‘I should have stabbed him more’: Wife admits knifing husband to death in police footage
When told that she was being arrested for murder, Penelope Jackson replied ‘oh good’ and asked for her slippers
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The moment a woman admitted stabbing her husband to death and told police officers: “If I haven’t done it properly I’m really annoyed,” was released on videos yesterday.
Penelope Jackson, 66, is on trial accused of murdering David Jackson, 78, by stabbing him three times with a kitchen knife on February 13. She accepts unlawful killing but denies murder.
The judge at Bristol Crown Court authorised the release of the body-camera footage of her arrest at the couple’s bungalow on the Somerset coast as well as the audio of an 18-minute 999 call.
In the videos, Mrs Jackson is heard calmly telling officers: “I admit it all,” and telling them that her wounded husband was, “on the kitchen floor”, and, “with any luck you’ll be too late”.
When one tells colleagues: “Get the ambulance in pronto. We need CPR,” the hand-cuffed Mrs Jackson is heard saying: “No, no, no please don’t.” A moment later she adds: “I should have stabbed him a bit more.”
David Jackson, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Royal Logistics Corps, bled to death in his kitchen in the couple’s home in Berrow after dialing 999 and telling the operator: “My wife has stabbed me.”
In the footage of her arrest, Mrs Jackson says she stabbed her husband because: “He’s an aggressive bully and nasty and I’ve had enough. And when he said you wouldn’t do it. I did it twice more.”
She repeatedly asked officers to get her a coat from inside the house and when one officer advised her to not say any more for fear of incriminating herself, she replied: “I have no intention of not agreeing to what I’ve done. I know what I’ve done and I know why I’ve done it. And if I haven’t done it properly I’m really annoyed.”
Later, when an officer announced that he was, “further arresting you for murder”, Ms Jackson simply replied: “Oh good!”
On saying she was missing her slippers, she told police staff: “I’m very sorry for being a nuisance.”
Ms Jackson claimed in a subsequent police interview that her husband had been “violent and controlling”. She said this behaviour had begun shortly after his son Gavin killed himself in the 1990s. Ms Jackson gave police a prepared statement that claimed her husband had attacked her throughout their marriage and had tried to kill her on a cruise ship.
Ms Jackson also claimed that she had stabbed her husband to death after he had become angry about a steak dinner which did not have potatoes and she, “expected a beating”.
Friends described David Jackson in court as a “kind and generous man” but said that his wife “could be quite harsh” and “quite unsympathetic”.
In a 999 call, also released by the judge, Ms Jackson calmly refused to help her husband as operators repeatedly asked if she would help stem his bleeding.
When Mr Jackson made the call, telling operators “my wife has stabbed me”, he then screamed and his wife took over the call to tell operators that she had “done it again”. Mr Jackson could be heard in the background saying: “She has stabbed me again.”
Mrs Jackson told the operator that she had stabbed her husband three times, adding: “Once I thought I would get his heart, well he hasn’t got one. And then twice in the abdomen so even if you get here the abdomen is buggered.”
The judge authorised the release of the audio and footage after the conclusion of the prosecution case. The trial continues.