JUNE 2329, 2011 I VOLUME 14 I NUMBER 34 BROWARDPALMBEACH.

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MAN WHO PROVED INNOCENCE SITS IN JAIL. PAGE 12 YOUR GUIDE TO PERUVIAN CEVICHE. PAGE 30
B R O WA R D P A L M B E A C H
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ohn Henry Wolfe went to the Pembroke Pines police station every Wednesday
evening for its Police Explorer program. He took courses and shadowed detectives
on the job to prepare for a career in law enforcement. By July 9, 2003, when he was
19 years old, he had attained the highest rank of explorer major.
The young man tall and thin with glasses and his fathers loping gait lived with
his mother and grandmother in Hollywood and spoke little of his father. He had learned
that asking questions about the man, whom he had not seen since he was 4, did not
result in satisfying replies.
As he later recalled in a deposition, that night he went into the community affairs
office to put away some documents. A few detectives kept their desks there. Before
he got to the filing cabinet, he noticed a foldout display board covered with images of
a missing person: David Churchill Jackson. From a photograph, a young man with a
rough mullet and a wide smile stared back. Wolfe froze. He recognized a tattoo and
other stuff I remembered from the past.
An officer in the room noticed. Hey, can you help me find that guy? he joked.
I cant help you find him, but I do know about him, said John.
How do you know him? asked the officer.
Hes my father.
Get out of here.
No, replied John. Im dead serious.
The officer, stunned, shooed away the other Explorers and began to question Wolfe.
Later that night, he called Detective Donna Velazquez at home. Youre not going to
believe this, he said when she picked up the phone.
Velazquez was a blond, motherly woman closing in on middle age. A few months
earlier, she had been taken off a patrol unit and promoted. In addition to her everyday
caseload, her supervisors made her the lead detective on the departments oldest un-
solved missing-persons case, that of Jackson.
Determined to break open the cold case, Velazquez pored through files that >> p16
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had been compiled when Jackson went missing
in 1988. She had created the display board to
visually organize the information that would
help her imagine Jacksons life.
I was the lead detective, she says
now, so it was going to be up to me. I had
to put something together, reconstruct-
ing it in a way I could understand.
At this point, she knew very little:
that Jackson had been married and was
involved in a custody dispute over his
young son in the months before he disap-
peared forever on a summer night.
Velazquez never imagined that the son
who now had the last name of another
man was filing documents in her own of-
fice on Wednesday evenings: I had been
looking for John Henry Jackson, not John
Henry Wolfe. He had never told anyone
at the station about his father. It was a
shock to me; it was a shock to everyone.
The unexpected meeting of a boy searching
for his past and a detective on a quest for justice
would ultimately lead to one murder convic-
tion and, now, another trial on the horizon. For
young John Wolfe, the cloud of doubt would
shift from the father he had hardly known to
the mother who had always kept him close.

