I should have stabbed him more, woman accused of killing husband told police
Court hears claim caught on officers’ body-worn camera as wife denies committing murder
A WOMAN accused of murdering her husband was captured on police bodyworn camera saying she “should have stabbed him more” as she was arrested, a court has heard.
Penelope Jackson, 66, is standing trial at Bristol Crown Court accused of the murder of her husband David, 78, at their home in Berrow, Somerset, in February.
Jackson admits manslaughter but denies murder in an incident that happened just three months after police were called to the house about an argument over a remote control.
She was arrested after making a 999 call to police in which she told a call handler she had stabbed Mr Jackson three times. In the call played to the jury, Jackson was asked not to stab Mr Jackson again, to which she replied, “Why?”
She then told the call handler she had stabbed her husband once and then did it again when “he said I wouldn’t do it again”. She added that she had stabbed him three times.
Jackson told the handler: “I thought I’d got his heart, well I didn’t then, I got him twice in the abdomen.”
Body-worn footage from the officers who arrested Jackson following the call showed her telling them she “should have stabbed him more”.
In the footage, Jackson can be seen answering the door before being arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and put in handcuffs.
Directing the officers to the kitchen, where she said her husband was lying on the floor, Jackson said: “There’s nothing nasty in there. I admit it all.”
After an officer said to call an ambulance, Jackson can be heard on the footage saying “no, no, no, I should have stabbed him a bit more”. A second piece of body-worn footage played to the jury saw Jackson arriving at a custody suite and telling officers she was “very sorry” for being a “nuisance”.
Jackson claims her husband was coercive and controlling and also physically violent towards her during their 24-year marriage.
Jackson told the jury that after her second husband’s death, she married Mr Jackson and had to hide evidence of her previous life, including love letters and pictures, after fearing they would be destroyed following an incident where he took an axe to the couple’s furniture.
She said her husband was so jealous when they first met that she got “property of David Jackson” tattooed on her bottom to “reassure him”.
She described how she “walked on eggshells” and “lived with a knot in my stomach” throughout their marriage, telling the jury: “I didn’t know if I was waking up to nice David or nasty David.” The trial continues.