Editor’s note: This story includes the mention of suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, you can reach the national crisis hotline at 800-273-8255 or by dialing 988.
The State Attorney’s Office abruptly dropped a long-running criminal case Friday against a commercial truck driver it had accused of kidnapping a woman in Mississippi and sexually assaulting her during a weeklong trip across the Southeast.
The decision to dismiss all charges came four days after the truck driver, George Edward Tyler Jackson, 46, of Elkins, West Virginia, tried to kill himself – still protesting his innocence – inside the bathroom of a home in Jacksonville where he had been staying ahead of his upcoming criminal trial in Gainesville next week.
It came seven weeks after news reporting on evidence in the case that raised serious questions about his accuser and her version of events. The assistant state attorney, Nicole Reed, filed a motion Friday telling the judge the prosecutor’s office was dismissing all charges in the case with no further explanation.
Jackson spent 539 days in jail after he was arrested at a truck stop in Waldo, Florida, and faced life in prison if convicted. He unexpectedly missed a pretrial hearing earlier this week. That sent his defense lawyer, family and friends rushing to search for him, based partly on a GPS monitor he was required to wear.
A family friend found him Monday bleeding at the trailer where a judge had recently been allowing him to live until his trial, which had been expected to begin next week.
Jackson’s wrists were bandaged, and he was subsequently hospitalized involuntarily at HCA Florida Memorial Hospital, according to court records and a family friend.
Jackson was still hospitalized Friday and not allowed to have his phone. He previously said in interviews that he wanted his life back, and said he planned to sue the sheriff’s office over its investigation and prosecutors in Gainesville who had fought until Friday to imprison him.
“They are not winning this,” Jackson said in a text to a journalist Dec. 13. “They didn’t have a case.” Jackson's emotional state appeared to deteriorate as his trial approached. At one point, he pleaded for help persuading the elected state attorney, Brian Kramer, and Gov. Ron DeSantis that he was innocent.
Deputies arrested Jackson on a Friday night in May 2023 at the Pilot truck stop in Waldo, after his accuser – a 43-year-old mother from Brandon, Mississippi, who told Jackson she was fleeing a violent domestic relationship – pleaded for help from employees inside. She said she had been kidnapped from her husband and held hostage for six days as Jackson drove across the Southeast, raped daily. She said he forced her to urinate inside a bottle and threatened to kill her and dispose of her body in a roadside ditch if she tried to escape.
But text messages from Jackson's phone showed he had been in touch the whole time with the woman's husband, who accused the two of being adulterous devils and fornicators. "Once I knew she was willingly with you, I left," he texted.
The woman separately texted the man four days into the trip: “I am fine I am safe I’m on my way back to New York please leave me be,” she wrote. Jackson said another text from her husband to the woman said the couple needed to “score a lick,” street slang for coming into money. He said he believes he was the target of an elaborate extortion plot.
Jackson said he had agreed to let her accompany him on his travels to escape what he believed was a bad relationship. They had sex consensually, he said.
Neither Jackson’s accuser nor her husband responded to phone calls, texts or social media messages over months reporting on the case. It wasn’t immediately clear whether they would face any consequences in the case. Her account of what happened is taken from court records filed in the case.
Her fiance failed to appear for deposition testimony three times over three months, which defense lawyer John Broling said prevented Jackson from proving his innocence. “If these two individuals, who are presumed to have the greatest interest in seeing this case resolved, are actively obstructing Mr. Jackson’s investigation and defense … the prosecution must be ceased and Mr. Jackson allowed to get back to his life,” Broling wrote in a motion asking the judge to throw out the case.
That request was still pending on Friday when prosecutors dropped all charges.
___
This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at aidanbush@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.