Bio

James Lewis Jackson was born on June 13, 1959, in Harris County, Texas, where he spent most of his life. He completed his high school education and worked primarily as a gardener and laborer. Prior to the murders that would bring him national attention, Jackson developed a lengthy history of substance abuse, particularly crack cocaine addiction, which increasingly dominated his personal life. 

He also had a significant criminal record, including a 1989 conviction for injuring an elderly man after shooting the father of a former girlfriend with a shotgun, an offense that resulted in a ten-year prison sentence. After serving approximately five years, he was released on parole in 1994 and relocated to Houston.

In 1995, he married Sharon Jackson and became the stepfather of her two daughters, Sonceria "Sonny" and Ericka Mayes. Over time, his drug dependency, chronic unemployment, financial instability, and controlling behavior placed severe strain on the marriage. By early 1997, Sharon was reportedly planning to divorce him, a development prosecutors later argued became the catalyst for the tragic murders that followed.

Murder Story

On April 8, 1997, James Jackson's marriage reached a breaking point when Sharon informed him that she intended to divorce him. According to his confession, Jackson became enraged and decided that if he could not keep his family together, no one would. That afternoon, eighteen-year-old Ericka Mayes returned home from high school. Jackson asked how she felt about her mother's plans to leave him. When her response failed to satisfy him, he wrapped his arm around her neck and strangled her to death. Roughly thirty minutes later, nineteen-year-old Sonceria "Sonny" Mayes arrived home from college. Jackson asked her the same question. Even though she told him she loved him and wanted him to remain part of her life, he strangled her as well. He then placed both young women in their beds and covered them as if they were sleeping.

Later that day, Sharon called and asked Jackson to pick her up from work. He drove her home and falsely told her that the girls were asleep. Once inside the apartment, he again attempted to reconcile their relationship. When Sharon rejected him and maintained her intention to divorce him, Jackson strangled her to death. Before leaving the apartment, he wrote and left a note stating that he loved Sharon, Sonny, and Ericka but could no longer care for them and had "given them back to God." After the murders, he pawned Sharon's sewing machine and used the money to purchase drugs.

The following morning, Sharon's family became concerned when she failed to appear for work. Relatives entered the apartment and discovered the bodies of Sharon and her daughters. Investigators found Jackson's handwritten note and began treating him as the primary suspect. Later that morning, Jackson returned to the apartment while law enforcement officers were still processing the crime scene. He voluntarily accompanied detectives for questioning and ultimately confessed to all three murders. He was arrested and later indicted for the capital murders of Sonceria and Ericka Mayes.

On January 28, 1998, a Harris County jury convicted Jackson of capital murder. The following day, he was sentenced to death. His conviction and sentence were upheld through numerous appeals in both state and federal courts. Although he later recanted his confession and claimed innocence, courts consistently rejected his appeals. On February 7, 2007, James Lewis Jackson was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Texas.