Teen’s ‘Romantic Problems’ Lead To Horse Theft, Mutilated Credit Card

December 14, 2011 at 7:52 am by kniption  

Magnolia, AR – A Southern Arkansas University rodeo team member is in a bit of trouble after being implicated in the theft of horses kept at the university stables.

According to court documents, five horses and an aluminum trailer were stolen from the SAU stables on November 3. Three of the horses were worth more than $25,000 each. The other two — and the trailer — were worth somewhere between $5,000 and $25,000 each. Jaci Rae Jackson, a student rodeo team member who turned 19 yesterday, has been charged as an accomplice to the crime.

As investigators began working the case, they were reportedly told by one of Jackson’s fellow rodeo students that Jackson had asked her who owned the horses that were later stolen. Court documents described another student saying that Jackson took notes about the locations of the stalls where the stolen horses were housed.

Then, on Nov. 7, an informant reported to authorities that Jackson had asked for help moving the stolen horses. According to the affidavit, Jackson told the informant that her mother’s boyfriend had “screwed it up.”

It is hard to know what, exactly, the mother’s boyfriend ‘screwed up’ but, apparently, it wasn’t the killing of one of the horses. During a recorded phone conversation, Jackson allegedly told the informant that she had wanted one of the five stolen horses – a horse named Credit Card – to be killed. Court documents describe her telling the informant that she had, in fact, watched her mother’s boyfriend shoot the horse and slit its throat. Jackson reportedly then said that her mother’s boyfriend and an unnamed juvenile then cut the horse into pieces “for easy transport and disposal.”

Investigators eventually located the horses. Well… four of them. They were found alive – but malnourished – near the Oklahoma home of Jackson’s mother. The fifth, as Jackson had described, was found dead and cut into pieces.

At the time of her arrest, Jackson reportedly told a friend that stealing horses was in retaliation for the fact that two men on the rodeo team tried to rape her. Arkansas State Police investigator Hays McWhirter told local news media that investigators believe, instead, that Jackson had wanted a relationship with the men and lied about the attempted assault. Court documents noted that Jackson had “romantic problems with at least one of the owners of the stolen horses.”

Jackson is charged with felony theft of five horses, riding equipment and a trailer from the SAU stables. She has pleaded not guilty. The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Department in Oklahoma said Jackson was also being held on three other felony charges, including bringing stolen property into Oklahoma, knowingly concealing stolen property and cruelty to animals. Jackson’s bond in Arkansas court has been set at $100,000.

Warrants have also been issued for the arrests of two other suspects in Oklahoma.

“Other suspects are known to be involved,” university police Chief Eric Plummer said in a statement. “We will work this case until everyone involved is brought to justice.”

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