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Keosha Gilmore was a promising fashion designer with dreams of opening her own boutique. On what seemed like an ordinary evening, she was spending time with her fiancé, Mark Finley, after a busy day at work. The couple was in their car when a sudden and violent act shattered their lives; a gunman approached and opened fire, hitting the 25-year-old Gilmore, before fleeing into the darkness.
In a state of desperation and panic, Finley dashed into his parents’ house, urging them to call 911. He then hurried back to be by Gilmore’s side, as recounted in Oxygen’s Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins.
Frank McLaughlin, a former Boston Police Homicide Detective, described the scene upon the emergency medical services’ arrival. “He was outside the car, on the passenger side, holding Keosha,” McLaughlin recalled.
Despite being quickly transported to the hospital, Gilmore tragically succumbed to her injuries. Known for her focus and kindness, she had been working as an assistant manager at Radio Shack while planning a future with Finley. Her untimely death robbed her of the opportunity to bring her dreams to fruition, leaving a void in the lives of those who loved her.
What Happened to Keosha Gilmore?
Before her death, Gilmore—described as focused and kind-hearted with dreams of owning her own boutique—was working as an assistant manager at Radio Shack and preparing for a life with Finley.
On the night of Feb. 19, 2012, Finley picked his fiancée up from work, then drove to his parent’s house, where the couple was living at the time. Before heading inside, the two caught up on their day as they sat in Finley’s 1998 Cadillac. But the night took a tragic turn when a dark figure walked up to passenger side of the vehicle, pulled out a gun and fired twice through the window, fatally wounding Gilmore. The suspect then walked around the back of the car, crossed the street and vanished into the darkness.
“Mark couldn’t tell much about him,” McLaughlin said of the shooter. “The most distinctive thing he talked about was that the suspect had this kind of lumbering gait.
While assessing the scene, investigators noticed that Gilmore’s purse sat unopened in the car, ruling out the possibility of a robbery gone wrong. They also noticed something confusing about the scene.
“She’s the only person shot. You’ve got a victim and you’ve got a witness,” McLaughlin recounted. “No one points a gun at him, no threat towards him. The piece that was strange to us was how did he not get targeted?”
Gun is Found Discarded in Cemetery After Keosha Gilmore Shooting
Finley also told authorities that he thought he heard the sound of a gate opening and closing just after the shooting. Investigators believed it may have been to a nearby cemetery and searched the grounds, finding two drawstring bags discarded on the ground, one with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with two spent rounds and the other with a water bottle, white latex gloves and a hat.
As the former assistant district attorney for Suffolk County Mark Zanini explained, “The police photographed all of that inside the cemetery, collected it and delivered it to the Boston Police crime lab.”
Back at the hospital—with Gilmore still fighting for her life—Finley stood vigil.
“Mark was by her bedside. All he kept saying was, ‘We got plans. We got plans, we got plans, we got plans.’ And he said that for hours,’” Gilmore’s mom Gloria Weathersby remembered. “I’m like, ‘My heart is in pain for them.’”
Tragically, the bullet that entered her skull had caused irreparable damage and Gilmore ultimately succumbed to her injuries.
Police Discover Male DNA on Items From Keosha Gilmore Crime Scene
Two weeks after Gilmore’s shooting, police received a report from the crime lab revealing that DNA from the same male subject had been found on the two bags, water bottle, hat and gloves recovered from the cemetery.
While it gave authorities a substantial clue to Gilmore’s killer, they still had to match it to a possible suspect.
Finley was excluded as a suspect after providing a sample of his DNA. He admitted to once being a part of the city’s gang activity, but he hadn’t been involved for years and authorities were unable to find any evidence to suggest the shooting had been gang-related. They also looked into a disgruntled Radio Shack employee who Gilmore fired after catching him dealing drugs out of the store, but he was also ruled out.
Without any more leads to go on, the case went cold. Then, a local news station did a new report on the first anniversary of Gilmore’s shooting, which prompted her stepmother to remember a male friend from Gilmore’s past who had paid her an unusual amount of attention.
Who Was Christopher Jackson?
The friend, Christopher Jackson, often drove Gilmore as a teenager to her job at her stepmom’s salon, but he’d unnerved her stepmother.
“Keosha’s stepmother said there was a guy that came in and would sit there and watch Keosha washing people’s hair,” McLaughlin explained. “And she said he really creeped her out and she said, ‘That’s who you need to find.’”
Her mom remembered Jackson too and told authorities that he’d been a friend of Gilmore’s since middle school. Although Jackson had wanted more at one point during the friendship, Gilmore always kept the relationship platonic.
“He would give her rides, they would hang out, they would chat,” Weathersby recalled. “Just like regular friends do.”
Although Gilmore distanced herself from Jackson after high school, they still occasionally saw each other.
Jackson came down to the station to talk to detectives, insisting he “just knew her from school” and claimed there had been nothing more significant about the relationship, insisting “we weren’t close.”
Who Killed Keosha Gilmore?
Jackson agreed to provide a DNA sample and left the station. Authorities believed they’d hit another dead end, until the crime lab came back with a surprising find two months later: Jackson’s DNA matched the items left behind at the crime scene.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” McLaughlin said. “Of all the people we dealt with in this career, like this kid was just the last one you would have thought.”
They brought him in for another interview and although he didn’t directly confess to the killing, he admitted to making “a mistake” and letting his anger “overshadow” his intelligence.
Jackson was arrested in April 2013 and charged with first-degree murder.
After conducting a search of his home, police discovered two composition notebooks filled with musings about Gilmore, who they believe he’d been obsessed with.
“Dedicated to Keosha,” he wrote in one. “(A love Never to be mine).”
They also learned that he’d been stalking Gilmore and knew her schedule before the deadly shooting.
“Chris in his mind probably assumed I’ll eventually get Keosha, I’ll stick around and be the one here the longest, and she’ll notice me,’” her mom theorized. “But that wasn’t the case because Keosha moved on with her life.”
During the 2016 trial, Jackson’s attorney successfully argued that he suffered from developmental issues that gave him a diminished capacity. As a result, he was convicted of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Jackson was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
“I’m glad that they caught him and it was also sad,” Weathersby remarked. “Because Christopher Jackson was a friend of Keosha’s for a very long time.”