Kenneth Jackson | World’s Most Evil Killers | Forensic Files

[audio logo] [sinister music] narrator: On September the 13th, 2007, a woman's body was found in the burnt-out
remains of a stolen van in Hillsborough County, Florida. Scott Harmon: When she was jogging in the early morning
darkness, he abducted her and dragged her into a secluded location, just off of a main roadway, where he raped
her and stabbed her to death. Dale Bunten: She did nothing wrong. She was just a victim of an evil person.
narrator: Investigators were struggling to find any clues, but the killer's loose lips soon
led detectives to his door. - When the news came on about a body, he seemed kind of excited
about the whole conversation. It was almost as if he had more information than what
she even heard on the TV. narrator: The man in question was unemployed 25-year-old Kenneth Jackson.
Jane Monckton-Smith: Jackson showed absolutely no remorse for what he had done. He's a psychopathic killer.
- He was so proud of what he'd done that he had to talk about it. narrator: Kenneth Jackson had inadvertently
revealed himself as one of the world's most evil killers. [theme music] ♪ ♪ [eerie music]
♪ ♪ On June 5, 2013. 30-year-old Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to death after being found guilty of murdering
mother of three Cuc Tran. He'd ambushed her while she was out on an early morning
run in her hometown of Seffner, a small community just outside Tampa in Florida.
- We're talking about a very small area of Florida. So you can imagine that a murder would send shockwaves
through that small community. They were literally horrified. - I think the impact only reinforced
the notion that women aren't safe running alone in the dark. They're an easy target.
No matter how many self-defense classes they may take or they may carry a pepper spray, it's not enough.
It's just the element of surprise and the strength of the predator is too much for any woman to overcome.
narrator: Kenneth Jackson showed no remorse for taking the life of an innocent woman.
- He had no emotion to the fact that this was a woman with school-aged children that she
was working to take care of. He didn't have respect for life in general. He didn't seem to care.
Everything was only about himself at all times. narrator: This killer story begins on June 26, 1982.
Kenneth Ray Jackson was born in Hillsborough County, Florida. He was the product of an inappropriate and
unlawful relationship. - It's hard to imagine a less satisfactory childhood than Kenny Jackson's.
His mother, when he was conceived, was 14. Her partner at the time was 28. She gave him up effectively at the age of six months
to her mother, his grandmother, and her boyfriend. Scott Harmon: Kenny did have a rough upbringing.
He was moved around from different family members. He suffered some abuse when he was growing up, physical abuse.
He saw a lot of abuse. narrator: And it wasn't just at home where Jackson had a difficult time.
- Probably inevitably, Jackson's school reports reflected that he was aggressive.
He was belligerent in class. He was just a really, really difficult boy. Jane Monckton-Smith: His teachers raised concerns
about his behavior, about the way he turned out when he came to school. And they had huge difficulties finding
who his guardians even where, who it who was supposed to be looking after this child.
I don't think he had any stability in his life, so not surprising that he turned towards criminality.
narrator: In 2003, at the age of 21, Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to five years in prison
after a spate of car thefts. He was released four years later on July 26, 2007,
and headed to the small residential community of Seffner in Hillsborough County.
Scott Harmon: When he got out of prison, he ended up moving in with a couple, the O'Neals, Linda and
Wally O'Neal, and they allowed him to move into the trailer with them. - Wally was Jackson's grandmother's old boyfriend,
the boyfriend who had been with his grandmother when he arrived with her at the age of six months.
Although they must have had a very strange relationship, it was probably the only place in which
Kenny Jackson felt at home. [eerie music] ♪ ♪ narrator: On September 13, 2007, 12 miles away
in the neighboring town of Gibsonton, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue were called to a van engulfed in flames at 7 o'clock
in the morning. What they discovered when they got there was a scene of unimaginable horror.
Dale Bunten: When the fire department put the vehicle fire out, they discovered a body inside.
