until her 2009 death.
Regina Jackson told The Associated Press that she was meeting with Gov. Phil Bryant on Monday and would plead for her brother’s life. She also wrote Bryant a letter last month asking for a reprieve, saying she doesn’t want her brother to get out of prison and that she “just can’t take any more killing.”
“As a mother who lost two babies, all I’m asking is that you not make me go through the killing of my brother,” she wrote.
She told the AP in a telephone interview that she has forgiven her brother over the years. “If they kill him, they’re doing the same thing that he did. The dying is going to have to stop somewhere.”
Another sister and her husband, Glenda and Andrew Kuyoro, have also asked Bryant in a letter to spare the family grief by not going through with the execution.
Those are the same arguments that the family made prior to Jackson’s trial in Copiah County, where it was moved due to pre-trial publicity.
But a jury still decided to give him the death penalty for his heinous crimes.
Gray Evans of Greenwood, a retired circuit judge who presided over Jackson’s trial and sentencing in 1991, said he had talked to an unnamed “very intelligent” female juror about why the jury made that decision.
“She told me that they thought it was so heinous that they didn’t think there was any other choice. That’s what justice was,” Evans told the Commonwealth.
Curtis Jackson’s attorney, Chip Davis of Tupelo, filed a clemency request with Bryant’s office last week.
Bryant’s spokesman, Mick Bullock, confirmed that the governor met with Curtis Jackson’s relatives at a state office building in Jackson. Bullock said the governor “is reviewing the facts associated with this case and has no further comment at this time.”
Cliff Johnson, a Jackson attorney helping the sisters, said Monday that the case is unusual because the victims are asking for clemency for the attacker.
“Much is said about the importance of respecting the rights and wishes of victims and their families. This case raises a very important question: Are we committed to honoring the wishes of victims’ families when they ask for mercy, or do we hear those voices only when they ask for vengeance?” Johnson asked.
Courts have already rejected Jackson’s arguments; his appeals ran out in May when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
His mother, Martha Jackson, said Monday that she has forgiven her son and plans to visit him before the execution.
“If I don’t forgive him, God don’t forgive me,” she said.
Martha Jackson said she’s not sure if she’ll watch the lethal injection.
