Missing: Kevin "KJax" Jackson | Part 1 of 2

What happens when a young man, full of intellect, curiosity and potential, suddenly vanishes? Our guest today, Ms. Sharon Lathrem, shares her heartfelt tale of her son, Kevin "KJax" Jackson, who tragically disappeared in 2018. As a mother, Sharon takes us through her son's intriguing journey - from his childhood mischief and struggles with education to his admirable determination in forging his path, even amidst the challenges of early fatherhood. Yet, the story takes a melancholic twist as we delve into the mystery of Kevin’s sudden disappearance.

A mother's love is fierce and enduring, and Sharon is no exception. In our raw conversation, Sharon opens up about her and Kevin's struggles with addiction. She poignantly reflects on the harsh reality that her focus had strayed from her son prior to his disappearance. Sharing the painstaking search efforts and the uncertainty that lingers, Sharon emphasizes on preserving the memory of Kevin, reminding us of the strength and resilience of a mother's love. This episode is a poignant exploration of a life interrupted too soon and a mother's relentless pursuit of answers. Tune in for this heartrending journey of love, loss and hope.

Shop for Murder Police Podcast swag by clicking HERE today! 10% of ALL swag and merch proceeds are donated to the DNA Doe Project.

See what you have been missing on YouTube!

Transcript

Sharon Lathrem: 0:00

After that I didn't hear from him ever again. I kept sending messages on Halloween, of course, because we always treated together as a family. It was a great big deal to us and we just always do it. No answer. November 3rd no answer. November 7th no answer. Calling these friends no answer.

Wendy Lyons: 0:33

Warning. The podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast. Missing Kevin K Jax Jackson, part 1. Hello, welcome to the Murder Police Podcast. I am Wendy.

David Lyons: 1:15

And I'm David.

Wendy Lyons: 1:16

And we have with us today Ms Sharon Lathrom. How are you today, ms Sharon? I'm fine. How are you? We're good. Thank you so much for being here with us. We're here today to talk about your missing son, kevin Jackson, who went missing in the fall of 2018. So why don't you tell us just a little recap before we dig into Kevin's story?

Sharon Lathrem: 1:39

Yes, kevin went missing late October, early November of 2018. We're not exactly sure of the circumstances of his disappearance. He had told his friend he was going to another friend's house. That friend confirms that he was there. He was never seen. After that His child was left with some friends that we don't. The family didn't know and no one's ever seen or heard from him again.

Wendy Lyons: 2:21

Wow, kevin was 25, right 25. Well, why don't you start? Let's just start from the beginning of Kevin's life. He was born April 14th of 93. So why don't you tell us a little bit about Kevin and what led us up to the point, some 25 years later, of his disappearance? It's easy to talk about Kevin.

Sharon Lathrem: 2:44

Kevin was born April 14th 1993. Chip was on the TV in the delivery room and he was the easiest baby to deliver. The doctor almost didn't make it. Kevin wouldn't let us know in the ultrasound what he was because he was stubborn from the very beginning. And when he was born he was hand first and the doctor said that's a gimme hand, that's a girl. But he was a boy and I was thrilled. He was my only son and he was my heart. He was rambunctious and stubborn and smart.

Sharon Lathrem: 3:24

I woke up one morning. He wasn't even walking, he was just crawling. He had managed to get out of his crib and he took a fork and stuck it in our electric socket oh my God. And fallen asleep beside it. As I woke up I thought oh my Lord, he's dead. Another morning I woke up and he was on top of the refrigerator. He had opened the drawers, acted as stairs to come on up. So he got older, his personality just continued to shine Cowboy boots, shirts and shorts in a mullet, and he was happy. He loved cars. He had a go-kart. He didn't want to take his sister on a ride, so he'd go to the end of the street, punch it real quick, knock her out, oh.

David Lyons: 4:22

Lord.

Sharon Lathrem: 4:24

He was always able to get past us. He was so smart, so very smart, and almost impossible to discipline. There was nothing we could do to contain Kevin. We would take everything out of his bedroom no toys, no TV, nothing. He would hide stuff in the light plates.

