A row over a dish of bubble and squeak was the final straw that ended in a husband’s murder.
After a dinner to celebrate her 66th birthday, Penny Jackson stabbed David Jackson, 78, three times with a kitchen knife.
She flipped after he made a joke about serving bubble and squeak with the steak main course.
Retired Army lieutenant colonel David called 999 for help before his wife took the phone from him.
When asked where she was, Jackson said: “Well, I’m in the lounge and he’s in the kitchen bleeding to death, with any luck.”
On police bodycam footage at the Jacksons’ bungalow in Berrow, Somerset, on February 13, 2021, she said: “I stabbed him because he’s an aggressive bully and nasty. And I’ve had enough.”
Hearing police calling for CPR, Penny cried: “Oh, don’t! No, no, please don’t. Ooh, I should have stabbed him a bit more.”
She was convicted of murder in October 2021 and jailed for a minimum of 18 years. A Bristol crown court judge said she had shown “not a shred of remorse” for killing her fourth husband.
Here, relatives and professionals share their take on the bizarre case, which features in a new two-part TV documentary.
Jenny Bliss - David's sister
Younger sister Jenny Bliss was glad when her brother David’s killer was sentenced to life, calling Jackson’s actions “callous and cruel”.
Jenny admitted to never liking Penny and said: “She deserved everything she got.”
She said the couple began an affair in the 1990s after David moved to an RAF base in Grantham, Lincolnshire.
Penny was with her third husband, Alan, and David was with his second wife, Sheila.
“When she came into our lives, none of us liked her. We couldn’t somehow accept her for how she was,” said Jenny, who lives with her husband Brian.
But when Penny got pregnant, Jenny claims David felt “obliged” to marry her and they tied the knot in 1996.
David later discovered that the child, Isabelle, was not his. However, they remained married and David raised Isabelle as his own. On a Zoom call during lockdown, Isabelle and husband Ian joined the couple over the gourmet meal on that fateful night.
Jenny said she had seen cracks in the marriage for some time, explaining: “We had some good times, but sometimes she would start to be aggressive towards David. We sensed something then that’s not good. When she started to be like she was goading him or nasty, he’d just touch her hand and he’d say, ‘Calm down. Leave it. Calm down, Penny’. But that was the drink.”
Despite seeing Penny’s “personality change” when she drank, Jenny was still shocked about the murder. She said: “You can’t ever imagine that happening, can you?
“They were looking forward to their silver wedding and what they were planning to do.”
It also came as a shock when Jenny discovered that Penny’s third husband, Alan Warrender, had killed himself.
Stewart Warrender - Third husband's brother
Stewart Warrender last saw Penny Jackson at his brother Alan’s 1993 funeral.
He had killed himself after discovering she was having an affair with David Jackson.
Recalling the retired accountant’s demeanour, Stewart said:“There was no external sign of any emotion at all.
“Penny was so blasé. Your husband just killed himself. The father of your child has just killed himself. Are you not really bothered?” Alan met Penny while still married to his first wife, Beverly, who died of cancer in 1987.
Stewart said: “She was very cocksure of herself. What Penny wanted, Penny got. And I had the feeling she was the dominant part of the relationship, which really didn’t suit my brother.”
Five months after Beverly’s death, Alan and Penny announced they were going to marry in 1988.
And when, several years later, Alan discovered she was cheating, Stewart said his brother tried to “mask” his sadness.
In a damning indictment of his former sister-in-law, speaking of his brother’s April 1993 suicide, Stewart said: “She could have coerced him into going down that path, emotionally. I think she was clever enough to wind him up that way, to get rid of him and then carry on with this bloke that she’d already been seeing.”
Dr Soham Das - Forensic psychiatrist
There is nothing normal about the Jackson case, says consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Soham Das.
“People who generally commit murders tend to be far more calculated, more clever and try to hide their activities. Penelope was openly confessing to it all right from the beginning.
“It’s almost like she was just resigned to her own fate. That she’s reached a point of utter desperation and she is so concerned with ending her husband’s life that she doesn’t even care about the future. She completely lacks remorse. He just made a little joke about her cooking. That suggests it was the final straw.
“So what happened that day was years and years of abuse from her perspective, which has led her to snap and not care about anything any more. She didn’t want conciliation or to scare him, this was about annihilating him.”
Dr Das analysed Penny’s confession note, in which she said: “To whom it may concern, I have taken so much abuse over the years. but he was a good Daddy!
“However, the mask slipped tonight. That is/was unforgivable. I accept my punishment – may he rot in hell. Self-defence, pre-med. You decide.”
He said: “What she wrote in the note and said to the police and 999 operator is indifferent, callous.”
Alan Jackson - David's estranged brother
Alan Jackson had been estranged from David for a decade and believes his murder was a crime “waiting to happen”.
Alan, who heard about the death six months later, said: “When we saw the video of the police going to arrest her and she said, ‘I’m glad I’ve done it’ and ‘He’s a bully’, I thought, ‘Listen, fellas, what she’s trying to say is the truth’.”
Alan had a difficult relationship with David and called him “Mr Bully Boy”. But he warmed to Penny when they were still in touch. He said: “She was always having a giggle and a laugh and a joke from the moment I met her.
“David was a very controlling person. He tried to push Penny down, make Penny something she’s not and Penny wouldn’t have that. I heard he tried to throttle her once. My mum told me that he got her on the bed and he tried to strangle her.”
DCI Paul Settle - Veteran detective
He's been involved in 400 homicide investigations in 30 years for the Met Police but former DCI Paul Settle says he never saw another case like this.
He said:“It’s kind of a thing you’d associate with Colombian drug cartels, not with Middle England.”
He was particularly shocked by Jackson’s 999 call. He said: “She shows absolutely no contrition, no remorse. We were all gobsmacked. On a different day that could have been our mum or our grandma.
“That’s the lady in front of you in the queue in the supermarket you pass the basket to.
“And now, flip of a switch, she’s a homicidal maniac!”
- Bubble & Squeak Murder: The Killing of David Jackson. Monday 13th Feb, 9PM on Crime + Investigation
