Talking Dateline: The Bluegrass Mystery

**Andrea Canning** (0:06)
Hi, everyone, I'm Andrea Canning, and we are Talking Dateline, and today we're joined by Blayne Alexander to talk about her episode, The Bluegrass Mystery. And if you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode on Peacock or listen to it in the Dateline podcast feed, and then come right back here. Later, we'll have an extra clip from Blayne's interview with one of Ella Jackson's friends about the two words she'd use to describe Ella as a mom. But first, let's talk Dateline. Hey, Blayne, how are you?

**Blayne Alexander** (0:32)
Let's do it. Andrea, I'm so glad to see you. How are you?

**Andrea Canning** (0:35)
I'm good, and I hope that you had a wonderful birthday because I know it's a big one. Congratulations.

**Blayne Alexander** (0:41)
40 years, which is wild.

**Andrea Canning** (0:42)
Oh, I'm sorry, I was going to say 30

**Blayne Alexander** (0:44)
I thought you were 30 Oh, you're so sweet.

**Andrea Canning** (0:45)
Like, you look 30

**Blayne Alexander** (0:49)
Thank you, my love. I'll take it. I'll take all of that energy as I enter my 40s.

**Andrea Canning** (0:52)
OK, so all right, so let's get right to this episode. Blayne, first, just give us a little recap of the Bluegrass Mystery and what it was about.

**Blayne Alexander** (1:01)
So this is a story that takes place in Kentucky, as the name might tell you.
This centered around Ella Jackson. She is somebody who was a fantastic mom by all accounts. She had an adult son, Phillip, and a younger son who's about six years old named Alex. But one day, her husband called 911 to say that she'd gone missing. Police don't do anything until about 24 hours later when her adult son calls and says, you know what, this is not like my mom, this doesn't seem good, please investigate. Investigators, look at three men in her life. Her current husband, Glenn, her ex-husband, Jason, to whom she's still very close and friendly, and her adult son, Phillip. And so through a number of different twists and turns, they ultimately settle on Glenn Jackson, her current husband, who had killed her and disposed of her body. Yeah.

**Andrea Canning** (1:46)
I mean, let's start from the beginning, that 911 call. That was one of the most bizarre 911 calls I think I've ever heard, where he's saying, I heard on a show, you don't wait to report someone missing, and then he's talking about how everything is great, like with him, or I just, what is happening in this 911 call?

**Blayne Alexander** (2:11)
It was the oddest thing that I have ever heard.

**Glenn Jackson** (2:15)
Can I just check, can I help you?
Hi, my name is Glenn Jackson. This is not an emergency. I haven't heard from my wife for over 24 hours.

**Blayne Alexander** (2:24)
Okay.

**Glenn Jackson** (2:24)
Is the child with you? Yes, yes. He's fine. Everything's great. I don't personally think anything is wrong, but I heard on the show a while back that you don't wait three or four days to report somebody missing.
Right.

**Blayne Alexander** (2:38)
I kind of refer to this as the tale of 2911 calls, because you have these two calls that come in in about 24 hours apart. But yes, the first one is from Glenn Jackson, her husband, who has no concern in his voice, doesn't seem worried. In fact, he basically says, this isn't a big deal. My son and I are good. It's just that my wife is gone and I don't know where she is. So most people listening to that would say, that's an odd reason to call 911
But when I spoke with the investigator who led this entire thing, he told me that he really gives so much credit to Phillip, Ella's adult son, for making that second 911 calling saying, please check into this. This is not my mom's normal behavior. You need to look further into this.

**Andrea Canning** (3:17)
It reminded me of when I was a local news anchor reporter in Cincinnati. I was working the night beat and I had been sent to a police station to cover some story and this man came in to the little waiting area where I was waiting to do my interview. He comes in and he tells them at the window that his wife is missing.
He's very calm, doesn't seem really too concerned. I'm sitting right there listening to the whole thing.
I said to him, I was like, do you want help from the news? I'm a news reporter, would you like? He's like, no, no, no, I'm no, it's fine. We're not there. I was like, all right, I guess it's probably fine. She'll turn up. And sure enough, her body was found behind a motel. And it went unsolved for a really long time until I looked it up not too long ago, like whatever happened to that woman and he pled guilty to her murder. So I was there the moment he reported her missing in the police department. I just happened to be sitting there on a bench listening to the whole thing and thinking, this guy is a little too calm.