arbara Britton, Johns mother, moved

around as a child because of her fa-
thers career in the Army. She spent
time in Germany and Oregon before
her family moved to Hollywood, Florida, ac-
cording to statements she gave to police. In
1982, when Britton was 17, she took a job at a
Burger King in Pembroke Pines to earn money
while attending McArthur High School.
She was pretty and petite, with wavy
brown hair, dark features, and high cheek-
bones. People who knew her say she lived
under the protective control of her father,
who gave orders like a drill sergeant.
David Jackson, two years her senior, was
her boss at the restaurant. Jacksons stepfa-
ther worked in the Burger King corporate
offices and had gotten him a job as an assistant
manager. Jackson graduated from Hollywood
Hills High School but didnt have the money
to pay for college. Instead, he worked for a
wage and led a fun-loving life: hunting, fixing
trucks, listening to country music on cassettes,
and drinking whiskey straight. He had blond
hair and sparkling eyes, his height occasion-
ally accentuated by a pair of cowboy boots.
Jacksons close friend Bill Brown,
now a union carpenter in Wisconsin,
also worked at Burger King in those early
days. He saw that Britton was eyeing
Jackson during their shifts together.
You know, Barbaras pretty into you,
Brown remembers telling Jackson one day.
Yeah, I know, Jackson replied. At
first, Brown recalls, Jackson was ner-
vous about flirting with a subordinate
on the job. But Britton had set her sights
on him, and soon they were together.
Barbara told police about her initial
attraction to Jackson: He was great.
There was no other way to describe it.
Someone that you like to be with.
They started talking about getting mar-
ried once she graduated from high school.
But by Christmas, she was pregnant. Plans
accelerated: They married on April 2, 1983
the day before Easter. The reception was
a traditional affair featuring an elaborate
multitiered cake and souvenir matchbooks.
But the relationship had fractured by the
time the cake was cut. Britton had started to
withdraw. She did not stay with Jackson on
their wedding night, say Jacksons friends
and family, and did not spend much time
with him in the house he rented on Hood
Street in Hollywood. Instead, she returned
to the safe confines of her parents house.
She graduated from school that June.
He started changing, Barbara said to po-
lice, and things were going wrong with us.
The baby, John, was born into this
uncertain family on August 25.
David was not at the birth, although
now, 23 years after his disappearance, it
is hard to ascertain why. Davids mother,
Judy Carlson, claims that Barbara was in-
explicably distant from the beginning of
the marriage and that Britton did not even
notify Jackson when she went into labor.
Britton admitted that Jackson found out
he had a son only when he received the hos-
pital bill for the delivery. She contended that
Jackson wasnt interested in her pregnancy.
Records show that the couple di-
vorced on April 2, 1985, two years
to the day after they married.
At first, the young parents shared custody
of baby John, who was not yet 2. Although
Jacksons friends and family maintain that
he was a loving father, Brittons claims are
much darker. In police interviews and de-
positions, she alleged that Jackson abused
the boy (although, according to Velazquez,
she never called authorities about her con-
cerns). When Jackson had custody, she said,
he would taunt her by putting the crying
boy on the phone so she could hear him. He
would come back scraped and bruised,
she said, or with a knot on his head.
Britton said that her own father stepped
in and guarded John. Grandpa became
dad, she told police, and I was his little
girl. When she told him that Jackson mis-
treated his grandson, Harry Britton became
incensed. Said Barbara: I was very close to
my dad. He was like the strength for me.
In late 1986, when she was 21 and John was
3, Barbara met a married man named Michael
Wolfe, who lived in Arizona. They were both
working for Toys R Us; he had come to Florida
for a corporate training session. He was tall,
with a strong jaw and thinning hair. Like her fa-
ther, he was a military veteran who had served
in Germany. Like her father, he was twice her
age. She married him in Florida in June 1987.
Barbara and Wolfe moved immediately
to Arizona, with John, two days after they
were married. Court documents suggest
they informed Jackson about the plan just
hours before they were to leave. His mother,
Carlson, remembers her son driving around
with John during their last hours together,
madly calling Britton from pay phones,
pleading that she not take John away.
With time and 2,000 miles between
them, their relationship eventually im-
proved. Barbara told police that they
matured and spoke on the phone. We
Top: John Wolfe (center) with other mem-
bers of his Police Explorer unit. Bottom:
Young John with his father, David Jackson,
at Jacksons mothers house in Hollywood.
My Fathers Bones from p15
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Photos courtesy of Judy Carlson
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talked, [decided] that we could be friends,
she said. Itd be better for John.
David went to court to fight for visits with
his son, and a judge awarded him extended
visits with John every year. The first was
set for the following summer, July 1988.
Barbara may have gone to Arizona, but
her father remained in Florida. Jacksons
lawyer, Steven Berzner, recalled seeing him
show up at one of the custody hearings,
waiting in the hall outside the courtroom.
The elder Britton gave Jackson a word-
less, hateful stare as he walked past.
The lawyer noticed the menacing
expression and gave Jackson a word
of advice: You should cover your ass,
because that guy has a problem.

fter work on June 25, 1988 the eve-

ning he disappeared David Jackson
sat on the couch with his roommate in
their new apartment. By now, Jackson
had left Burger King and had landed a job
driving a delivery truck for Coca-Cola. His
roommate worked as a cargo inspector.
Jackson had spent the afternoon mov-
ing a set of new Modernage furniture into
the two-bedroom apartment: seating and a
coffee table and a big, handsome wall unit.
Costing thousands of dollars, the purchase
was a deep hit on Jacksons credit cards, but
he had just paid all of his bills and his share
of the rent. His mother remembers that a big
wooden bar was still on its way: a 24-year-
olds totem to freedom and masculinity.
Friends and family say Jackson was pre-
paring for Barbara to bring their son from
Tucson. A friend who visited Jackson in the
apartment remembered him joking about
a new vacuum cleaner he had purchased,
to get the floors clean for [John]. Records
from the Coca-Cola plant show that he
had put in for 11 days of vacation time.
Jacksons roommate said that as they were
relaxing, around 7 p.m., a woman called for
Jackson. He took the call and headed into his
room. Soon after, he showered and dressed,
then emerged in a fresh T-shirt and shorts,
smelling of Drakkar Noir cologne. He carried
a gray comb to smooth down his blond mullet.
He asked to borrow some money for
beer and cigarettes. His roommate reached
for a few bills and handed them over.
Jackson left. He may have taken the .22
caliber pistol he was known to carry.
Detective Velazquez believes that Jackson
made a stop at a Mobil station for cigarettes and
a six-pack of Heineken. Back in the drivers seat
of his black 1976 Celica, he might have opened
one of the beers to drink on the road, as he
cruised past houses and farmland, headed east-
ward. Five unopened beers and a receipt from
the gas station would later be found in his car.
Velazquez and prosecutors say that he then
drove toward the beach, passing the jai-alai
fronton on Dania Beach Boulevard, and turned
into the parking lot of an isolated motel (now a
Motel 6), where he expected to meet Britton.