That, of course, triggered phone calls to the homicide section. And supervisors had detectives respond to the area.
So I went down to the Gibsonton area. At that point, I was assigned to be the lead detective
on the case. - The body was charred beyond recognition. It was literally a mess.
narrator: With no identification to be found on the charred remains, detectives turned their attention to the burnt-out car.
- I was told at the time that they had recovered a license plate off of the vehicle.
And of course, that was a start. We were able to make contact with the owner. We learned that the vehicle had been listed at the gentleman's
job site as for sale. It had been parked in the parking lot there. He worked part time at an auto parts store,
repairing it to sell it. He had a sign for sale in the window. After we determined that this vehicle must have been stolen,
we had the van taken back to our crime scene offices at the sheriff's office. But during this time, during the course of the day,
there were other events unfolding that I wasn't immediately aware of. [pensive music]
♪ ♪ narrator: In a seemingly unrelated incident 12 miles north of the torched car,
a discovery had been made in the grounds of a church in Seffner. Troy Morgan: The sergeant was notified
that there were some clothing items, shoes, and some blood that had been located
in front of the St. Francis Church on 579 north of MLK. Dale Bunten: There had been a yard crew.
And they had actually, in mowing the lawns, found this bloody clothing, and a sheriff's officer deputy
had gone out there, and they had recovered some of that clothing and items that were left behind.
narrator: At this stage, police were unsure about whether these two events were connected,
until a panicked young man contacted them for help. [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ Dale Bunten: 3:00 in the afternoon or so, I received
a call from my dispatch, saying there was a young man there who was looking for his mother, and she'd been missing,
that she had left early in the morning and had never came back. We had this person that we believed was a female
and could not identify at that point. It's like, yeah, we need to check this out.
Troy Morgan: Where they were calling in from was just north of where that St. Francis church was
and where the clothes and the blood was located. I went up there, and I looked at the area.
And that was when it was very evident that there was not a little bit of blood. Somebody had-- somebody had died there.
narrator: The missing woman was 50-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran. Meanwhile, more information was coming
through about the unidentified body found in the van. It was becoming increasingly likely
that the missing persons report and the body were connected. - It appeared she had Asian features.
And in learning that this was a Asian male that was reporting his missing Asian mother, of course,
everyone was starting to think, this is-- this is our woman. I asked for some details about some particular jewelry,
because this body that was burned up in the van still had lots of jewelry on. Troy Morgan: We were able to link
jewelry from pictures in the house to what was on her person. So at this point in time, we were pretty positive
that Cuc Tran was our victim. narrator: The small community of Seffner was left in shock.
Detectives had no clue who had committed this terrible crime, but the killer was about to make
a huge mistake that would lead police straight to his door. [somber music] ♪ ♪
narrator: On the morning of September 13, 2007, in Hillsborough County, Florida,
a pile of bloodied clothes had been discovered in the grounds of a church. 12 miles away, the charred remains of a woman
had been found inside a burning van. Detectives believed her to be 50-year-old
Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran from the town of Seffner. Dale Bunten: She was a mother of three.
She had an older son who was off at college, a 16-year-old that was going to high school, and a 10-year-old.
Scott Harmon: She worked a full-time job as a nail technician. She lived at home in a trailer park,
and she would get up very early in the morning to try to find a little bit of time
for herself to go for a walk or a jog to try to take care of herself. narrator: Cuc Tran had settled in Hillsborough County
after leaving her homeland in search of a better life. Scott Harmon: Her and her husband were part of the exodus
from Vietnam in the '70s and '80s, after the communists took over South Vietnam after the Vietnam War.
- It sounded like a pretty horrific struggle after the war for her and her children
and her husband to come here. For Mrs. Tran to leave a war zone and come to the United States was an example
of the American dream. She was escaping violence of the war and coming to a country where people are believed to be safe
and given opportunity. narrator: For Cuc Tran, however, the United States was far from the safe haven she'd hoped for,
and her life had been cut short in the most brutal way. With no immediate suspects, police
started to look into Cuc Tran's life for clues. Dale Bunten: There were some issues with her marriage.
