Jealousy and a Quarrel

About the first of June, 1938, thirty-year-old Chester Jackson of Joplin got into a quarrel with his paramour, Theola Isaac, and she ended up receiving a five-month suspended sentence for wounding him during the ensuing fight.
   It didn’t take Jackson long to find himself another woman, as he was soon living with Daisy Esmond, but it didn’t take him long either to have a falling out with Daisy. Two years divorced and the mother of two kids, Daisy left Jackson around the end of July and went to stay with her brother-in-law and her sister, Mamie. On the evening of August 2, Jackson called at Mamie’s house on West Tenth and asked Daisy to come back, but she refused.
   About 11:30 the next night, Jackson returned packing a pistol and called Daisy outside. Speaking to her in front of Mamie’s home, he again implored Daisy to come back to him, but she still refused. They quarreled, and when she turned to go inside, he pulled out his pistol and shot her in the back. An ambulance was summoned, but Daisy died on the way to the hospital.
   Meanwhile, Jackson turned himself in at the police station shortly after the shooting and was held on suspicion of murder. After questioning the suspect, a Joplin detective said that the shooting apparently resulted from “jealousy and a quarrel.” When Jackson was arraigned on August 5, he admitted the shooting but claimed he didn’t intend to kill Daisy and was only trying to scare her. Dismissing the suspect’s dubious claim, the justice ordered him held without bond for first-degree murder. The Joplin Globe’s first mention of Daisy’s murder came the next day when the paper reported only that Jackson, a black man, had been arraigned for killing “a Negress.”
   Appearing for trial in Jasper County Circuit Court in late September, Jackson first planned to plead guilty but changed his mind when he learned the prosecution meant to seek the death penalty. Daisy’s sister, Mamie Ransom, was the main witness for the prosecution, testifying that Jackson had previously threatened Daisy and that he shot her as she was retreating toward the house. Jackson took the stand in his own defense, admitting he was angry and jealous when he went to see Daisy on the fateful night but claiming he had no memory of shooting her. The last thing he recalled, he said, was Daisy threatening to kill him.
   The jury found Jackson guilty on September 27 and sentenced him to death. He displayed no emotion when the verdict was read but later remarked that it was a “gross miscarriage of justice.” Sentence was officially pronounced about a week later, and his execution set for November 28 in the gas chamber at Jefferson City. An appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court automatically stayed the execution. In the meantime, Jackson was transported to Jefferson City to await the high court’s decision. In early July 1939, the supreme court reversed the verdict of the lower court on the grounds that the trial judge should have granted the defense’s request for a continuance and should have included in his instructions to the jury an option of second-degree murder. The case was remanded to Jasper County for a new trial, and Jackson was brought back to Carthage.
   In September, he was again convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die. The case was again appealed, but in July 1940 the high court upheld the verdict. The execution was reset for September 20, 1940. Jackson didn’t say a word as he was led into the gas chamber at Jeff City and strapped into the death chair at shortly after midnight on that date. The gas was released at 12:24 a.m., and Jackson died at 12:28.
   This blog entry is a condensed version of a chapter in my most recent book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings: A Criminal History of Jasper County, Mo.