Wendy Lyons: 4:50

A creative boy he was.

David Lyons: 4:54

I had four brothers and we weren't that bright and we were pretty devious, so that's off to him.

Sharon Lathrem: 4:59

He, like I said, you could not contain him, but he would often get in my room and if he wanted money or anything, we had trouble. We had trouble with him not always staying out of other people's things, trouble with that. From the beginning Kevin had like an attitude that if it's in this house it belongs to me. And he was so cute it was really hard with those green eyes and that blonde hair and I just loved him and he was with me just all the time. So when he got into school we started having problems because Kevin didn't like school and he didn't want to sit down and he definitely didn't want to. You know, read and write. Reading was the toughest thing he could do it, you know, but he didn't want to. So Kevin developed this way of passing school. He didn't do homework all year but, boy, by gosh, he could pass any test you gave him.

David Lyons: 6:13

Well, you know I was putting together that what I'm hearing is a super smart guy and you know what they say. You know, the good thing about having a smart child is that they're smart, and the bad thing about having a smart child is they're smart and he's super curious. So clearly he could pack that information away. But, like you said, maybe he just maybe. Maybe it wasn't challenging enough for him.

Sharon Lathrem: 6:36

School was not enough.

David Lyons: 6:37

That's. That's what I'm putting together. No, it was not.

Sharon Lathrem: 6:42

And when he was 16, he had a son and that was his greatest joy and oh, what a father he was. He got a job and an apartment right away and he loved that little boy with all his heart. I couldn't believe what a good daddy was because he was, you know, a little bit of a difficult child. You know, he ended up not graduating. He stayed up many nights with his boy and his girlfriend had special classes to help mothers graduate, but there wasn't anything for fathers and although I threw a fit about it, tried to get him help, there was none, and we sat in the auditorium and he cried my god, he was my kid. It's the same thing I did, but I was in college like the fourth of the end of spring and that's what he did as well Went and got his GED scored just out of the ballpark on the test and got a scholarship and he started school.

Sharon Lathrem: 7:56

He didn't finish, but he started several times. He started smoking weed, probably when he was like 11, he was snagging people's weed out of their personal things. We had a 10 year old, his 10 year old birthday party, 11 year old. One of the neighbors called and said that he had stalled their marijuana and their garly magazines. I guess he was going to have a really good birthday party and so there really began with that kind of stuff. He really, like I said, couldn't be contained Once. He started with that and he drank. That's pretty much all he did when he was young. Then it started with the pills and that's really all he did for the longest, longest time. A few years later, a daughter was born. She was not biologically Kevin's, but she was his son's sister, and so he decided that he was going to raise her as his own, and that was the kind of guy Kevin was.

David Lyons: 9:20

When he became a dad. And again, you know one thing you said that is interesting, that I'd never thought about before, is I'm not aware of any kind of classes for young fathers either, which would be. I hadn't thought of that either until she said it, I was like wow. There's a lot of prep in high school for young women, which is great.

Wendy Lyons: 9:37

Yes, so there's even a school in Lexington for the girls to go to while their children stay off Cisco Road over there their children, they provide childcare and the girls take classes to finish their high school. But as you said that I thought you know, I don't recall seeing any boys in that and there's really not.

David Lyons: 9:56

Did you see a change, though? Did he mature something with that? Because it sounds to me like he's embracing that whole thing of fatherhood. Oh, yeah, yeah it sounds wonderful.

Sharon Lathrem: 10:05

And then he still is my boy, I think, and he's still going down a path. But he worked, he had his house, he kept his house, he kept it clean, Even his girlfriend. They had problems often and they would break up and she would see other people and they would get back together. So they had those kind of problems quite often. But as far as fatherhood he had that down pretty well.

David Lyons: 10:41

It sounds like he embraced it. It sounds like he embraced it.

Sharon Lathrem: 10:44

His son idolized him and he idolized his son and they were together all the time and most of the time they were with me. They lived with me Most of Kevin's adult life. He was kind of a mama's boy, I think. He was kind of a mama's boy, I think, and his son, he liked his nana too. Things started taking a turn for the worse when Kevin started smoking meth.

