Christopher Jackson, the 29-year-old man convicted last week of killing his childhood friend Keosha Gilmore in February of 2012, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday.
Gilmore, 25, was shot Feb. 19 while sitting in a car with her boyfriend on Alabama Street in Mattapan. At the time of the murder, police did not have a suspect but did collect the gun, latex gloves and other items from near the scene of the crime. The case remained unsolved until April 2013, when officers arrested Jackson. Gilmore’s murder was featured on FOX 25’s New England’s Unsolved in 2013, which her family says led to a tip which led to Jackson’s arrest.
Keosha Gilmore
When police interviewed Jackson, they obtained a sample of his DNA, which matched the items police found in a nearby cemetery after the murder. In a second interview with police, Jackson admitted to discarding the items, and said he “made the mistake of letting my anger overshadow my intelligence.”
In court at the sentencing, Gilmore’s friends and relatives read victim impact statements that conveyed just how much Keosha’s loved ones miss her.
“She was a friend to everyone she met – including Mr. Christopher Jackson. She was sensitive to other’s needs, compassionate, caring, and non-judgmental,” her mother said. “I will never see Keosha get married. I’ll never be a grandmother to her children. She’ll never be a wife or a mother herself. We’ll never know what her future would have been …. I feel like a part of me is missing. It’s like a limb is gone.”
Gilmore’s best friend also read an impact statement to the court, calling her friend an “amazing, kind-hearted, understanding, all-around angel from God.”
Jackson, whom a jury convicted of second-degree murder, received an automatic sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years. In addition to murder, the jury convicted Jackson of multiple gun charges. A judge ordered him to serve six to seven years for those crimes, concurrently.
