Mom, Sister Charged After Body Found With Sheep Heads

Jacob Millison killed after family dispute, police say
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2018 7:07 AM CST
He Hoped to Inherit the Ranch. Instead, He Was Killed There
Stephanie Jackson, 33, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her brother, Jacob Millison.   (Gunnison County Sheriff's Office)

When 29-year-old Jacob Millison vanished in Colorado nearly three years ago, friends knew exactly where to look. "Literally days before he went missing he told us if anything ever happened to him, it was his family," one friend tells CBS Denver. They're now celebrating the arrests of Millison's mother, sister, and brother-in-law, though getting to this point wasn't easy. According to police, Deborah Sue Rudibaugh, 68, initially claimed her son disappeared of his own accord in May 2015, leading her to craft a will that left the family's 700-acre ranch in Parlin to her daughter, Stephanie Jackson, 33. That story changed when authorities found Millison's body among sheep heads in a pit at the $3 million ranch in July 2017, per the Washington Post. Rudibaugh then admitted to shooting her son while he slept on May 16, 2015.

Rudibaugh told police she'd actually removed Millison from a will in April, leading him to become physically and verbally abusive, per the Post. She said she killed her son in fear for her own life before moving Millison's 170-pound body to a manure pile and then to the pit. But police doubted a 70-pound woman recovering from gallbladder surgery could have managed this feat alone and discovered that Jackson deleted a text shortly after 3am on May 16, that read, "It's time to play!" Jackson and her husband allegedly eventually admitted they helped plan Millison’s murder and moved his body, reports the Denver Post. David Jackson, 34, faces charges including accessory to murder and tampering with a body, per the AP. His wife and Rudibaugh are charged with first-degree murder. (More murder stories.)

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