Jay student accused of trying to kill father after family puts stop to ‘inappropriate’ texts
A Jay teen was arrested and faces multiple felony charges, including attempted murder, when authorities responding to a 911 call discovered his father with a gunshot wound in Jay Sunday.
Jackson Shane Baxley, 15, 15024 Highway 89, was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted felony murder and one count attempted arson and making a firebomb against his parents when deputies responding to a 911 call from the residence arrived and discovered Jackson's father, David Baxley, had suffered a gunshot wound to his upper left thigh.
According to a Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office report, Jackson and his girlfriend, Hailey, got in trouble for sending inappropriate text messages on their cell phones to each other during the summer of 2018 and were no longer allowed to see or talk to each other by Jackson's parents and Bailey's mother.
The two teens continued to correspond, and hid it from their parents. The report stated Jackson got into his grandfather's red Chevy S10 pickup truck at 6:45 a.m. Sunday morning, Aug. 19, with a Maxwell coffee can, and headed from his grandparents' house at 4925 Sidney Lane, to his parents' house.
Jackson parked his vehicle near the corner of Highway 89 North and Finley Road and approached his parents' residence on foot, entering through the exterior south-facing kitchen door. Jackson approached his parents' bedroom next to the kitchen where he set the shotgun shell on a piece of furniture just outside the door and retreated back to the kitchen, where he intended to get an empty beer bottle, according to the report.
An alert on Jackson's phone awoke his mother, Candace Baxley, and she exited the bedroom and found Jackson at the kitchen counter wearing a hoodie and cotton mask around his neck. The report said she could not see what Jackson was doing with his hands, but he stopped abruptly and was startled.
Jackson continued to stare at his mother with no expression on his face and would not respond to her questions, at which point she called for David Baxley, Jackson's father. David came out of the bedroom and pushed past Candace, walking toward the kitchen where Jackson was standing, armed with the shotgun. The report said Jackson began walking quickly backwards from his father toward the game room, with the shotgun pointed down. David tried to take the shotgun out of Jackson's hand and as he pulled on the barrel of the shotgun, Jackson's finger was on the trigger, according to the report.
The pressure from Jackson and David pulling on the shotgun caused Jackson to pull the trigger.
The birdshot shotgun round left the barrel and struck David in the upper left thigh, the report stated.
Candace dialed 911 as she applied pressure to her husband's wound and law enforcement arrived quickly on the scene. Jackson heard law enforcement at the door and ran from the back door of the residence on foot, the report said. Deputies chased the suspect and continued to give verbal commands. Jackson was tased twice, according to the report.
David was transported to Sacred Heart Emergency Room Trauma Center for multiple emergency surgeries and survived.
Jackson was arrested and transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice Detention Center in Pensacola, where he was given no bond, the report said