An Ohio man convicted of raping and robbing multiple women in a string of gunpoint attacks across Cleveland last summer will die in prison.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Margaret Russo sentenced 33-year-old Stanley Jackson to life in prison with no chance at parole until he serves 376 1/2 years behind bars.
“You seem to be somebody who has abandoned all sense of conscience and morality,” Russo said. “There are no words for me to put together to describe the horror that occurred.”
Jackson’s attorney, John Gibbons, said the set of facts against his client were “ugly” and that Jackson knew he would walk out of Friday’s hearing with an enormous sentence.
“Basically, Mr. Jackson is going to come out of the state penal system in a pine box,” Gibbons said.
The sentencing came after three of the women Jackson victimized last May and June told Russo in person or in letters read aloud in court that they refused to let Jackson’s crimes define their lives.
One victim’s voice strained through tears as she said that, even though she still sees Jackson’s face when she closes her eyes, she prays for him.
“This made me stronger, no matter how weak I feel inside,” she said.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Kerry Sowul read from a letter from another of the women.
“Through my darkest days, there is finally light at the end of my tunnel,” the woman wrote. “As for you, I hope you never get to see any light [any] time soon.”
Jackson did not speak. He plans to appeal his conviction.
A jury convicted Jackson of multiple counts of rape, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and other charges on May 16 after a three-week trial.
Jackson first struck on May 24, 2022, when he ambushed a man and woman sitting in a Honda SUV parked at Charles Dickens Elementary School, court records say.
Jackson held a gun on the pair and made them handover their cellphones, which he smashed on the ground. He then made both victims take off their clothes and walk down the street while he drove behind them in their car.
He eventually drove back to the school lot and took their clothes off the ground and drove off with them, prosecutors said.
Jackson was still driving the stolen Honda on June 3, 2022, when he saw two women standing next to a parked car at 2 a.m., again off Kinsman Road, prosecutors said.
One of the women was working for a food delivery app and her 4-year-old son was asleep in the backseat, prosecutors said. Jackson forced the women back into the car at gunpoint and got into the backseat with the boy. He made the women drive around to multiple ATMs to withdraw cash and give the money to him, prosecutors said.
He threatened to abduct the child if the women made eye contact with anyone they ran into during the withdrawals, prosecutors said. At one point he fired a gunshot out the window, prosecutors said.
Jackson eventually made the women pull off on a side street, get out of the car and remove their clothes. He then raped both of them at gunpoint at a nearby field, prosecutors said. He ordered the women to put their clothes inside their car and take the boy out, then lit it on fire, prosecutors said.
The women then went to a house next door, where the resident called police.
The boy later told police he was awake during much of the attack and pretended to be asleep.
The crack in the case came June 16, 2022, when police found the stolen Honda parked in an apartment building parking lot next to Shaker Square. Someone tried to set fire to it, but the doors and windows were shut so the flames did not ignite the SUV, and it was still in tact. Investigators found, among other items in the car, a pay stub from the Taco Bell Cantina with Jackson’s name.
While police continued to collect evidence to tie Jackson to the crimes, prosecutors said he struck again on July 24, 2022. He walked up to a woman sitting in her car, jumped into her passenger seat and pulled out a gun. He rifled her purse, then made her drive to an ATM to take money out. On the way, he fired a shot off out the window, then later made her take off her clothes and raped her.
Jackson then got out of the car, hopped onto a bicycle and rode away, prosecutors said.
Investigators set up a ruse to arrest Jackson by posing as a manager at the Taco Bell, and called him to say he had a final paycheck to pick up at the restaurant, prosecutors said. When Jackson showed up to pick up the check, detectives arrested him.
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