Marcus Jackson, a 57-year-old Black man who worked for the Berkeley Public Works Department, was a well-liked union shop steward and a proud father. His co-workers and neighbors remembered him as an awesome, hard-working man who was full of life and helped many people.
On the morning of April 26, 2019, Jackson was returning to his home on Market Street in West Oakland after finishing his graveyard shift. His cousin, Stefon Jefferson, was waiting for him on the front porch.
Following an argument in which Jefferson allegedly threatened to kill him, Jackson was fatally shot multiple times in his driveway. Jefferson then stole Jackson’s car, running over him as he fled the scene. Jackson was the first of three men killed that day in what became a violent, multi-city rampage. The other victims were Laron Davis in San Francisco and Calvin Kelly in Berkeley.
Authorities issued an alert for Jefferson and Jackson’s stolen Toyota. That night, he was spotted near South Lake Tahoe and pursued by law enforcement at high speed into Douglas County, Nevada. During the chase, Jefferson engaged in a shootout with deputies, wounding a sheriff’s sergeant in the hand. Jefferson was also wounded before he crashed the car and was taken into custody.
During an interview with police in Nevada, Jefferson confessed to killing all three men. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office charged him with three counts of murder with the special circumstances of multiple murders and lying in wait in the killing of Marcus Jackson. Additional charges included being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition by a prohibited person, and making criminal threats. Authorities said Jefferson knew all three victims and had personal disputes with each of them for different reasons. His criminal history included prior convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and receiving stolen property.
Nevada officials decided to prosecute Jefferson for the crimes committed in their state first. In September 2019, Jefferson pleaded guilty in Nevada to charges that included attempted murder of a police officer, being a convicted felon in possession of a gun, and possession of a stolen vehicle. Two months later, in November 2019, a judge sentenced him to 16 to 40 years in a Nevada state prison. The murder charges against him in Alameda County, California, remained pending.
