SHREVEPORT, La. – A Shreveport man convicted in 2019 for the 2016 killings of his stepson and a neighbor has been found guilty again in a retrial prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring unanimous jury verdicts in criminal cases.
A six-man, six-woman jury deliberated for just 30 minutes before returning unanimous guilty verdicts on Wednesday, January 29, against Jerry Jackson, 57, who was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. The trial was held in the courtroom of District Judge Erin Leigh Waddell Garrett.
Jackson was convicted of fatally shooting his stepson, Kendrick Brown, and neighbor, Michael Dillard, on July 20, 2016, outside the Bond Drive home of his then-wife, Rhonda Brown. Following the shooting, Jackson attempted to conceal the .22 caliber rifle used in the crime by handing it off to a friend. The friend later contacted the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, which informed the Shreveport Police Department.
The weapon was recovered and forensically matched to shell casings found at the scene.
Key testimony during the trial came from Rhonda Brown and a neighbor, both of whom witnessed the shootings and identified Jackson as the gunman.
Jackson’s original 2019 conviction was vacated following the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana, which determined that criminal convictions require unanimous jury verdicts. That decision led to the retrial.
Jackson is scheduled for sentencing on February 24, 2025. He faces a mandatory life sentence at hard labor without the possibility of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence for the second-degree murder conviction, along with up to 40 years at hard labor for the manslaughter conviction.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Bill Edwards and Kodie Smith, while Jackson was represented by defense attorney Sean Landry.
The case was filed under docket number 406516.
