Testimony begins in ’05 cold case
Published 12:03 am Tuesday, December 9, 2014
A Covington County jury heard opening arguments and testimony from three witnesses in cold case attempted murder file from 2005.
Jackie D. Long was indicted by a Covington County Grand Jury last June, after the Covington County District Attorney’s Cold Case Task Force re-opened the investigation.
Long is being tried for attempted murder, robbery I and burglary I. The crimes allegedly took place on New Year’s Eve in 2005, when Long and his son, Shane, entered Henry Jordan’s residence on Hwy 137 in Wing, and robbed and brutally assaulted Jordan.
Shane long pled guilty earlier this year to the lesser charges of robbery II and burglary II for his part in the crime and agreed to testify against his father.
The jury heard testimony from Jordan’s wife, Sylvia, and one of their sons, David. Additionally, Chris Inabinett, who was the deputy who arrived first on the scene in 2005, testified.
Inabinett said Henry Jordan had already been rushed by ambulance to Andalusia Regional Hospital when he arrived on the scene.
Inabinett testified he turned the residence over to then-Covington County Sheriff’s Investigator Scott Conner, and then attempted to find the two men, based on the description given by Sylvia Jordan.
Inabinett testified that he was contacted in May 2013, by his father, Walt Inabinett, and asked if he remembered the case.
He said he attempted to find a case file for the case, but did not find one.
Inabinett said in his opinion, he didn’t feel that the case was followed up on. He testified that he talked to witnesses who said they contacted the investigator and they said the investigator did not return their phone calls.
Sylvia Jordan testified she was awakened by Jackie Long, though she didn’t know him.
“He said, ‘He’s been hurt. The cops are coming,’” she said. “I said, ‘Who are you?’ But he didn’t say anything. I had never seen him before.”
Sylvia Jordan said that Long pointed a gun at her and that she exited the bedroom and went upstairs to awake her sons. She said Long followed her with a gun.
Jordan testified that a younger man was holding down her husband.
Jordan testified she thought Long might have come to the house with a man whom her husband had traded prescription pills for a new deck, but she wasn’t sure.
Both Jordan and her son, David, testified that Henry Jordan’s eye was out of its socket, he had a large gash above his eye, and he had blood coming out his nose and ears.
Henry Jordan spent five days in ICU at a Pensacola hospital, and Mrs. Jordan said he stayed in the hospital longer than that.
Jordan ultimately died in 2007 from the injuries, District Attorney Walt Merrell said previously.
Long’s attorney, David Baker, questioned Mrs. Jordan and her son about the manner of the 911 call the morning of the alleged home invasion.
“What puzzles me: There’s a man in my bedroom and my husband has the hell beat out of him, and when you talked to the 911 operator do you remember what you said,” he asked.
Baker asked Mrs. Jordan if she told the operator the two men had guns. She didn’t think so.
David Jordan also phoned 911, but testified he wasn’t completely honest with the operator because he was trying to protect his father. He testified he was mainly concerned with getting his father an ambulance.
“I had no idea what was going on,” Jordan said. “I didn’t want to get him in trouble.”
Jordan also testified that his father was known to barter by trading a prescription narcotic “here and there.”
He said his father had prescriptions for hydrocodone, Oxycontin, Darvocet and Xanax.
By David Jordan’s account, he took his father’s .22 revolver away from Jackie Long after a short tussle, while his brother, Buddy, had a .380 and escorted the Longs out of the home.
Jordan testified he just threw the gun after he took it away from Long, and that he hasn’t seen it again.
The 12-man, two-woman jury includes two alternate jurors.
The trial will resume at 9 a.m., today. 0