Last modified 3/3/2008 - 11:13 pm
Originally created 030408
Wife charged with husband's murder
Jacksonville.com
By Dana Treen, The Times-Union
With their divorce final today, Kevin and Meloney Jackson could have gone their separate ways at the crumbling end of 15 years of marriage.
Instead, Meloney Jackson is charged with murder in the shooting death of her husband in the front yard of their mobile home just south of Glen St. Mary.
About 5 a.m. Monday, neighbors heard gunshots in the rural neighborhood, and dispatchers received a call from the couple's 13-year-old daughter, said Baker County Sheriff Joey Dobson.
"She basically said someone had been shot in the front yard," Dobson said.
He said Kevin Jackson was leaving for work at a Jacksonville welding supply company when he was shot multiple times. A handgun Meloney Jackson apparently borrowed from a neighbor was found next to his body, the sheriff said.
"It appears he was outside and she came outside," Dobson said.
The couple's daughter was taken to stay with grandparents.
Kevin Jackson, 47, filed for divorce from his 40-year-old wife in July. The filing came a month after she asked the court for an injunction for protection from domestic violence. A judge said on June 14 that there was insufficient evidence to issue the order.
Divorce papers show the couple separated in December 2006, but Dobson said they continued to live together in the mobile home in the 7000 block of John Rowe Road.
In his divorce petition, Kevin Jackson said he and his wife had separated for brief periods several times. In her reply, Meloney Jackson blamed her husband's abandonment and neglect for the breakup.
Both asked the other for financial support and the mobile home.
Dobson said deputies had been to the Jackson home in the past but not because of domestic violence between the couple. He said Meloney Jackson's son from an earlier relationship, Dustin Alex Jackson, 16, recently moved to a relative's after a conflict with his stepfather.
Meloney Jackson was being held without bail in the Baker County jail Monday pending a first court appearance today.