Suspect ID’d in slaying of pregnant woman, 20

Victim escaped Jan. 11 house bomb unhurt

? A man initially identified as a “person of interest” is now a suspect in Tuesday’s fatal shooting of a 20-year-old pregnant woman at a Lansing mobile home park.

During a Wednesday evening news conference, Lansing Police Chief Steve Wayman said his office would be filing a report this morning with the Leavenworth County attorney seeking charges against the 23-year-old man in the death of Olivia Jackson.

A 25-member task force of officers from the Lansing and Leavenworth police departments spent Wednesday investigating Tuesday’s shooting and its link to a Jan. 11 house-bombing incident in Leavenworth from which Jackson escaped unharmed.

“We believe we’ve put together a case now that we are going to present to the county attorney’s office,” Wayman said at the 6:15 p.m. news conference.

Jackson was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head by Lansing police officers responding to a 911 call shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday at Wiley’s Wild Woods Mobile Home Park, 921 S. Main St., in Lansing.

In the initial 911 call about the shooting, the caller said a man kicked in the door of a trailer and then shot Jackson, who was there with another person, Wayman had said in an earlier news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday evening, Wayman declined to say whether the suspect placed the 911 call.

The 23-year-old suspect, who is a resident of the mobile home park, was detained Tuesday night and remained in custody throughout Wednesday, Wayman said. He declined to identify the man or speculate on how he was acquainted with Jackson.

“I’m not sure of what type of relationship, if any, there was,” Wayman said.

Pat Kitchens, Leavenworth’s acting police chief, said the suspect had been interviewed by police in the investigation into the Jan. 11 bombing of a house at 1920 Second Ave. in Leavenworth. But Kitchens declined to pin the bombing on the man.

“Our case is still open,” he said.

Kitchens said Jackson had not requested any special police protection during the ongoing investigation of the bombing. The last contact Leavenworth Police Department had with Jackson before Tuesday’s shooting was Friday, Kitchens said.

Jackson’s sister was also in the house at the time of the bombing and was able to escape. Wayman said authorities had made contact with the sister after Tuesday’s shooting but that she was not currently receiving police protection.

It is still unknown if Jackson was a resident of Leavenworth, but Wayman said she was not a resident of Lansing and was just visiting the mobile home park at the time of the shooting.