They weren't necessarily living together, but they were still good friends. Both parents were still very much focused
on taking care of the kids. She would get up, do some exercise. Her husband would come by in the mornings,
help get the kids ready for school. She would get back from her morning exercise routine,
and she would get them to school, an. Then she would go to work. She was a responsible employee, got along well with everyone.
She was evidently well liked by her customers. She did nothing wrong. She was just a victim of an evil person.
narrator: Cuc Tran's daily morning run would take her past St. Francis Church in Seffner.
Dale Bunten: It was a very large church property where it had quite a bit of open land between the roadway
and the church itself. - If a car was going by at 5:00 in the morning, they wouldn't see you down there.
narrator: Detectives started working on the theory that Cuc Tran was ambushed by her killer
while she was out on her morning run. John Barry: She had a routine. She would run at 5:00 AM in the morning before work.
This was her only free time. It was really the only time she had to herself, which was even more tragic.
That's all she had. And she never dreamed that there was this predator waiting there for her.
Jane Monckton-Smith: This isn't an area where there'll be lots of women to choose from.
So this person had probably gone to that area before, checked it out, waited around,
seen how many people were around, whether they were likely to get caught. I don't think that this was opportunistic.
I think this was targeted. Dale Bunten: We wanted to get the guy. I mean, that's the whole goal, right?
You want to solve this thing. narrator: Detectives were convinced that Coltrane was killed in the grounds of the church
and then her body driven away in the van that was found on fire 12 miles away. The autopsy confirmed the horrific circumstances
of her death. Dale Bunten: The medical examiner was able to determine there were multiple stab
wounds in the neck. The carotid artery had been cut. - One of the stab wounds had cut through the victim's
windpipe and would have probably prevented sufficient air from being able to go through the vocal cords
so that she could vocalize. Dale Bunten: She was dead before the fire ever started.
There was no soot in the windpipe or carbon monoxide in the blood. narrator: The autopsy also discovered a possible motive
for the crime. - She had been raped. The medical examiner had collected blood slides and the vaginal swabs and offered DNA.
But we didn't have any comparisons at that point. Jane Monckton-Smith: Usually, when people use fire
to destroy a body, it's because they want to eliminate any forensic evidence at all.
They think, I'm never going to get caught, because I have destroyed every single piece of evidence.
Well, fire doesn't always destroy every piece of evidence. This would have been an overconfidence,
I think, in that person. narrator: Desperate to find Cuc Tran's killer, detectives started to hand out flyers in the trailer park
where she'd lived, appealing for information from her neighbors. - There was probably 100 or so trailers in this trailer park.
We went house to house, handing the flyers out, talking to neighbors. There was one trailer that I actually
stopped at, which was within eyeshot of where the victim's house was, her trailer.
And there was an elderly individual that was there, a man, who was very inquisitive as to why
I was there. So I finished walking through. It was extremely hot out that day. I was thirsty, so I decided to go to the gas station
at the corner of MLK and 579, which is just to the south of where St. Francis Church was.
And I walk in. I get my drink. And I'm soaking wet. I've got a shirt, tie. I walk up.
I pay. And all of a sudden, something hit me. I was saying, you know what? I'm going to go get a flyer.
I come back. I give the flyer to the clerk. As I start talking to her, she starts
explaining how there was this individual who was in the store, and when the news came on about a body and
an investigation, he seemed kind of excited about the whole conversation and the subject
matter and everything that was being said. But also, it was almost as if he had more information than what she even
heard being said on the TV. Scott Harmon: What really what stuck out to her, he was telling her he had seen Cuc Tran jogging,
and the only time she did that was very early in the morning, right around 5:00,
5:30 in the morning. And that's when she was abducted. So that was pretty critical.
narrator: The stranger's story confirmed what the police already knew about Cuc Tran's morning
routine, but it wasn't information they'd released to the public. Dale Bunten: This guy is talking,
and he's saying things that really haven't been publicly made. So that's a clue.
