Florida Man Keith Jackson Admits On Facebook Live To Killing Lover, Then Kills Self
TAMPA (CBSMiami/AP) — A Tampa area man set his condo on fire and then killed himself after admitting on Facebook that he'd killed his boyfriend.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said a man called 911 shortly after 7:30 a.m. Monday to report that his friend, 30-year-old Keith Jackson, had called him using FaceTime to say he'd killed his boyfriend during a dispute.
Chronister said a SWAT team, crisis negotiators, and deputies converged on Jackson's condo building in the Tampa suburb of Riverview.
By then, Chronister said, Jackson was confessing in a live video streamed on Facebook to killing "the love of his life."
The sheriff said Jackson didn't answer phone calls or open the door when deputies knocked. Crisis negotiators watched on Facebook Live as Jackson held the gun to the camera and confessed to killing his boyfriend. He also told viewers that he had tried to kill himself three times since shooting his boyfriend but had failed so far.
He said he wanted sheriff's deputies to come into the apartment and kill him, Chronister said.
The stand-off between Jackson and sheriff's deputies lasted nearly seven hours.
"During this great length of time our negotiators are talking to him and trying to de-escalate him in any way that we can," Chronister said. "He gets frustrated with us that we're not going to take his life and, just before 1 p.m. this afternoon, tells our negotiators, 'If you guys aren't going to do this we're back at square one. I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands."
A few minutes later, deputies saw smoke rising from Jackson's condo. They called Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. The SWAT team covered firefighters as they rushed in to put out the flames and pull out the bodies of the two dead men.
The sheriff's office said Jackson's victim was in his 20s or early 30s, but they did not identify him.
"I think our community is on edge and this community has become too violent," Chronister said. "I don't know what it's going to take, who it's going to take being killed for us to finally say enough is enough and, as a society and a community, we're not going to tolerate any additional violence. Because I tell you what, I'm tired of notifying individuals that their family member is deceased."
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)