he day after the Explorers meeting,

Velazquez met with John Wolfe in her
office, beneath the images of his father.
Now she and the boy were like two
reunited friends, desperate to fill in the past.
It was like a fact-finding mission
for both of us, remembers Velazquez.
Face to face, we went back and forth.
According to her, John was happy to
learn that police had reopened the case. Ive
always wanted to know what happened to
my father, she remembers him saying. His
mom had never given him a straight an-
swer. Sometimes she would say she hoped
he was alive. Other times, when upset or
angry, she would snap, saying that he was
dead. Two years earlier, he had recruited a
friends father, who worked in law enforce-
ment, to look for leads. Nothing surfaced.
Johns recollections of his father were
vague, and he couldnt tell if they had
been poisoned by his mothers input.
He struggled to sift out his independent
memories from Brittons allegations of
his father abusing him forcing him to
eat or burning him with a cigarette.
I do remember happy memories [with my
father], he would later say in a deposition.
I had two [Cheez Doodles] in my mouth
like a walrus... and I remember running
around [a] glass table just making noise. And
I remember falling... I remember crying.
But did his father then put him on the
phone with Britton, as she claims, hit-
ting him to make him cry louder so she
could hear? In a deposition last year, John
could not remember. Honestly... my
mom is very, very paranoid, he said.
Brittons new husband, Michael Wolfe,
adopted the boy when he was 5 years
old, and the couple changed the boys
last name to Wolfe. But Britton began to
distance herself from this husband too,
according to people who knew them.
By 1990, she and 7-year-old John were
back in Florida living with Brittons parents.
Michael Wolfe faded out of their lives.
Britton went to work at a new Walmart
that was opening in Miramar, at Pembroke
Road and University Avenue. It was just across
the airport grounds from the Burger King
where she and Jackson had met as teenagers.
It was also built almost directly on
top of the scene of a grisly discovery.
A year earlier, a construction crew had
been clearing land near the site of the new
Walmart. An 18-year-old worker found a
skeletal hand, wrapped around a vine, on
the surface of the excavated dirt. Then he
found more bones. He called police. The
bones, enough to form a partial skeleton,
were not identified. The medi- >> p18
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cal examiners staff stored them on a shelf,
where they would sit for 15 years.

