Serial 1980s Westport rapist Gary Lee Jackman, 74, dies in prison: MDOC
Serial Westport rapist Gary Lee Jackman has died, according to an announcement from the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Jackman was serving a life sentence at the Jefferson City Correctional Center for first-degree robbery, six counts of forcible rape, three counts of sodomy and two counts of forcible sodomy, Karen Pojmann, communications director for the DOC, said in a news release Tuesday.
The 74-year-old died of what officials believe to be natural causes at the Capital Region Medical Center in Jefferson City at 8:55 p.m. Monday, Pojmann said. He was admitted to the DOC on Oct. 12, 1990.
Three men, including Jackman, have all been tied to serial rapes in the Westport area in the 1980s.
A DNA database led investigators to Jackman in 2005. In a series of interviews with detectives, Jackman ultimately admitted to raping 32 women in Kansas City. Investigators were only able to find DNA evidence in five cases.
At the time, Jackman was in prison in connection to a 1989 robbery at a Super 8 motel in Liberty, where he was accused of molesting a clerk.
In 2006, Jackman pleaded guilty to six counts of rape and five counts of sodomy for attacking the five women, who ranged in age from 21-36, between June 1985 and April 1986. A judge sentenced him to 11 concurrent life sentences for the assaults.
Previously, Jackman had been convicted of a series of rapes in California, assaulting 20 people in Orange County in 1975 and 1976.
The Star’s Katie Moore and Anna Spoerre contributed reporting
