Mahogany Jackson, a Birmingham woman tortured for hours before she was fatally shot in the back of her head, likely knew she wasn’t going to survive the abduction, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
The 20-year-old mother of a 3-year-old daughter was so terrified by the physical and sexual attacks – most caught on video recorded by the suspects – that she had a bowel movement on the floor.
“The fact that the victim defecated herself around the time she was being ordered to shower speaks to her level of knowledge of what is about to happen to her,’’ Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Charissa Henrich said in court Wednesday, “which was she was not going to leave, ever, and she was going to die.”
Henrich’s statements came during a preliminary hearing before District Judge William Bell for six of the eight suspects charged in Jackson’s kidnapping and death.
Three of the suspects – Brandon Pope, 24, Francis “Ace” Harris, 25, and Jeremiah “Kodak” McDowell, 18 – were charged with capital murder during a first-degree kidnapping and capital murder during first-degree sodomy.
Five others are charged with felony murder– Teja Lewis, 26, Si’Niya McCall, 23, Giovannie Clapp, 23, Blair Green, 25, and Ariana Lashay Robinson, 23.
Lewis and Clapp were also initially charged with second-degree assault for allegedly pistol-whipping Jackson.
Pope, Harris, McDowell, Lewis, Clapp, and Robinson were in court Tuesday. Green and McCall’s preliminary hearings are set for March 18.
Birmingham homicide Det. Mark Green testified for hours Wednesday, detailing how a witness came forward early in the investigation with videos, evidence and location of Jackson’s body.
That witness, Green said, came forward to clear his name after he felt he had been accused on Facebook as being involved in Jackson’s disappearance.
Green said Jackson possibly stole a gun from someone, and someone had then stolen it back from her and she was upset. That, he said, may have led to her violent death.
The detective also said one of the suspects discovered by looking at Jackson’s phone that she had messaged family members, saying she was being held hostage and sending them her location.
It was at that point, Green testified, alleged shooter Harris said, “She ain’t going nowhere.”
When the hearing ended, the judge found probable cause to send the capital murder during a kidnapping charges for Pope, Harris and McDowell to a grand jury.