fter Velazquez and John had ex-

changed all they could about fam-
ily history, the detective set about
her work with a renewed focus.
She dug up old police reports and found an
instance of a call for service from the Brittons,
claiming that Jackson had kidnapped John.
She checked the Florida Unidentified De-
cedent Database, a public repository that lists
unidentified remains from around the state.
She entered Jacksons basic characteristics
and date of disappearance and got about 50
results. Methodically, she sorted through
them one by one until she found a likely
match: the bones from the Walmart site. She
ordered a report from a forensic anthropolo-
gist and brought in Davids mother, Judy
Carlson, to see if her DNA matched the bones.
The results were positive. Velazquez
reclassified Jacksons case from a
disappearance to a homicide.
At times, the case felt overwhelm-
ing, Velazquez recalls. It kind of took
on a life of its own, but I wasnt intimi-
dated. I let it speak to me. I followed it.
She was motivated in part by sympathy
for Jacksons mother. Velazquez and Carlson
were becoming friends, and Velazquez related
to just needing to know where your child is.
And John proved a tremendous resource in
her investigation. From the boys description of
his stepfather, Velazquez tracked down Michael
Wolfe. He was living with a new wife in Ketter-
ing, Ohio. Velazquez found it odd that he had
married Britton so quickly after meeting her,
just a few months before Jackson disappeared.
Velazquez spent a year directing a flurry
of phone calls, subpoenas, and interviews.
In June 2004, detectives turned up the heat
on Wolfe. Velazquezs partner met him in
Ohio on June 17, and he began to talk.
That same day, in Florida,
Velazquez went to visit John.
What your mom has told you has not
been the truth, she said, according to a
transcript. I didnt want to be the one to tell
you. But as a man, you need to hear this... I
wholeheartedly believe that your father was
murdered. And I wholeheartedly believe
that your mother has firsthand knowledge of
it... Your father was murdered because of his
love for you over child custody issues. Your
mother never wanted to share you with him.
Johns response was chillingly calm. Oh, I
do believe shes holding information, he said.
I dont think your mom is a bad per-
son, the detective continued. I think
[she] has some mental problems.
John didnt demur, but he doubted
that his mother would provide any new
information. She thinks youre wait-
ing for her to say something she didnt
say 20 years ago, he told Velazquez. I
would hook her ass up to a polygraph.
What will you do if your mother
is arrested? she asked.
If she is an accessory, said John,
Ill put the cuffs on her myself.
The detective asked him to persuade
his mother to meet with her that very
night, after she got home. John agreed.
Shell probably be in her night-
gown... if you come to the door, he
said drolly. Thatd be funny.
Before they parted, she encour-
aged the dogged Police Explorer.
Work your voodoo, man, she told him.
Go do your cop thing. You are now the de-
tective. You are empowered. Go get her.
He did. That night, Velazquez and a part-
ner came back inside the house to talk with
Britton. They had met before, six months ear-
lier, and Britton had denied any knowledge of
a crime. Velazquez pressed harder now, con-
fident that she could use Wolfe as leverage.
She started with the facts. The bones.
We found Davids body, said
Velazquez. Hes been murdered.
Where was he at? asked Britton.
In a very isolated area not too far
from here. I have DNA results.
Are you sure?
Were positive.
She continued. My partner [is] out in
Ohio where Mike Wolfe now lives, she
told Britton, who was getting agitated.
Um, he said that... him and your dad were
involved, and that you knew about it.
I didnt know about it, no way.
Mike is willing to take a polygraph.
Are you willing to take a polygraph?
Britton didnt answer. She was up-
set, focusing on the supposed role of
her father, who had died in 1998. My
dad I dont I dont understand, she
said, beginning to hyperventilate.
The truth, said Velazquez. Thats the
only thing thats important right now.
Do you want me to make yall some cof-
fee or something? interjected Britton.
Were good, thanks. The de-
tectives waited for an answer.
Britton broke down and was unable to
speak. Still, she would maintain that she was in
Tucson when David disappeared. I was in an-
other state. I dont know what happened, she
told police. I have to go on what the police tell
me. I have to go on what the newspaper said.
The next day in Ohio, after hours of
questioning and a lie-detector test, detec-
tives asked Wolfe to put a statement in writ-
ing. Wolfe wrote that a few months before
the disappearance, on a visit to Florida, he
and Harry Britton had been watching John
play at a park in Miramar a park just
across a lagoon from the new Walmart.
Harry was very upset about hearing from
Barbara that David had abused John during
some of his visits with him, Wolfe wrote in
shaky block letters. Harry expressed that he
should be gone, or something to that effect,
meaning to get rid of David... I wasnt sure he
was serious, but I told him that the area we
were in would be a likely spot to dispose of a
body... I didnt know if he had listened or not.
Wolfe was pointing de-
Top: John Wolfe as an infant with his mother, Barbara Britton (left), and grandmother.
Bottom: Britton stands accused of murdering David Jackson. Her ex-husband Michael
Wolfe (right) was already convicted of the murder.
My Fathers Bones from p17
>> p20
Courtesy of Judy Carlson
Broward Sheriffs Office
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tectives toward a dead man.
In the following months, Velazquez pur-
sued other leads. One led her to a woman
whom Wolfe married after divorcing Barbara.
The woman told Velazquez that on several
evenings, after Wolfe had drunk himself
into a near-stupor, he admitted to commit-
ting the murder himself. Later, another of
Wolfes ex-wives would tell a similar story.
In October 2004, Wolfe was arrested outside
his Ohio home. As police took him to the curb,
he summed up his predicament: Im fucked.

