3 men charged after slaying along bike path

By The Columbus Dispatch  • 
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Police block traffic near the scene of the killing early today.

Behind the white double doors of the South Side church, the pastor marveled at the transformation of a young man.

Kelly M. Jackson was always making the walk from his family's apartment, through littered alleys and past vacant homes, to the Church of Jesus Christ Ministries at Livingston and Kelton avenues.

Not just on Sundays, although he was always there for services. Week after week for the past several months, Jackson attended prayer every day.

"To come to prayer every day as a young man, that's one of the most powerful things you can see," Pastor Maurice Traylor said. "There's some ministers who aren't that committed."

Jackson was there at the storefront church on Monday night, his 24th birthday. And he was there Thursday night, just a few hours before he was shot to death across town, beneath a bridge on a rocky bank of the Olentangy River.

Columbus police have charged three men with murder in Jackson's slaying beside the Olentangy Trail bike path. Homicide detectives credited a passing patrol sergeant and other officers with rapidly closing a case that otherwise might have been far more difficult to solve.

Sgt. Dana Norman of the homicide squad said patrol Sgt. Matthew R. Weekley, 39, was driving west on 5th Avenue at 12:46 a.m. yesterday when he heard gunshots. Weekley called in the gunfire and turned around, spotting a sport-utility vehicle in a nearby parking lot.

Officers stopped the SUV as it was about to leave the lot and found three men with guns inside, Norman said. Other officers found Jackson, dead of gunshot wounds to the upper body.

Charged with murder are: Rayn O. Cannon, 18, of 688 Lilley Ave.; Phillip A. Sharpe Jr., 19, of 904 Miller Ave.; and Miguel A. Gilbert Jr., 22, of 1991 N. 4th St., Apt. A1.

Norman would not speculate on a motive but said the shooting wasn't random and the defendants knew Jackson.

Jackson's family did not recognize the men's names, although his mother conceded, "It was probably somebody he knew, sure enough."

Pamala Jackson said someone had called her earlier Thursday night, saying Kelly Jackson should go to a Weinland Park carryout to retrieve his cell phone. She found her son at the church to tell him to go, but he had his phone with him.

The family now believes that call was an attempted setup.

"I almost helped them to kill my son," she said, sobbing.

Kelly Jackson stayed at the church until after 11 p.m., when he told Traylor he was making the walk home.

Jackson was intent on straightening out his life after the death of his grandmother devastated the family in December, his mother said. He sought a job to support his 4-year-old son and had become so zealous in his newfound faith that she sometimes became concerned.

"I've never seen my kids go to church like that, morning, noon and night," she said.

He would talk to her about repentance, of turning away from sin and toward the Lord.

"My boy finally tried to get his life together," she said. "Now all of a sudden you're dead. Dead and gone."

Traylor assured her that Jackson had done what many never do before they die: He made peace and found joy with the Lord, Traylor said, and he was home.

But the pastor added, "I can't explain everything God does."