![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP17354720470106.jpg.jpg\")
Soldiers at Fort Stewart at the time of the killing, they had spent the evening of Jan. 31, 1992, at the rehearsal dinner in Hinesville for Jones and his fianc\u00e9e, who were set to marry the next day. Around 9:30 p.m., they headed into Savannah for an impromptu bachelor party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dawn Barnett, Jones\u2019 then-fianc\u00e9e, told The Associated Press she remembers giving him a half-joking warning as they headed off: \u201cDon\u2019t you dare call me and tell me you\u2019re in jail at 3 in the morning because of drunkenness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 10 that night, Jackson was gunned down while standing on a street corner in a high-crime part of Savannah. The three soldiers were arrested a short time later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barnett said the 3 a.m. call she had joked about turned out much worse than she could have imagined: Her fianc\u00e9 and his friends were in jail charged with murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three were convicted in November 1992 of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and sentenced to life in prison plus five years. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld their convictions in June 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peter Camiel, one of the men\u2019s lawyers, said the evidence against them was extremely weak. There\u2019s no way, based on when they left the rehearsal dinner, that they could have made it to the shooting site in time and no physical evidence tied them to the killing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eyewitness James White, who testified at trial, later admitted that he hadn\u2019t gotten a good look at the shooters and was pressured to identify the soldiers at trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A female Army officer testified at trial that Jones had told her on base earlier in the day that he was going to Savannah that night to shoot someone, saying, \u201cI got a black guy up there I got to get.\u201d But she changed her story several times, and Jones hadn\u2019t even been on base that day because he was on leave for his wedding, Camiel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Georgia Supreme Court found last month that prosecutors failed to give the defense a police report describing an incident several hours after the men were arrested. A witness said white men with military style haircuts and semi-automatic weapons drove through a public housing project threatening \u201cto shoot blacks who hung out on street corners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just absurd to think that they were even charged, let alone convicted,\u201d Camiel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barnett said she was always convinced that Jones and his friends weren\u2019t guilty. She and Jones stayed together for a while after he was convicted, but he eventually broke up with her to let her get on with her life. She has since married, divorced and is in love and engaged again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She cried over the phone Wednesday as she talked about the past, saying it\u2019s never far from her heart. She still has fond feelings for Jones and wouldn\u2019t mind being in touch, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upon learning that bail had been granted for the three men, she began crying again: \u201cThese are tears of joy that they get to go to their families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 25 years after being locked away for a killing their lawyers say they didn\u2019t commit, three former soldiers are free on bail and preparing to go home to spend the holidays with their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":52533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":70,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["your-military","news"],"primary_category":"your-military"}}},"categories":[100,12,25,70],"tags":[],"coauthors":[810],"class_list":["post-24419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-army"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"R3U2557GDJDTHHAFHA7LFGXY2M","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2017\/12\/21\/ex-soldiers-get-bail-in-murder-case-after-25-years-in-prison\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP17354720473493.jpg.jpg\")