Janese Jackson: Man allegedly said he'd 'merk' woman for rejecting him at bar
Janese Talton Jackson just wanted to get home. To her three children, twin girls and a 1-year-old son. She never made it.
It was the early hours of January 22, a bitterly cold night in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when the 29-year-old stopped inside of a bar for a drink with a friend. It was there that she encountered a man who asked her if she knew where some marijuana was. She did not. And the man proceeded to make small talk with the woman's friend, another female whom the man evidently knew.
As Jackson was leaving, police say Charles McKinney, 41, followed her out the front door and "positioned himself against her backside in a sexual manner," according to a bar employee, CBS News reports.
Jackson gently pushed him away, saying "chill," according to charging documents cited by CBS. Once she was near her vehicle, McKinney again made sexual advances. This time, the bar employee said, he saw a "flash" emanate from McKinney's hip area -- and Jackson crumpled to the ground.
I seen McKinney's arm raised and I seen a flash," the man said during a preliminary hearing to decide whether McKinney should stand trial, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
"He [expletive] shot Nessey, call 911!" the bar employee screamed to Jackson's friend, who by this time had made it to her car but had not left yet.
McKinney was arrested a short time later after a police chase. Law enforcement found heroin in his vehicle as well as a gunshot wound on his temple. He was charged with first-degree murder in addition to a slew of other charges.
His attorney claims that McKinney and Jackson knew each other and that the gun discharged accidentally after they hugged each other.
But a security guard who was at the bar that night, said during a preliminary trial that he heard McKinney say that he was going to "merk" (murder) Jackson right after she spurned his aggressive come one, WTAE reports.
McKinney's attorney vehemently denies that his client meant to shoot Jackson. In a hearing, the defendant's counsel Wendy Williams told the judge that she has a strong case. “I’m saying to you that we are very confident that we can show that it was not an intentional homicide,” she said, according to KDKA TV.
Jackson is not dead because of her beliefs or because of anything she did. She's dead because she simply chose to assert her rights over her own body. She said no.
McKinney may face trial later this year.
Jackson was the sister to Pennsylvania state Rep. Ed Gainey. He said that it was early in the morning on that fateful day when he got the call that changed his life.
When I got the call early in the morning, it was devastating. It was devastating for so many reasons, because the first one said she was dead," Gainey told KDKA in a gut-wrenching interview.
He said going to the scene -- where his sister lay dead in the street -- was the most surreal moment of his life.
“Going there, it becomes real. You’re seeing it live. You’re seeing your sister on the ground. You’re seeing it live and direct, and one of the most difficult memories for me was when they put her in the blue bag,” Gainey said.
Gainey told KDKA that from this moment going forward he wants to make his little sister proud. “For me its about honoring her in everything that I do in my daily life, then I know that this thing of death won’t make me bitter,” he said.
