A 911 call. A gunshot. A Macon woman’s voice: ‘I had to shoot him.’ Was it self-defense?
The true story of what compelled Donna Elyse Jackson to shoot her boyfriend in the chest at close range with a .40-caliber Glock pistol one night seven years ago may never come to light.
She has told the police she killed Ricky Smith in self-defense; that Smith, armed with two knives, had lunged at her.
Prosecutors allege otherwise. And as they try this week to prove her guilty of murder, Jackson’s own voice and the last words her boyfriend ever spoke — recorded during a 911 call Jackson placed as she squeezed the trigger — may offer jurors the most accurate known account of the killing.
The shooting happened Labor Day weekend 2015 at the house where Jackson and Smith were living on Macon Avenue, just south of the old Napier Square shopping plaza.
Jackson, now 52 and most recently of New Jersey, had supposedly worked as a correctional officer there. Smith, a construction worker who was 53 at the time, had been dating Jackson for about a year.
The case has taken seven years to make it to trial largely because of Jackson’s mental state. Her lawyer has argued that she suffers from a delusional disorder, but earlier this month she was deemed competent to stand trial.
On Tuesday, the first day of testimony in her murder trial, Jackson looked on as Smith’s sister took the witness stand.
The sister testified that Smith had been “infatuated” with Jackson, but that Jackson was “controlling” and condescending and considered people down South “slow.”
The sister, Gloria Smith, said the pair had lived with her for a time in the months prior to her brother’s death on Sept. 5, 2015.
Gloria Smith said she’d had to kick Jackson out when Jackson refused to stop “playing” in the house with a handgun Jackson had purchased from a local pawn shop.
Earlier Tuesday, during opening statements, prosecutor Dawn Baskin offered a timeline of the night Ricky Smith was slain.
Baskin said Smith and Jackson had gone out to a lounge named Skyline and later returned home at about 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 4.
Roughly 90 minutes passed before Jackson dialed 911 — twice.
The first call ended with a pistol blast. The next call, made seconds later, began with Jackson saying, “I had to shoot him.”
There is no question who shot Smith.
“The only issue,” Baskin told the jury, “is why.”
The prosecutor went on to suggest that Jackson later gave investigators “a version of events so bizarre that it made no sense.”
Baskin said the position Smith’s dying body was found near the home’s front door made it seem unlikely that he had, as Jackson said, lunged at her with two knives. (Knives prosecutors have suggested that Jackson may have placed beside him to stage the scene.)
Baskin also spoke of how Jackson told an investigator, when describing the events that led to the shooting, “The truth never changes.”
“That is the only thing that I will agree with Donna Jackson about,” Baskin told the jury.
“You will see, based upon the cold, hard evidence ... that Donna Jackson is lying, that she murdered Ricky Smith. ... You will hear his terror.”
At one point, a juror was seen dozing off.
Judge David L. Mincey III called for a brief recess.
The snoozing panelist was brought before the bench, where it was mentioned that she was about to drink some coffee.
“Let the bailiff know,” the judge said, “when you have consumed it.”
When the trial resumed 15 minutes later, Jackson’s lawyer, Gregory L. Bushway, told the jury that alcohol-fueled emotions had played a role in the deadly clash.
Bushway said Smith had been drinking beer and tequila while Jackson drank sparkling wine with orange juice. They began “bickering” at the lounge about who had the key to their house.
“They’re upset, they’re at odds,” Bushway said.
When they arrived home, Smith followed Jackson around the house and “won’t leave her alone,” Bushway said.
Bushway said Jackson picked up her Glock and took it to the laundry room and unloaded it. Bushway said Smith saw her do that and told her, perhaps threateningly, that she should reload the weapon.
“There was not a lot of logic going on,” Bushway said.
Tensions cooled but then turned deadly.
Smith, according to Jackson’s version of events, burst into her room. He was irate about family relations.
“She’s telling him to get away and he won’t,” Bushway said.
“I expect,” Bushway went on, “the state will make a lot of the fact that she says he has a gun, instead of knives. She does later say knives. But he’s like, ‘I don’t have a gun.’ ... She’s standing there. She’s been drinking. He’s been up on her, she can’t get him away. The adrenaline is pumping. She’s got a gun in one hand, a phone in the other and he’s got two knives and he keeps coming at her. ... Donna Jackson shot Ricky Smith one time at close range in self-defense. She’s not guilty.”
It was not clear whether Jackson will testify in her own defense, but considering her defense claims it would not be unlikely.
Later, prosecutors played recordings of two 911 calls that Jackson made just after 1 a.m. on Sept. 5, 2015.
During the first call, Smith can be heard in the background, seemingly bewildered, after Jackson appeared to tell the operator that Smith had a gun.
“You the one got the gun on me,” Smith said. “I ain’t got no (expletive) gun.”
“Back up off me,” Jackson said, later mentioning “those knives.”
Then came a bang, a single gunshot.
“Back up off me,” Jackson said as the line went dead.
Seconds later, she again dialed 911.
“I had to shoot him. He had two guu ... ,” Jackson said, pausing, correcting herself. “He had two knives at me.”
Then she asked the operator to send help.
“He’s laying on the floor,” Jackson said. “He’s still breathing.”
But soon he was not.
Testimony was expected to resume Wednesday.
This story was originally published October 19, 2022 at 6:50 AM.