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As quickly as Lansing became seized by fear last summer as woman after woman turned up brutally beaten and killed, the trial to send a man to prison for the heinous crimes seemed even quicker.
Whoa! I need a moment to sit back and think about what happened!
At News10, we speculated it'd take two weeks, maybe three, to hear all the testimony, to see all the evidence, to let the jurors deliberate over some pretty heavy stuff. But when I called Tuesday to say we'd heard nine witnesses in two hours, we knew it'd be quick.
But this quick? Coulda fooled me.
Jurors took about an hour and a half Thursday to decide unanimously that YES, Matthew Macon is the man who viciously slammed a beer bottle over Linda Jackson's head in an attempt to kill her. That YES, Matthew Macon is the man who stabbed Sandra Eichorn nearly 40 times. That YES, Matthew Macon is the man who savagely tortured Karen Delgado Yates and left her for dead. The prosecution's evidence shows the poor woman, who I had the fortune to meet in February 2007, likely suffered up to 24 hours. She had a really kind spirit.
Families say this is closure-- a word I hate using, because really, something this hurtful will never really be "closed." But I know they're happy the trial went quickly. Every day the trial went on was more salt in the wounds for them. I am fortunate to have had a few nice conversations with Linda Jackson, who seems to be a wonderful woman. She and her mother seem ready to get on with their lives, and knowing that the man who a jury believes attacked her will spend the rest of his life behind bars must be comforting in a big way.
Macon still remains a suspect in five other murders, so I'm going to bet this is not the end of his legal system encounters. And I'll bet there are a lot of family members out there of those victims who want to be able to taste that sweet "closure" too.
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