REBECCA STEELE - 10 yo (4/2011)/ Convicted: Aunt's BF; Herman Leonard Jackson, III - Jackson GA

Man Arrested in Murder of Mother, Daughter

JACKSON, Ga. - A day after the brutal murder
of a mother and daughter in a Butts County home, the man wanted for the
crime turned himself into authorities. Butts County Sheriff Gene
Pope told FOX 5 News Herman Leonard Jackson, III was picked up in Henry
County on Sunday. Pope said Saturday that Jackson is responsible for the
vicious slaying of a 41-year-old woman and her 10-year-old daughter.
Jackson lived with the two victims at a home on Southern Shored Road
near Jackson, Ga. He said the woman, who family members identify as
Penny Philips was married to Jackson. The sheriff said the
woman's son discovered his mother's body just after 10 a.m. Saturday. It
was hours after he had a strange encounter with the suspect where the
suspect handed him a cigarette and said goodbye. He told detectives he
went back to bed and only later when he got did he discover the gruesome
scene. A few hours after authorities were called to the home,
detectives located Jackson's white 2003 Ford F-150 extended cab pickup
truck abandoned at a Henry County gas station, just a few miles from the
crime scene. Neighbors told FOX 5 News the family had moved into
the neighborhood about six months ago. They said they have heard
fighting and shouting coming from the house in the past Jackson's family spoke
with FOX 5 early Sunday morning to plead for him to surrender to police peacefully.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/local_news/man-arrested-in-murder-of-mother,-daughter-20110424-tm

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Jackson sentenced in 2011 murders
Guilty plea for two sentences of life without parole

By Michael Davis, mdavis@myjpa.com
As of Tuesday, September 4, 2012

A judge on Tuesday sentenced Herman L. Jackson III to two consecutive life sentences, without the possibility of parole, in the 2011 deaths of his wife and her niece.

#Towaliga Circuit District Attorney Richard Milam had been seeking the death penalty in the case, but said he agreed to the plea deal after consulting with the victims’ family.

#Jackson was accused in the stabbing deaths of his wife, 41-year-old Penny Phillips, and her niece, 10-year-old Rebecca Steele, who lived in the couple’s Southern Shores Drive home.

#Authorities were called to the home the morning of April 23, 2011, Easter weekend, after one of several other children in the home could not get a response at the couple’s bedroom door, and went inside where Phillips was found.

#Steele was found in her bedroom nearby.

#After a night and a day on the run, Jackson turned himself in to the Henry County Jail, his pastor by his side, on April 24, Easter Sunday.

#At Tuesday’s sentencing, Jackson, 44, waived his rights to appeal the sentence and entered a guilty plea to two counts of malice murder. Judge Tommy Wilson accepted the recommendation of prosecutors and defense attorneys of consecutive sentences of life without parole.

#“He’s agreed that he’s not going to seek any review of his sentence. He’s not going to appeal. He’s not going to seek to withdraw the motion,” Brad Gardner, one of Jackson’s defense attorneys, said before the hearing.

#Jackson was also represented by Jerilyn Bell, also of the Georgia Capital Defender’s Office, though she was not at the hearing Tuesday.

#Before issuing the sentence, Wilson allowed members of Phillips’ family who were in the audience to speak if they wished. After a brief outburst from some, Phillips’ oldest daughter, Valerie Proctor, read from a prepared statement.

#Through tears, she described her mother as caring and kind, and Steele as vibrant and full of potential.

#“My mother is truly a beautiful woman. She was the type of friend you wanted to have and the mother that I wish I could be,” Proctor said.

#“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Rebecca. I often find myself overwhelmed with pain knowing that her life ended too abruptly. Thinking about the future that she would have had and the wonderful woman that Rebecca would have grown into, the beautiful life that was destroyed. Rebecca was innocent; there are no words that can express how losing her feels.”

#Andrea Inscor, of Riverdale, who described herself as Phillips’ best friend, directed her words at Jackson.

#“Penny worshipped you,” she said. “Herman, you disgust everybody.”

#Throughout the hearing Jackson said little more than “yes sir” and when offered an opportunity to address the court he declined.

#Phillips’ younger brother, Robert Proctor, 39, said after the hearing that Jackson’s guilty plea, while it may have spared his life, also spared family members, especially Phillips’ children, a lengthy trial. “I’m glad the kids ain’t got to go through” a trial, he said.

http://www.jacksonprogress-argus.com/news/2012/sep/04/jackson-sentenced-2011-murders/