ichael Wolfe went on trial for first-de-

gree murder in November 2007. His
ex-wives stories were convincing.
After a week of testimony and less
than an hour of deliberation, a jury convicted
him and sentenced him to life in prison.
Two days later, Wolfes public defend-
ers requested a meeting with prosecutors.
Wolfe had more information. Now that he
had been convicted, he wanted to make
sure justice reached everyone involved.
He confessed to killing Jackson.
But he wasnt the only one respon-
sible, he said. According to Wolfe, this
is how David Jackson was murdered:
On the night of the killing, he said, Brit-
ton lured Jackson into the motel room with a
phone call. When he arrived, she sat with him
side by side at the foot of the bed. Wolfe hid in
the bathroom, drunk near sickness on Jger-
meister and White Horse scotch, attempting
to gather courage for what he was about to do.
Britton made small talk while she sum-
moned the nerve to pull out a large stun gun.
Holding it close to Jackson, she shocked
him and shocked him again. Jackson stood
up, hurt and confused but still conscious.
Hearing the buzzes and sensing that the
plan was going wrong, Wolfe wrapped a
towel tightly around the pistol in his hand
and stepped into the bedroom. David had
pulled out his own pistol. But before he
could use it, Wolfe raised the towel to Jack-
sons eye level and shot him in the left side
of the head at a range of six or seven feet.
Jackson stumbled crazily but did not fall.
Britton grabbed hold of his arm and
guided him into a chair. Her father came
through the door from the parking lot.
Hes still breathing, he barreled, looking
down at the young man who his daughter
said was a child abuser. Shoot him again.
Wolfe fired another shot to the head.
Once Jacksons corpse was wrapped in
a heavy blanket and placed in the back of
Harry Brittons bright-orange Volkswagen,
Wolfe cleaned the room. There wasnt
a lot of blood, he told the prosecutor.
They drove to the empty lot. Harry had
already dug a shallow hole, hidden by veg-
etation in the sand. They dragged Jackson
from the car and dropped him into the
ground. When they saw the headlights of a
car, they crouched low to avoid detection.
Wolfe said that he and Britton flew
back to Tucson under assumed names.
Two days after the murder, Jacksons
roommate reported him missing.
The whole plan had been Bar-
bara and Harry Brittons idea, Wolfe
claimed. Harry and I actually never
talked about it. It went through her.
After a year, he said, he got a call from
Harry Britton, who heard that developers
were planning to tear up the land where they
had buried Jackson to build the Walmart.
Harry had returned to the site and col-
lected Jacksons skull so no matches could
be made through dental records. He told
Wolfe to come get the rest of the bones.
Wolfe said he obeyed his father-in-law. He
flew back, drove to the site, ducked low in the
dead of night, and tried to dig the bones up
from the ground with the aid of a flashlight. He
got whatever bones he could find and put them
out with the trash in front of the Britton house.

olice believed Wolfes version of

events. Once Wolfe made his state-
ment, a grand jury met and agreed
that with this information from
an alleged co-conspirator, there was suf-
ficient reason to charge Britton with first-
degree murder. Although no one alleges
that she fired the fatal shots, Florida law
allows the most serious murder charge
for someone suspected of helping to or-
chestrate and perform a plot to kill.
In mid-December 2007, just six
weeks after Wolfe made his state-
ment, detectives arrested Barbara
Britton as she left to go to work.
Velazquez drove to the police station
to meet her quarry in an interrogation
room, one last time, and read her the in-
dictment aloud: Barbara Britton... did kill
and murder David Jackson, a human be-
ing... to the evil example of all others...
Velazquez recalls that she said the
word evil with particular relish.
Britton spent three years in jail awaiting
trial. But in December 2010, with the case still
winding through the State Attorneys Office
at a glacial pace, she was released on $5,000
bond. A hearing is scheduled for September.
Brittons private attorney, Keith Seltzer,
adamantly denies that his client is guilty.
This case is based entirely on Michael
Wolfe trying to get his life sentence short-
ened, Seltzer says. I believe Barbara had
nothing to do with this... Theres no confes-
sion [from her] anywhere... There are no
records from the motel room, not one single
bit [of evidence] that implicates Barbara.
Today, Britton lives at the same home,
with her aging mother, her boyfriend, and
her daughter from a husband she met while
working at the Walmart beside the burial site.
She awaits her trial on house arrest.
She wears a GPS monitoring brace-
let around her ankle and is allowed
to leave the house twice a week for
church services. She does not work.
Michael Wolfe, writing from
prison in Northern Florida, de-
clined to comment for this article.
John Wolfe, now 27, recently moved
out of the family home. He is not a police-
man, but he works as a mall security guard.
He also declined to comment for this ar-
ticle, deferring to his mothers wishes.
Stefan.Kamph@BrowardPalmBeach.com
Left: Jackson as a young man. Right: His son, John Wolfe, at his mothers house in Arizona.
My Fathers Bones from p18
Photos courtesy of Judy Carlson