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Professor Arrested In Death Of Missing Wife, Who Allegedly Told Friends That If Anything Happened To Her, He'd Be Responsible
In the days before Ella Diebolt Jackson disappeared, she had met with a domestic violence advocate and had begun secretly recording conversations with her husband and confiding in friends that she was afraid for her life, according to investigators.
A Kentucky professor has been accused of killing his wife after investigators discovered “a significant amount" of her blood in the trunk of his car.
Glenn Jackson, 39, has been arrested in connection to the disappearance and murder of his wife Ella Diebolt Jackson, 48, according to a statement from the Richmond Police Department.
Ella was reported missing on Oct. 22, 2019 shortly after meeting with a domestic violence advocate and confiding in friends that she was in an allegedly abusive relationship and afraid for her life.
“Mrs. Jackson disappeared, leaving behind her young son and all personal property,” police said. Investigators have been unable to locate her but believe she was the victim of foul play.
Just a few days before she disappeared, she met with a domestic violence advocate, police said.
“Police located several recordings that Mrs. Jackson secretly made of her and Mr. Jackson’s arguments,” police said. “Mrs. Jackson also told several individuals that she was afraid of Mr. Jackson, and if anything ever happened to her, her husband would be responsible.”
One of the people Ella allegedly confided in was her ex-husband, Jason Hans. The pair got married in 2003 after connecting over their traumatic backgrounds, Hans said in a post on Facebook. At the time, Hans had lost his wife by murder and Ella had been in an abusive and forced marriage to a man who later died in prison.
“Even as the emotional scars of our respective and all-too-recent histories continued to haunt us, Ella and I quickly developed a deep appreciation and love for one another,” he wrote. “Although neither of us necessarily needed to be rescued, it’s difficult to characterize our experience together as anything less than a mutual rescue.”
The couple would later divorce, but remained friends in the years that followed. Hans said Ella often confided in her about problems in her marriage to Glenn.
“The messages and rushed phone calls were all too regular in recent years: ‘I need your help,’ ‘I am very scared,’ ‘I am scared to the point of not being ok to get out of the bedroom to get a cup of milk or change my tampon,’ ‘I am being awakened at almost 3 in the morning and dragged through the house,’ ‘It is getting seriously scary [and] I am very worried about my child and myself,’” he wrote.
He said Ella stayed in the marriage because she was afraid of losing her son.
“After years stuck in a cycle of violence, Ella had recently begun working in earnest with a lawyer on an exit plan. She met with her lawyer three days prior to her disappearance,” Hans wrote.
Glenn told authorities that he had last seen his wife on Oct. 20, 2019. Investigators made the arrest after finding a “significant amount of blood” in the trunk of his vehicle, police said. The blood was later confirmed to be Ella’s.
He's facing charges of murder-domestic violence and tampering with physical evidence, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
Glenn had been a senior lecturer in English at Eastern Kentucky University but has not been employed there since February, according to the local paper.
Hans said Ella and Glenn’s young child is now staying with him.
“Even as the details of what happened remain unclear, a sober reading of the known facts torments my soul to the core,” he wrote.
