A Little Rock woman who fatally stabbed her 28-year-old former boyfriend was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Tuesday.
Kassie Marie Jackson, who turns 30 today, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder, in an arrangement negotiated by her lawyers, Patrick Benca and Jessica Johnston.
Charles Gary Blair Jr. died in January 2016 after being stabbed in the neck three times, deputy prosecutor Amanda Fields told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims.
Little Rock police said Jackson first hit Blair with her 2007 Jeep Patriot during an argument then stabbed Blair in front of Jackson's Scott Hamilton Drive home. Officers arrived to find the critically injured man covered in blood and struggling to breathe with Jackson* sitting on the ground nearby smoking a cigarette and holding a knife. Blair died two days later.
Jackson's mother, Sue Ann Rashwan, 49, who witnessed the fight between the defendant and Blair, told investigators that the pair had been arguing about Blair having taken Jackson's sport utility vehicle all day. She said Blair was drunk and had tried to hit Jackson with a beer bottle.
Jackson told police that she had loaned Blair her Jeep to go to work because he owed her money and said he was getting paid so he could repay her, court filings show.
She said she had called him to see what time he would be finished for the day, and his boss told her that he had left a couple of hours earlier. She said she was just about to report the vehicle stolen when Blair, who was drunk, returned with the Jeep. She said they argued about his drinking, using drugs, the way he treated her and the kind of women he associated with.
She said Blair told her he would get his belongings and leave, but they continued bickering until Blair said "something smart" so she hit him with the SUV.
She told officers that when she got out and approached Blair, he reached out for her and they grappled. She said her knife fell out of her bra and she slashed at him. Jackson told police that she had years of resentment built up against Blair.
"I don't know why I gassed it [the car]. I hit the m----------r. I did," she said. "Cause I'm like all of that s--t, you know, I'm paying for. I'm tired of cleaning up his messes. All of these years, I've let you skate by but I'm not letting you skate by no more. I didn't think about it, I just acted on it. I told him everything I really felt, like all my emotions came to it."
Court records show that Blair was awaiting trial on a felony criminal mischief charge for damaging Jackson's Jeep with a brick about four months earlier in September 2015. He was arrested again in November 2015 on a misdemeanor domestic battering charge involving another woman, Cassandra Burris.
Metro on 09/12/2018
*CORRECTION: Kassie Marie Jackson was sitting on the ground nearby smoking a cigarette and holding a knife when police discovered her ex-boyfriend, Charles Gary Blair Jr., lying in front of Jackson’s home covered in blood and struggling to breathe. A previous version of this article incorrectly described the scene.