That was a very strong, OK, we need to jump on this. And that started the ball rolling.
Troy Morgan: I started asking her questions. Well, you know, who is this individual, you know,
where he lives? And she proceeds to tell me that his name is Kenny. And he had just gotten released from prison.
So I asked her, what did he go to prison for? Do you know? And she said, I think grand theft auto.
At this point in time, now, in the investigation, we know that the van that was burned with our victim in it
was stolen from the Advance Auto Parts, literally two blocks from where I was standing
at the gas station and just south of where the victim was murdered. I said, where does he live?
Do you know anything about him? She said, yeah, he lives in the trailer park north of here.
George Wansell: It turned out that this man Kenny lived in exactly the same trailer park as Cuc Tran.
narrator: Detectives finally had a breakthrough in the case, but all they had to go on was a single name, Kenny.
They knew they had to find this man and fast before he killed again. [tense music]
♪ ♪ narrator: On September 19, 2007, six days after the murder of 50-year-old Cuc Tran
in Hillsborough County, Florida, detectives had their first lead. A man called Kenny, who'd aroused the suspicion of a gas
station clerk when talking to her about the murder, lived in the same trailer park as the victim.
Troy was reminded of a strangely inquisitive man he'd interviewed at the trailer park.
- Now, all of a sudden, the red flags start going off even more, because now I realize,
wait a minute. I wonder if this Kenny guy is the guy that I was sitting there and asking myself,
this guy is awful nosy. He's asking like a lot of detailed questions. narrator: Troy made his way back to the trailer park.
The man he'd previously spoken to was Wally O'Neal, who had once been in a relationship
with Kenny's grandmother. Wally confirmed that Kenny was in fact 25-year-old Kenneth Jackson.
Police discovered this wasn't the first time he'd been on the radar of law enforcement.
Dale Bunten: He had had several arrests in the past. He had recently gotten out of prison.
He hadn't been in the area long. narrator: Wally confirmed that Jackson had been living with him, but told Troy that he'd left
town just two days before. Dale Bunten: We learned that, at the time of the murder
and the vehicle being burned, that he was not at home. So they couldn't give an alibi as to his whereabouts.
But they did know for a fact that he did happen to be in the area where the burned van was.
We haven't made contact with our person of interest yet, but we are getting verification that he's
in the right place at the right times to be associated to it. narrator: Detectives learned that Kenneth Jackson
had gone to live with his girlfriend in North Florida. On September 20, a week after the murder,
they drove upstate to find him. Dale Bunten: We went up there and asked if he was willing to speak with us.
He rode with us in the car over to the Carrabelle Police Department Office, where we could sit down and
do an audio recording and try and find out what he might know. narrator: While collecting DNA samples from Jackson,
the detectives got a lucky break. Dale Bunten: During the course of this conversation,
we got around to the clothes that he was wearing. And he said, I think this is what I was wearing that day.
I was like, well, can we get that for testing? And he said, well, I don't have anything else.
I said, well, I'll take you to go buy clothes. We went, and we bought them new shoes, new shirt.
So he gave us permission to take his clothes. - He considered himself smarter than the police.
So that made him so careless. narrator: It was time for investigators to sit down and
interview their prime suspect. They were certain of Jackson's movements on the day of the murder, but they wanted to hear
it from the horse's mouth. Troy Morgan: During the course of our investigation, we put him down there, where the van was burned.
And that was huge, because he had a family member that identified him being down in Gibsonton.
Why? He lives in Seffner. Why would you be down in Gibsonton? So everything just started falling in.
So we wanted to get him locked into a timeline as to where were you at? What were you doing?
