Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of alleged sexual trauma. If you or someone you know is a sexual assault survivor, you can use this tool to find your local crisis center for additional support.
She ran inside the Florida truck stop out of breath, barefoot with wide, frantic eyes, past customers toward the counter: "I really need your help," she begged. She repeated it four times.
Employees huddled around the woman, ushering her into a back room to hide while they dialed 911. She looked terrified and said she had been “tooken,” an employee said. A truck driver came inside the store and announced, "I didn't kidnap that girl," the employee said.
Sheriff's investigators described a horrific crime: They said the trucker they arrested that day – who is facing life in prison if convicted – had kidnapped the woman at a truck stop in Mississippi and held her hostage for six days as they drove across the Southeast, raping her daily. He forced her to urinate inside a bottle. He threatened to kill her and dispose of her body in a roadside ditch if she tried to escape.
Now, there are questions about whether that's what happened, at all.
Alachua County Circuit Judge Phillip A. Pena unexpectedly ordered George Edward Tyler Jackson, 46, freed without bond this month pending his upcoming trial after Jackson spent 539 days in jail in the case. He has pleaded not guilty to a felony kidnapping charge, after prosecutors dropped felony charges of sexual assault and false imprisonment. His trial is expected to begin in Gainesville in January.
In court filings, Jackson’s public defender, John Lyon Broling, said forensic evidence – which he said sheriff’s investigators took 10 months to produce – shows Jackson notified his employer that the woman was riding in his truck, and there are texts and voicemails between the woman, her husband and adult son during the six days on the road that Broling described as “entirely exculpatory.”
Her husband slept in his car at the same Mississippi truck stop where the woman – a 43-year-old mother who said she was fleeing a violent domestic relationship – spent the first night with the trucker in his cab, Broling said.
Jackson, the trucker, said in his first media interviews in the case that the woman seemed appreciative the day he said he rescued her: “The first thing that she said was, she wished she could ‘find a man like you.’” He said he agreed to let her accompany him on his travels to escape what he believed was a bad relationship. They had sex consensually, he said.
Among the messages expected to be cited at trial was a text from her husband to the woman saying the couple needed to “score a lick,” street slang for coming into money. He said he now believes he was the target of an elaborate extortion plot.
Her husband refused to be interviewed, Broling said, but now is scheduled to answer questions under oath next week. The truck’s GPS locator was active the entire time, meaning authorities could quickly have traced it to rescue a kidnapping victim, he said. Jackson said the husband photographed his truck, including its unique Department of Transportation number. He said the doors and windows of the Freightliner cab were never locked with her inside.
Surveillance video from inside a Walmart where the two shopped during the six-day trip showed the woman had opportunities to raise alarms but never did, he said – until the day she ran inside the Pilot truck stop in Waldo, about 20 minutes northeast of Gainesville.
“The state’s case has significant factual problems,” Broling told the judge.
Who to believe is at the heart of a legal quandary that could send the truck driver to prison for the rest of his life for nightmarish crimes, or reveal an unfathomable deception perpetrated on him. The judge ruled in August there was enough evidence for a trial – then Nov. 8 reduced Jackson’s bond from $500,000 to zero and allowed him to live with family friends in Jacksonville, 75 miles away. There is no sign the State Attorney’s Office is backing away from the case.
Deputies arrested Jackson on a Friday night in May 2023 at the Pilot truck stop in Waldo. Neither Jackson’s accuser nor her husband responded to phone calls, texts or social media messages over the past three weeks. Her account of what happened is taken from court records filed in the case.
The woman had fled inside the truck stop office with employees, including Debra Pearson and two others. Pearson, who attended some of the court hearings since Jackson’s arrest, was so traumatized by the encounter that she quit her job days later, according to court records. Pearson also did not respond to phones or texts over two weeks.
The woman told a deputy that she and her then-fiance were at Love’s Truck stop in Flowood, Mississippi, when their car broke down. Jackson offered her gas money for sex and she declined, she told deputies. Later, he offered her money just to talk, she said.Armed with a black knife with an American flag on the handle for self-defense, the woman agreed. She said Jackson took the knife from her and held it against her throat, saying, “if she knew what was good for her she would shut up,” according to court records describing her sworn testimony.
