The oldest daughter of murder victim Tamara Greene, breaks her silence, to our own Andrea Isom.
Ashly Jackson, 21, spoke to the millions who have followed her case, from her eyes and her heart. She was just seven years old when her mother was killed.
In the early morning hours of April 30, 2003, it was pitch black but all was quiet after 3 a.m. on Detroit's west side. Greene and her boyfriend, Eric Mitchell were chatting in her car when all hell broke loose.
A mystery man with a pistol sprayed a barrage of bullets from a gun. Greene and her boyfriend were both hit more than once, but Greene didn't make it.
“Honestly, I’d say that I hate them. I hate that my life is the way it is,” Jackson said. “I’d just say, I love her and I miss her and I wish she were still here.”
The rumors went wild. Green, who also went by the name Strawberry, worked as an exotic dancer. The word was that she worked for heavy hitters in her past, like former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
It's often been said, but never proven, that she was inside the Manoogian Mansion one night. Some speculate something sinister happened there, which may be the very reason why Greene was killed.
"I believe there was some sort of get together, some gathering, some sort of function that everybody wanted to keep quiet," Jackson added. "What was so secretive, what needed to be, you know, not exposed? What did my mother know?
"There was speculation that there were some documents that had been hidden, there was some evidence that had been moved, there was interference by individuals int he department during that time," Jackson said.
The headlines were of Greene's murder were often upstaged by Kilpatrick's prominence and position.
"Kwame gets brought up all the time for whatever reason and I can't really run away from that," Jackson said. "You started getting fake tips, people wanted to glamorize this whole thing. It just snowballed into this big soap opera that focused more on Kwame Kilpatrick."
Jackson said her mother's murder changed her a lot, saying she has a lot of mental damage from it.
"To the killer or killers we're coming to get you. We're coming to get you. You have to pay," Jackson said.