And we were able to do that, but we were also able to get him to give too many inconsistencies
in his interviews. They could prove that he was lying, and he could not stick with a solid alibi,
because he didn't have one. Scott Harmon: In all of the lies that he told law enforcement, the one thing he was consistent on
was that he did not know Cuc Tran, and they showed him photographs of her that were very good depictions of her in the year or two
before her death. And he insisted, I don't know her. I don't know anything about her.
I've never seen her before, even though she lived about five trailers down from his.
And you could step out from the doors of those trailers and see the other trailer is how close he lived to her,
but he insisted he'd never seen her before. Jane Monckton-Smith: He was obviously super confident
that he'd obliterated all of the evidence and that he could sit and play games with the police,
almost, because they were never going to pin this one on him. - We both believed that we had our guy.
After that first interview, we had our DNA that he gave us. We had the clothing that he gave us,
and Troy and I got in the car. And we drove from Carrabelle, Florida, back to just north of Gainesville
to meet up with one of the detectives from Hillsborough here, who was meeting us halfway,
so we could pass that off. So they could immediately get that back to FDLE the next day
to start the DNA comparisons. narrator: Six days later, on September 26, the DNA reports came back from FDLE,
the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Dale Bunten: I received a phone call from FDLE
stating that they had just gotten the report from their DNA analysis that said that the samples collected
from Kenneth Jackson did match the semen that was collected from the medical examiner
during the autopsy of Cuc Tran. Troy Morgan: At that moment, it's, like, relief.
You realize, OK, we knew we were on point. We knew we had our guy. narrator: Jackson had lied to detectives,
but the evidence gave away the truth. Dale Bunten: We had dealt with Kenneth Jackson for hours,
and he said that he didn't know this person. He had never met this person, didn't
even know that she was a neighbor in his trailer park. And now we have his semen in her.
That is enough to get an arrest warrant. - As soon as the DNA samples come back and they are confirmed as being Kenneth Jackson's, the police
fly by helicopter to his new abode in North Florida to find him. But when they get there, he's not there.
- We had the sheriff's office up there and the local township PD and also the girlfriend's
mother's assistants. She had some ideas, and she thought, well, maybe they're over this one place fishing.
And they were, in fact. So this was like 1:00 in the morning, but they were both
up there, sitting at the dock. narrator: Kenneth Jackson's luck was about to run out.
Dale Bunten: I talked with Kenny and said, we've got some new information we need to talk to you about.
Would you mind coming with us back to the station to talk about it? - No matter what it was that we talked to him about,
he was very obstinate against anything that we said. Even when we could point out his inconsistencies,
it didn't matter. He just was like-- it was like water off a duck's back, you know?
He just didn't care. narrator: But this time, investigators were armed with a smoking gun.
Dale Bunten: I focused on the point of DNA again. Because I had asked him at the first interview,
will your DNA show up on this lady at any point? And he was like, no, no, no, I've never met her.
There's no way possible. He knew he had burned up this victim in a van. He believed he had absolutely nothing
to worry about, because that was all burned up and there was nothing to be found.
He felt that he was safe. Well, in fact, your DNA is on her, Kenny. How did that happen?
Denial, denial, denial. Dale Bunten: And he finally said, well, if you have such good information,
why don't you arrest me then? It's like, OK, [laughs] we will do that. narrator: On September, December 27, 2007,
two weeks after the murder of Cuc Tran, Kenneth Jackson was formally arrested. Despite his constant denial, detectives were convinced
he was a dangerous predator. - He planned that entire event. He stole the van from the Advance Auto Parts,
left it parked where he knew he could ambush Cuc Tran, because he knows she walks, runs in the mornings,
and he targeted her and as evil as it gets. - This type of attack, a stranger in the dark jumps
out of the bushes to attack you, is the nightmare that sits in the head of every single woman.
And if it actually happens to you, all of those nightmares come to life at once.
