As 59-year-old Nigel Jackson has been remanded in custody accused of aggravated murder, horror stories have emerged detailing the life his partner Brenda Davidson was allegedly forced to endure before ending up dead and buried under a concrete slab at the couple’s “ramshackle” Alcalar home. Even worse, an autopsy has revealed the former cleaner’s neck had suffered “various blows with a cutting object”.
Running with the headline “Throat cut before being buried in garden”, Correio da Manhã connected the mutilation with stories from friend and neighbour Júlia Freitas, who alleged that Jackson was a “very controlling” man with a nasty temper.
Freitas told reporters how Jackson is understood to have “mistreated” and frequently “punched” his older partner – thus the few who knew her were puzzled when 72-year-old Brenda went missing in November, she said.
Jackson’s story that she was seeking treatment “for a nasty cough” in UK raised Freitas’ suspicions.
“I found it very strange because she’d been treated for cervical cancer in Portugal and had been very happy with the way things went – so going to the UK for a cold seemed odd,” Freitas explained.
Odd too was the fact that Jackson is understood to have moved a much younger woman into the house not long after Brenda went “missing”.
That woman has since been interrogated by PJ police. She is not thought to have had anything to do with Brenda’s death.
As we reported last week, Jackson finally led police to his former partner’s makeshift grave after one of Brenda’s sons alerted Interpol to his mother’s disappearance.
Dean Davidson from Rochester, UK, is understood to have been trying to get in touch with his mother since November.
While Jackson, described by neighbours as a “chain smoking beanpole” was helping police with their inquiries, forensic experts scoured the property for clues as to where and how Brenda met her death.
All that is clear is that her severely decomposed body was extricated from its concrete mausoleum last week, proving that Jackson’s stories thus far were fabrication.
The former taxi-driver then changed his story, alleging that Brenda had in fact committed suicide and that he had simply buried her under an extension of the swimming pool walkway.
With many more questions than answers hanging in the air, Jackson sits it out in Silves jail as PJ police gather their evidence for trial.
The charge of aggravated murder refers to a murder “made more serious by its violent circumstances”.
By NATASHA DONN natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