Wendy Lyons: 11:19

Do you remember that moment when you found out he was doing that?

Sharon Lathrem: 11:23

Well, I can recall the moment when I saw the change we were living together. I was working two jobs, kevin. Just his attitude. He backed me into a corner and was yelling at me you want money for rent? I just had never, never, he would never talk to me that way and he apologized later.

Sharon Lathrem: 11:55

But there was just a mean spirit to him that had never ever been there before and I didn't know what it was but I knew it was something. And things got worse for both of us and they closed the restaurant I worked at and I became homeless and he had already been homeless, he had worked at Jim Beam and he lost his job and they lost their housing and started seeing someone else and started using heroin as well, shooting both of them up. So he started hanging around with some really unsafely people, really unsafely people that I would, people I couldn't imagine. Some of these people I knew and some of them I didn't, but the ones I knew, if I had known he was around, those people, gosh.

David Lyons: 13:12

So those things go hand in hand and I think that when we talk about when something, when somebody goes missing or when they're harmed and we've talked on the show before about what we call victimology is that really learning what people were walking is critical, because that's where the information might lay one day. So thanks for being candid about that. And you know, I don't think any of us in our families are immune to that. I know that I've dealt with it in my family before and I lost my youngest brother to an overdose about three years ago in Louisville, so we're not immune to those challenges at all.

Wendy Lyons: 13:49

Well, we often say it knows no boundaries as far as social economics or race or gender or anything Right.

Sharon Lathrem: 13:59

I myself am a recovering drug addict, so it doesn't know. I mean, I don't want to sit up here and not say that because that's horrible. It would be horrible if me, I'm recovering drug addict. So it does know. No, no, no bounds, and that I'm sure was probably a contributing factor with Kevin, is in our genes.

David Lyons: 14:21

That's a high likelihood too. Thank you, that's a high likelihood.

Sharon Lathrem: 14:25

You know I was I'm recovering drug addict too. So he, you know he struggled with that, just like I struggled with it, because it was in my genes as well. It's. It's not always an easy road and I'll never. And, like I said, if, if what we went through can help even one person, one mother, one mother, not to go through what I'm going through, because what I'm going through is a nightmare, I don't want anyone to go through this. I don't want anyone else's son to get addicted to heroin or meth. I don't, I don't want, you know well. So he, he started hanging out with these people and I mean everybody that would see him would say Sharon, I saw Kevin and he didn't look good, and those people he were with, they didn't look good either and I got a bad feeling about them. I just didn't like it. I know I don't like them either.

Wendy Lyons: 15:38

They're weird.

Sharon Lathrem: 15:40

And they were, and they were just dirty looking. You know, just dirty looking and so it went. He started, you know, having his son ended up living with these people and they seemed to really love Kevin and his son so we thought they were good and they they did lots of stuff really for for them.

Wendy Lyons: 16:15

Were you still seeing Kevin at this time? Yeah, visiting.

Sharon Lathrem: 16:19

Yep, he was coming to Charlie's every Wednesday for free pile Wednesday in hugs and usually 20 bucks. He was there every week religiously.

Wendy Lyons: 16:30

Were you suspecting he was still using at that time?

Sharon Lathrem: 16:32

Oh, he was, definitely he was, he was definitely yeah, when I would get hotel rooms with everyone, I would say we would get hotel rooms. He would always come and there was times he would, you know, lay in there, dope sick, you know, and he would spray my heart. I'd cry, Um gosh. It was horrible. But at least that new view was, you know, safe the night that he was with me, Uh, uh. So once he was with them he went on the street, but he would, he would come stay with me. I just didn't like those people. I seemed to be just a little too involved with my grandson.

David Lyons: 17:20

Interesting.