Jackson forced her to tell the man she was OK and would spend the night in the truck, she said. After Jackson was arrested, nurses at a nearby hospital found a pinpoint injury on her side where she said Jackson had held the knife six days earlier, deputies said.
Jackson kept her in his truck for six days as they traveled across the Southeast, she said. She said he sexually assaulted her nightly. She tried to escape once but could not open the truck’s doors, according to a summary of her testimony. Afterward, Jackson warned that the doors were locked from the outside and said he would “kill her and leave her in a ditch” if she tried again, she told deputies.
DNA tests confirmed Jackson had sex with the woman. Deputies also found bottles of urine in the truck, according to court records.
Jackson allowed her to leave the truck to shower at a facility one day, but Jackson escorted her to and from the shower, she told deputies.
At the Pilot truck stop, when Jackson wasn’t looking, the woman snuck out of the truck’s passenger door after he accidentally left it unlocked, she said. She made her way into the truck stop, hiding behind store racks and appearing scared, according to a police description of video surveillance.
The woman went past the register, crying. She whispered to the cashier she needed help. She repeated it multiple times. Employees rushed her into an office.
Jackson walked inside the store, spontaneously telling a clerk he did not kidnap the woman, according to video surveillance. That utterance was one of the key elements in the case that convinced the judge, Pena, that there was enough evidence for a trial.
“Ms. Pearson stated that the defendant came into the store and stated out of nowhere that, ‘I did not kidnap her’,” Pena wrote. He added that those comments, along with what Jackson told a sheriff’s investigator, would be admissible in the courtroom.
Pena initially set Jackson’s bond at $1 million. After prosecutors dropped the sexual assault and false imprisonment charges, in July, his bond was reduced to $500,000. That was still too high for Jackon and his family to pay, said Broling, who asked Pena again on Oct. 31 to reduce his bond. Broling cited what he described as the new evidence raising questions about the accuser’s version of events. He said her husband, who he described as a key defense witness, couldn’t be located to question under oath even with help from the prosecutor’s office.
A sheriff’s office in Mississippi tried to help serve a subpoena on the woman’s husband at two addresses there but deputies sent it back with a note, “person stated he doesn’t live here.” When the prosecutor’s office in Gainesville agreed to set up an interview on Oct. 25 on Zoom, the husband never dialed in, Broling said. The trucker’s accuser wouldn’t help find her husband, he said.
Unexpectedly, Pena reduced Jackson’s bond from $500,000 to zero and let him out of jail ahead of his trial. His order releasing Jackson – which also banned the truck driver from drinking alcohol, using drugs, carrying a weapon or contacting his accuser – didn’t offer any insights or explanations.
“They know they don’t have a case,” Jackson said. “Judge Pena, he’s thinking differently now.”
Prosecutors are strategizing about how to persuade a jury that video of Jackson and his accuser shopping in a Walmart doesn’t mean she was willingly a companion on the trip. The surveillance video does not show them talking to each other, according to a court filing summarizing the video.
The State Attorney’s Office hired a psychiatrist, Tonia Werner, to determine whether her behavior – not running away – could be explained by Stockholm syndrome, a condition in which a victim empathizes with her captor. Stockholm syndrome is not an officially recognized diagnosis, Werner said, nor did the woman show many signs associated with Stockholm syndrome.
Broling objected to Werner’s deposition testimony, saying prosecutors did not give her text messages, voicemails or the video. Werner also did not speak with the woman. She read the woman’s deposition, a copy of his arrest report and a description of the Walmart video.
Meanwhile, Jackson is decompressing after his release. He said in an interview Wednesday he hopes to get permission to work remotely ahead of his trial, as he’s been relying financially on his family to live.“I’ve been mostly independent for a long time,” he said. “I’m getting to the point where I wish I could start something income-wise as soon as possible.”
When he was still in jail, Jackson asked a federal judge to review his case and order the dismissal of all criminal charges against him. He said sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors “overlooked and blatantly disregarded any exculpatory evidence.” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee denied his request, saying Jackson hadn’t yet exhausted his options in the state criminal justice system.
Jackson said after the trial, he may sue his previous public defender, the prosecutor’s office and other officials over his belief they lied in court and kept him in jail. He said he expects prosecutors to continue preparing for trial.
“Continue it all you want to, just find bail money for your people that are going to be arrested after this is all over,” he said.