Unidentified Man Arrested As Person Of Interest In Serial Rape Case Has Been Now Identified as Bernard Jackson/ Bernard Jackson was sentenced to 18 consecutive life terms

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5/06 4:46 pm

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Police arrested a person of interest Wednesday in the serial rapist case in the Waldo area of Kansas City.

According to Sgt. Stacey Graves with the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department, officers took a man into custody shortly after 4 p.m. The man was arrested on a parole violation.

He continued to be questioned Thursday by detectives in connection to five rapes between September 2009 and February of this year.

Neighbors said police swarmed the 3200 block of Thompson, in Kansas City's Northeast neighborhood, before making the arrest. Several people then watched the man run from officers before being caught and handcuffed.

"Cops just started coming from every direction," said Shawnte Rouse, who lives a block away. "It was scary for me. I've never seen so much going on."

Devon Dunson said he had noticed the man walking down the sidewalk before, but thought he had only lived in the area for about six months. Dunson also said the man lived "in a shed" near the home.

Our reporting partners at the Kansas City Star say the man arrested "was paroled from prison in 2008 after serving more than 20 years for attempted forcible rape, burglary, and three other convictions. Although he was only charged with one sexual assault, police suspected him in several others in the 1980s."

The suspect has been dubbed by police and local media as the "Waldo Rapist," though only the first two of his alleged attacks occurred in the Waldo neighborhood.

Those happened Sept. 29, 2009, in the 7500 block of Summit Street and Oct. 11, 2009, in the 100 block of East 78th Terrace.

Two more attacks happened nearby in January 2010, though not in Waldo. One rape happened in the 8300 block of Mercier. The other happened near Rainbow Lane and Porte Cimi Pas.

The last attack happened Feb. 22, 2010, at 69th Terrace and Rockhill Road.

Victims have described the suspect as a black male, about 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. He is bald, has pitted cheeks – perhaps from acne scars and has a deep, smooth voice.


Police officials, who say they have worked hundreds of leads in the case, had previously announced the reward in the case was up to $15,000.

Dunson said the man police arrested on Wednesday definitely had similarities to the sketch that had been widely distributed throughout the Brookside and Waldo neighborhoods. However, he was reluctant to jump to conclusions.

"I didn't want to point the finger at someone who was innocent," said Dunson. "Pointing the finger isn't something I like to do. It can ruin someone's life if there's misidentification."

Jared Wonser was working on his roof when the commotion began. He has lived in the neighborhood his entire life.

"This is crazy. That dude lived right up the street from me and I had no idea," he said.

A young woman who lives in the area where the arrest happened says she is glad the man was arrested. She reported seeing police cars arriving from several directions before approaching the house they surrounded. She says officers told her they were involved in a standoff with someone inside.

We also talked to Waldo-area residents about their thoughts now that someone has been arrested in the case. One woman who lives in Waldo described having "a feeling of celebration" when she heard the news. She says residents in the area will finally be able to resume a normal life.

Last Update: 5/06 11:35 pm

KANSAS CITY, Mo – Interest in a serial rape investigation stretches all the way to the west coast.

Investigators also are looking into possible connections between Bernard Jackson, 52, of Kansas City, and unsolved assaults from 1983 and 1984 in Sacramento, Calif., where he was charged with five felony counts in October 1984 but never was arrested.

According to the Sacramento Bee, a man known as the “Oak Park rapist” terrorized the Sacramento neighborhood with a series of assaults.

Police suspected Jackson was the rapist, who first struck in May, 1983. According to the Bee, police reported 14 rapes and three other sex assaults over an 18-month period.

Prosecutors in California's Sacramento County filed five felony counts in a single case against Jackson in October 1984, but records indicate he never was arrested in that case.

"I can confirm that we did file charges in '84," said Shelly Orio, spokeswoman for the Sacramento County district attorney's office. "We had to pull the file and we're reviewing it."

She said the paper file, which had to be retrieved from a warehouse, showed Jackson faced five charges: burglary; sexual battery; penetration with a foreign object; assault with great bodily injury and with a deadly weapon; and assault with intent to commit rape, sodomy, or oral copulation.

The Bee reported that Jackson was pulled over near Denver in December, 1983. The officer discovered an outstanding warrant in Missouri for attempted rape, burglary, armed robbery and a parole violation.

He was transferred to Missouri, convicted and spent the next 24 years behind bars.

For some reason, the Sacramento charges were dismissed without action in 2006.

Bill Carragher, a 29-year photojournalist at KTXL-TV in Sacramento, remembers when the attacks first began. At first, Carragher said authorities thought the assaults may be connected to a series of rapes in the Bay Area.

However, the attacks continued in the Oak Park neighborhood, described by Carragher as a poor community in 1983.

“Sacramento is very hot in the summer time and people didn’t have air conditioning,” he told NBC Action News over the phone. “They were leaving there windows and doors open and that’s how he was getting in.”

Carragher said the rapist would strike once or twice and then the attacks would stop for a couple of months.

“The community was in a panic,” he said. “It definitely had the women watching over their shoulders, locking the doors and not going out at night.”

Orio said it too soon to know whether Sacramento prosecutors would reopen their investigation or seek new charges now that Jackson is in custody.

The trial of a man accused in a series of 1980s sexual assaults in the Waldo area of Kansas City has been scheduled for next July.

The July 18, 2011, trial date for Bernard Jackson was set during a meeting today between the judge and attorneys in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Jackson, 52, was charged earlier this year in the 1980s cases as a result of the Kansas City police investigation into other sexual assaults in the same area between last September and February. No one has been charged with any of the more recent crimes.

Jackson’s next court date is set for Sept. 24.


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09/30/2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Convicted rapist Bernard Jackson was sentenced to 18 consecutive life terms on Friday morning for crimes that he committed against four women in the 1980s.

Two of Jackson's victims in the case were present in the courtroom. One of them testified at the sentencing.

Jackson showed no emotion Friday as the judge handed down the sentence.

Jackson's defense attorney, Carie Allen, has already filed an appeal.

On July 15, Jackson was found guilty of 18 felony counts ranging from rape, sodomy, and robbery in the cases of four women in 1983 through 1984.

Jackson is also charged with two rapes that occurred in the Waldo - Armour Hills neighborhood in 2009 and 2010. A trial date for those charges has not been set.

Jackson already has spent more than 30 years behind bars, all on sexual assault charges, according to the Associated Press.

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