Sharon Lathrem: 17:21

They, they wanted to do so much. And then comes the spring summer, before Kevin went missing, kevin really kind of starts a withdrawal from me. He wasn't coming around as much. He still came around and he still talked to me, but just not as much, and I'd taken my focus off of Kevin for a while. Before I knew it. You know, it was getting close to his son's birthday and I hadn't heard Anything. You know, and it's his birthday, I do, you know, it's his birthday, what's going on? And I kept trying to call his friend, or they were staying and I wasn't getting an answer and I thought, hmm, hmm. So I kept trying, kevin, and I wasn't really getting an answer. That was terribly unusual. Finally, his friend calls and we have quite a heated discussion How's it work? And it wasn't pleasant and She'd been hanging up on me. Kevin called me, talk to me, asked what was going on with, you know, the cream at his birthday. I don't know, mom. I'll let you know on.

Sharon Lathrem: 18:57

On the birthday I called what? What's going on, mom? I don't know. They won't even let me see it. What are you talking about? They won't let you see. Oh no, mom, I love you. I'll call you back.

David Lyons: 19:12

We're quick, they. You're talking about that group people that you really had, that he can stay with that.

Sharon Lathrem: 19:17

No we're talking about grimy. I was like what do you mean? They want it. You Near him or see him. And he said I'm just having a little hard time with this mom. I don't know what to do. I'll call you back.

Sharon Lathrem: 19:30

And in the meantime Kevin had asked if, if he would get an apartment, if I would keep his son while he went and got clean. He wanted to get clean. He had applied to college again. He was trying to get himself to that together. He was doing a good job. He, he really wanted to do that. So what he was doing at this point it was just kind of weird, didn't make no sense. And he was such a great guy. You know, he's the kind of guy that Was raining outside my work one night. One of the waitresses cars was messed up. Drive shaft wouldn't, wouldn't work. He hopped out of the car, got underneath hers puddle, puddle water, fixed it. She wanted to give you money. He was homeless. She wanted to give me money and he wouldn't take it and told her to go on and get the kids to bed. He was a good guy. Anybody that you talked to will say that my Kevin was a good guy, the kind of guy who will always lend a helping hand when you need it. Kjax they call him KJax I.

Sharon Lathrem: 20:56

Love that just it's for KJax. He was sweet and kind.

Wendy Lyons: 21:02

So he wasn't staying with these people at this moment when he was fixing the car he had left, or did they ask him to leave? Or do you even know now this?

Sharon Lathrem: 21:12

was around the same time. Yes, he was still. He was still staying there on and off, but he had when he was fixing the car right after it was like His son's birthday was on was about 10 days before he went missing.

Sharon Lathrem: 21:39

So it was about three or four days. No, it was seven days after. His son's birthday was the last time I talked to him and he was staying with a new friend who wasn't staying where he'd been staying, but they still had his son. His son was staying there until he could find somewhere to go.

Wendy Lyons: 22:07

Did you ask him why he didn't take his son with him when he went to the new police?

Sharon Lathrem: 22:11

Because they didn't have room. It was just an efficiency and they had more room for him and he had been used to staying there. I didn't know the spectrum of what was about to happen, so that was October 26th, october 31. After that I didn't hear from him ever again. I kept sending messages on Halloween, of course, because we always treated together as a family. It was a great big deal to us and we just always do it. No answer. November 3, no answer. November 7, no answer. Calling these friends no answer.

Wendy Lyons: 23:14

Did you ever go by their home these?

Sharon Lathrem: 23:16

people. Yeah, knocked out the door. No answer. Finally, on November 11, the friend that they'd been staying with his son right next to him answers have found and said that she had not seen either one of them since Halloween.

Wendy Lyons: 23:37

The child or Kevin.

Sharon Lathrem: 23:39

Yeah, and I said what do you mean? You haven't seen them since Halloween. That they were there Halloween and that they had left and that she had never seen them again. So it was that time that I decided it was time to file a missing persons report on both of them.

Wendy Lyons: 24:00

Hey, you know there's more to this story, so go download the next episode, like the true crime fan that you are.

David Lyons: 24:06

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android Podcast platform, as well as at MurderPolicePodcastcom, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars in a written review on Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcast. Make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends Lock it down Judy.