Alabama woman arrested for cold case murder of a father who texted ‘HELP’ before disappearing – Law Officer

MOBILE, Ala. — An Alabama woman was arrested on Monday for the 2014 cold case murder of a father who sent a text for help nearly a decade ago and has not been seen or heard from since, according to the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office.

Bridgette Matthews, 42, was indicted on murder charges by a grand jury for the killing of Charles “Bubba” Jackson Jr. who was 33 when he disappeared from his home in Mobile in May 2014. She was already in custody at the Metro Jail, serving time for violating her probation and for an escape charge. She will be rebooked under a murder charge, reported CBS 42 News.

Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood said Jackson had been run over by a vehicle driven by Mathews before multiple people worked to hide his body.

According to prosecutors, Matthews’ arrest will be the first of many tied to the case, Fox10 News reported.

Bridgette Matthews is believed to have had accomplices in the murder of Charles “Bubba” Jackson. (NBC 15 News)

“We know that Mathews and the victim were acquainted with one another,” Blackwood said. “We know that there are other people involved in this that knew Charles Jackson and we are continuing to investigate this. We do not expect this to be the last arrest that’s made in the case.”

Once Jackson was killed, his body was moved and hidden at another location. His remains have never been located, and prosecuting a homicide case without a body is not an easy task, Blackwood said.

To make the case, investigators with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office relied on a number of witnesses and solid, physical evidence. The evidence was enough to convince a Grand Jury to secure the murder indictment on Mathews.

Jackson vanished from his home May 23, 2014. The father of three boys was reported missing by his girlfriend and the mother of his youngest son. His last known correspondence was a single-word text reading “HELP” to his girlfriend.

Blackwood told Fox10 News that witnesses who had long been uncooperative finally opened up to investigators about what they knew regarding Jackson’s death and that new physical evidence was discovered.

“A lot of evidence has been uncovered,” he said. “This is the first in what we believe will be multiple arrests.”

Matthews has a long criminal record with several stints in Metro Jail, according to Fox10. She was dating the brother of Jackson’s girlfriend at the time, according to the victim’s sister Kisha Logan.

Despite clinging to hope that her brother’s killers would be caught, Logan said she was still surprised to get the call that an arrest was made after so much time had transpired. The news brought a wave of emotion for her and her nephews.

“We cried. We laughed. I mean it was literally just a whirlwind of different emotions,” Logan told the New York Post.

Jackson’s older sister Kisha Logan said family members cried and laughed upon hearing the news that Matthews is charged with her brother’s murder. (Courtesy of Kisha Logan)

Jackson’s oldest son was 11 at the time of his dad’s disappearance. He is now 21 and is “ecstatic” that his father may finally get justice, she said.

“We had never really given up hope,” Logan noted, while adding she hopes she won’t have to wait much longer for the others she believes played a role in her brother’s death to be arrested.

“I just want everybody that was involved to have their day. I want to know detail for detail on what happened to my brother,” she said.

Logan described her brother as being a great person who was caring, funny and always joking. “He just was a very very easygoing kind of person. He was a big bear,” she said.

Charles “Bubba” Jackson Jr. was a father to three sons — the oldest of whom was just 11 when he disappeared. He’s now 21. (Courtesy of Kisha Logan)

Finally, Logan wants her brother’s killers to know they took away someone who was loved dearly by many.

“And I do want everyone that was involved to know that they did not just take somebody that did not have a family and [wasn’t] loved because he had a lot of family and he was very much loved,” she said.

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