So for Cuc Tran, that must have been the most terrifying moment that she had ever experienced.
- He thought everything through all the way up until the getaway. But once he burned the van, he didn't have a plan of what
he was going to do after that. But I am convinced that he would have killed again.
Given the opportunity had we not have caught him, he would have killed again. narrator: After he was arrested,
information on Kenneth Jackson continued to come in. George Wansell: One of the other significant pieces
of evidence that the police received was from a relative of Jackson's, who gave them a DVD, which he apparently habitually watched.
It was a pornographic DVD, which included particularly Asian women and also had elements of bondage.
- Everything lines up that he's living out his fantasy. Jane Monckton-Smith: To me, Jackson
appears to be on his first outing as a potential serial killer. He wasn't responding to some provocation.
He was acting to please himself. And I think the violence pleased him. The fire pleased him.
The cat and mouse he thought he was going to have with the police excited him. This is a really dangerous individual.
narrator: Prosecutors felt they had enough evidence to charge Kenneth Jackson with murder.
Scott Harmon: He was charged with first degree premeditated murder. He was charged with sexual battery with a deadly weapon.
And he was charged with grand theft motor vehicle of the van that he stole so that he could dispose of Ms. Tran's body.
narrator: Despite denying everything to detectives, Kenneth Jackson suddenly rediscovered
the loose lips that had put him on the police's radar in the first place. - While he was in custody for all that time, again,
that man talked. He ran his mouth to everybody. He did discuss about how he raped the woman.
He killed the woman. He burned her up in the van. But one of the common threads from each
of these statements we got was that he never was talking in remorse. He was bragging about it.
John Barry: He was so proud of what he'd done that he had to talk about it. narrator: But if Jackson thought
his fellow inmates would listen to his secrets in confidence, he was gravely mistaken.
Dale Bunten: Multiple inmates came forward with all the stories Kenny was talking about.
- There were two of them that were in federal custody being held in the local jail
on federal charges. He made statements to each of them independently, where he talked about the fact
that he had seen her running. He'd seen her jogging, had determined that he was going to abduct her.
He gave descriptions of the murder and how he went about stabbing her and what was going on, how she was reacting to him.
He used a pretty offensive pejorative in describing how he sexually assaulted her.
So it was pretty compelling evidence to have that in front of the jury. Troy Morgan: Getting those leads
and that information from other prisoners, saying that he's bragging about what he did,
only boosted our case. narrator: With the trial on the horizon, prosecutors in Hillsborough County
had DNA evidence, witness statements, and jailhouse informants. But would the jury find Kenneth Jackson guilty,
or would he be able to outsmart everyone and get away with murder? [eerie music]
♪ ♪ narrator: In October 2012, five years after the death of 50-year-old mother of three Cuc Tran, Kenneth Jackson,
the man accused of her rape and murder, stood trial in Florida. John Barry: It was one of the most heinous murder rapes
that had occurred that year. So there was a lot of TV there and print media. - We had many, many witnesses, and
it went on for several weeks. We were seeking the death penalty in this case. The DNA was direct scientific evidence,
but we wanted to give the jury an understanding of how the crime occurred and why it occurred.
So we had lots of different types of evidence in this case, from DNA scientific evidence to jailhouse snitches,
to other witnesses that he had made statements to that connected him to the crime.
- He planned this entire thing out to the point of stealing a van so that he can then stalk his prey.
Scott Harmon: This was an extremely premeditated murder, driven by an extremely evil motivation.
narrator: Prosecutors were ready to present their case of what they believe happened on the morning
of September 13, 2007. Scott Harmon: He had seen her jogging in the early morning hours before he had become
obsessed with her, apparently, and with the idea of abducting her. He positioned himself in an area
in front of St. Francis of Assisi Church, where he knew she would be running or jogging.
And when she came along in the darkness, he grabbed her, probably put the knife to her throat,
and forced her off of the roadway. John Barry: Mrs. Tran was surprised by this man
leaping out of the darkness. There was no way she could have defended herself. It was just all too sudden.
