Slaying suspect will not get death penalty

The government will not be seeking the death penalty for a woman accused of killing the wife of an Army soldier on Aliamanu Military Reservation last year.

The U.S. attorney here sent a letter to the court last month informing the U.S. district judge assigned to Ailsa Jackson’s murder case that the attorney general has decided against pursuing the death penalty. That means that if Jackson is found guilty of capital murder, her penalty will be life in prison.

Jackson, 24, is charged with November’s murder of 38-year-old Catherine Walker.

The Army said Walker’s body was found Nov. 15 in her home on Morishige Lane.

The Honolulu medical examiner said Walker died from stab wounds to her neck and torso.

At the time of the killing, the Army said Walker’s husband was a medic assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center. Jackson lived with her parents on Kobashigawa Street in the same Aliamanu Crater military housing complex as the Walkers.

Army criminal investigators said at the beginning of their investigation that Walker’s death was not a random act or the result of a robbery.

According to federal court records, Army officials almost immediately had Jackson under investigation for Walker’s slaying. In February the U.S. attorney subpoenaed Jackson’s parents to appear before a federal grand jury.

The grand jury returned an indictment in April charging Jackson with killing Walker “willfully, deliberately, maliciously and with premeditation and malice forethought.”

By the time the grand jury returned the indictment, Jackson was living in Fort Wayne, Ind., where the FBI arrested her. The U.S. Marshals Service transferred her to Hawaii.

At her arraignment in May, a U.S. magistrate judge ordered Jackson to remain in custody pending trial without the opportunity for release on bond. The judge also scheduled trial for November.

Jackson has been in custody at the Federal Detention Center since her return.