Newport News man executed for murdering neighbor, 79

By Dena Potter

JARRATT

A Virginia man was executed Thursday for beating and stabbing his 79-year-old neighbor to death while he and a friend ransacked her apartment.

Kent Jermaine Jackson, 26, was pronounced dead at 9:18 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center. He received a lethal injection for the 2000 murder of Beulah Mae Kaiser in Newport News.

Jackson's last words were: "You all can't kill me. I'm the king. Remember me like you remember Jesus. I'll be back."

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declined to stop the execution.

Kaiser was also sexually assaulted and her cane was crammed into her mouth with such force that it knocked out most of her teeth and broke her jaw.

Her murder went unsolved for more than a year before DNA from a cigarette butt left in Kaiser's apartment led police to Jackson and Joseph Marquis Dorsett, who lived together in an apartment across the hall from Kaiser.

Jackson confessed to beating, stabbing and robbing Kaiser and was sentenced to death in 2003.

Dorsett was convicted for his role and sentenced to 135 years in prison.

"She would have given these guys anything they asked for had they asked for it, and she didn't have much," said Lindsay Poteat, director of the Peninsula Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter where Kaiser volunteered.

Poteat said Kaiser moved into the apartment where she died after losing the home she and her husband built on the James River while helping her adopted son financially.

Jackson spent time with family members and a friend Thursday afternoon, said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. None of Kaiser's family attended the execution.

Jackson was the 101st inmate executed in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.