- He took her down into this little valley, which was concealed from view from the roadway,
and he forced her down on the ground. He took her clothes off of her, probably ripped them
off of her, and he raped her. And when she was screaming or yelling in pain and begging for her life, he began
to stab her in the throat. He knew he was going to kill her. He knew he was going to rape her.
This just speaks to an extremely depraved level of evil. Dale Bunten: He made the decision
to take advantage of someone in the dark that he felt he could overpower. Then, when he was in fear for maybe being found out
because they were struggling, they were fighting, they were screaming, decided he could kill them.
And then at that point, to think that he could make all this go away by destroying this person,
literally by trying to burn them up, that is evil. narrator: On October 15, 2012, Jackson's trial
began at the Hillsborough County Circuit Court. Scott Harmon: In my opening statements,
I told the jury he was trying to burn his biological evidence out of her body. His intent was to try to destroy her body,
because her body was evidence of the rape and the murder. - It was all pre-planned.
It was extremely cold blooded, calculated. It stayed with me for a long time, even today.
narrator: Jackson, who'd been all too keen to blab about the murder to his fellow inmates,
suddenly didn't seem able to speak up in the courtroom. - He didn't show any emotion at all throughout the trial.
He just was sat quietly. It was kind of eerie. He had an eerie presence, this sort of calm,
strange demeanor throughout. I thought he didn't mind being caught that much, watching him.
I think he had always wanted from the beginning to be able to boast about it. - He appeared to enjoy the attention of the trial.
He seemed to be very immature. He smiled a lot. He just didn't seem like he was taking
the whole process seriously. Jane Monckton-Smith: He has got all eyes on him. This is his moment in the sun.
He's not even thinking about what's going to happen afterwards. He couldn't hide his enjoyment at getting so much attention.
narrator: Troy Morgan, the detective who'd made the initial breakthrough in the case,
was called to testify. Troy Morgan: It's a great pride in being able to get up there and testify,
finding out the information that kind of linked everything to him. And that was pretty much all the testimony that I really
had to bring to the table, was being in the right place at the right time and asking the right question.
narrator: The gas station attendant who Troy Morgan had spoken to wasn't the only witness
called by the prosecution. Scott Harmon: There were witnesses who put him near the area where the van was found,
and that was in the city of Gibsonton. The murder happened in the city of Seffner,
and they were separated by about 10, 11, 12 miles. So it's a significant distance.
And there were witnesses, one of which knew him, put him walking on foot in Gibsonton that morning.
And that really stood out to her. Why is Kenny down here in Gibsonton walking? How did he get here.
That was significant, because he told the detectives and never would come off of the fact
that he rode a bicycle from Seffner down to Gibsonton through the night, and that's why he was in Gibsonton.
narrator: With the overwhelming evidence laid out, the prosecuting attorneys began their closing arguments.
Scott Harmon: I remember arguing to the jury, there is probably no crime that is as personally
invasive as a crime where a person is putting part of their body into another person
against their will. And I think this may have impacted the women on the jury. And I argued to the jury the last voice she heard
and the last person's face she saw in her life on this Earth was this defendant.
narrator: The jury took less than a day to reach their verdict. - The jury determined that he was
guilty for the murder, the sexual battery, the grand theft auto, and the arson. narrator: It seemed the jury had no doubt in their minds
about Jackson's guilt. Scott Harmon: When a jury returns a guilty verdict, the defendant is entitled to have the jury polled.
A clerk asks each of the individual jurors to confirm that that is their verdict,
and I've never heard this before in any case I've tried. Several of the jurors, when they responded yes,
didn't just say yes, that's my verdict. They said, yes! I know two of the women looked directly at the defendant
and said it very vehemently like that. So that's what kind of stood out to me, was how much they believed in that verdict of guilty.
narrator: The verdict was exactly the outcome the hardworking detectives had hoped for.
