BY: Walker
Published 3 hours ago
Kim Kardashian was a central force in getting New Jersey woman Dawn Jackson released from prison after serving 25 years for fatally stabbing a man she claims was sexually abusing her.
On Monday, Dec. 16, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will announce he is commuting the sentence of Dawn Jackson, 53, who was imprisoned for 30 years for the 1999 fatal stabbing of her step-grandfather Robert McBride after years of sexual abuse.
The announcement culminates a years-long effort by Kim Kardashian to set Jackson free: “Kim deserves enormous credit on this one,” Murphy tells PEOPLE.
Incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility For Women in Hunterdon, N.J., for the past 25 years, Jackson, who first submitted a clemency application in 2018, will walk out this week a free woman.
“We were all so emotional, we couldn’t believe it,” Kardashian tells PEOPLE in an exclusive joint interview with Murphy. “Just to know these people’s cases were heard and people believe in them the same way we do.”
After being charged with first degree murder in 1999, Jackson was advised to plead guilty and given a 30-year sentence. But it was later revealed that her long history of being sexually abused from the time she was a young girl — by McBride and others close to her during her upbringing — was never allowed in the courtroom.
Kardashian learned of the case in 2019 when Jackson wrote to her detailing the abuse. Jackson explained she had been told by her public defender to plead guilty rather than go to trial.
”I could feel her pain through the letters,” says Kardashian, who’s pursuing a law degree and focusing on criminal justice reform work. She sent Jackson’s correspondence to two lawyers she works with, Erin Haney and Jessica Jackson, both of REFORM Alliance, a criminal justice reform organization.
“I said ‘Erin, we have to help this woman.’ She suffered so much abuse — from the time she was a baby. You think about how we want to protect our kids and to think that no one was there to protect her. None of that [testimony] was allowed.”
Kardashian and Jackson formed a bond, through letters and phone calls. “I think it just is a bit more of an emotional relationship because I deeply feel the compassion that she deserves after everything that she’s been through,” says Kardashian, who began publicly advocating for Jackson across her massive social media platforms, and in 2020, featured Jackson’s story on Kim Kardashian:The Justice Project series on the Oxygen Network.
It’s been an eye opening experience for the billionaire businesswoman, Skims co-founder, reality star and mom of four, who also helped secure the release of Alice Marie Johnson. a grandmother and non violent drug offender in 2018.
“This has been a great journey of empathy,” she says, “and has opened up my heart and soul to so many people that I never thought I’d have the opportunity to get to meet.”
via: People