Troy Morgan: To be able to get a positive result, it's what you want for every case.
With this one here, just everything just kind of fell right into place, being at the right place
at the right time. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Dale Bunten: I mean, it's horrible
what the people went through and the families, what they've gone through, but it's a huge feeling of satisfaction
when you can conclusively say, this is what happened. We got the guy. It doesn't change what happened.
It's still a tragedy. But this is what we can give you for some sort of closure.
[pensive music] ♪ ♪ narrator: A week later, on November 1, 2012, the next phase of Kenneth Jackson's trial began.
John Barry: The murder conviction comes first, and then there's basically a second trial with the same jury
to consider the death penalty. And then they come back to the same jury and ask for a vote.
In this case, it was 11 to 1, which, at the time, was all that the state needed.
narrator: On June 5, 2013, 30-year-old Kenneth Jackson was sentenced to death. John Barry: When death penalty was imposed,
he had absolutely no reaction. I don't even know that he cared. I couldn't tell.
He just looked blankly ahead, and he didn't offer any remorse or anything like that.
Troy Morgan: I will say it was very satisfying to find that he was found guilty, number one, but number two,
that he was given the death penalty. narrator: That wasn't the end of Kenneth Jackson's story,
however. In 2016, the United States Supreme Court agreed that Florida's capital sentencing scheme
was unconstitutional, which led the Florida Supreme Court to abolish the state's existing death penalty law
and require that a jury's recommendation for death must be unanimous. Scott Harmon: Any case where we didn't have a unanimous verdict
in the penalty phase was now subject to collateral attack, and that's what happened with Mr. Jackson's case.
The case got reversed, because we didn't have a unanimous verdict. The decision was made to allow him to plead to life,
and that's what happened. And he was resentenced to a life sentence. Dale Bunten: Whether he does life
in prison without parole or whether he does death penalty, either way, he's off the street.
Troy Morgan: I know for a fact that that person won't be hurting anybody outside of those prison walls,
and that's what we're after. John Barry: This case really haunted me, I think, because it was the first time I had encountered what I
thought was a true psychopath. I think there was every possibility that Kenneth Jackson, if he had not been caught,
would have gone on to kill other women and that one day he might have been labeled a serial killer.
narrator: Kenneth Jackson stalked, raped, and killed 50-year-old Cuc Tran, an innocent
woman who'd done him no harm. He burned her body in an attempt to destroy any evidence.
But he wasn't as clever as he thought. And when his DNA was found on the victim,
his fate was sealed. He showed absolutely no remorse for leaving three children
without a mother, proving that Kenneth Jackson is one of the world's most evil killers.
[theme music] ♪ ♪

In 2007, 50-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Cuc Tran was raped and murdered while out on a run. Her charred body was discovered in a burnt-out van. The loose lips of the killer, 25-year-old Kenneth Jackson, led the police straight to his door.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

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Brief Summary

Cuc Tran was murdered by Kenneth Jackson, who was later arrested and sentenced to life in prison after DNA evidence linked him to the crime.

Key points

The Discovery of a Body. On September 13, 2007, a woman's body was found in a burnt-out van in Florida.
Kenneth Jackson's Arrest. Kenneth Jackson, the prime suspect, showed no remorse for his crimes.
Cuc Tran's Background. Cuc Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant, sought a better life in America but met a tragic end.
The Killer's Overconfidence. The killer believed he could destroy all evidence, but fire doesn't always succeed.
The Breakthrough Lead. Detectives received a crucial tip about a man named Kenny, who lived near the victim.
DNA Evidence Links Jackson to Crime. DNA from Kenneth Jackson matched samples found on the victim, Cuc Tran, leading to his arrest.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was so proud of what he'd done that he had to talk about it.

Jane Monckton-Smith describes the killer's lack of remorse.

1:02WatchJun 5, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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