Murder trial of slain Richmond mother postponed again. Her family can’t bury her remains.
Editor’s note: An interview with Tonya and Edik Sulzhenko, of Ukraine, was conducted with a third-party translator, Kate Zhupanova.
The first time Eleonora Gutieva appeared in a newspaper, she was 17 years old and had just competed in the first beauty pageant in her hometown Ordzhonikidze City, Russia.
She was a schoolgirl who planned to enroll at the Moscow Medical Institute and become a specialist in manual therapy and acupuncture. She won the pageant, an event that sparked controversy for defying societal norms of young women in Russia at the time.
The main principle Gutieva followed in her life was to “know your limits,” she said during a pageant interview. She described herself to the judges as being “shy and kindhearted.”
Gutieva would later move to the United States and become the mother of two children.
Years later, her face would be plastered on American newsprint under the name Ella Jackson.
This time, the news media was reporting on her 2019 disappearance. A year later, her remains were found and police launched a murder investigation as a result of her death.
For the five years since, Jackson’s presence in the news waned even though the criminal case against her husband, former Eastern Kentucky University professor Glenn Jackson, has dragged on.
But reports of her disappearance weren’t immediate in media headlines in the states, according to her cousins, Tonya and Edik Sulzhenko, who live in Poltava, Ukraine. Ella Jackson’s former husband, Jason Hans, was the first to notify the public about her disappearance, even after he had notified police.
To this day, neither American authorities nor anyone working in the judicial system have spoken to them about Ella Jackson’s case, they said. They hear from Hans, who was married to Ella Jackson prior to her marriage to Glenn Jackson.
“We know that no one else would bother and (Hans) was so persistent and get the information with media,” Tonya Sulzhenko said in a Zoom interview. “There was no way he would let them would hush her case, and ours.”
This story is the first time Jackson’s family has been interviewed by the American media.
Where the case stands
The Sulzhenkos first heard about Jackson’s disappearance from her adult son, Phillip. For the longest time, Toyna Sulzhenko said she held on to hope that her cousin would be alive.
“I couldn’t grasp she would be gone,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if she escaped. I thought it was something else or maybe she was hiding somewhere.
As more evidence came to light and Jackson’s remains were found, reality kicked in for the Sulzhenkos.
“But until the last moment we didn’t think she was dead,” Tonya Sulzhenko said.
While they said their understanding of the American legal system process is unclear, the Sulzhenkos feel strongly it shouldn’t take five years.
“We know if someone doesn’t pay taxes, they go to jail, but here a man took a woman’s life and the process has been so long,” she said.
Glenn Jackson was charged with murdering his wife in April 2020 and has been sitting in the home they shared together since that time after he was released on a reduced $150,000 bond. He has pleaded not guilty.
Nearly five years after her disappearance, Ella Jackson’s loved ones are waiting for a trial to begin which could put him behind bars.
But the trial has hit repeated snags: COVID-19 pandemic related restrictions in courts and jails, a backlogged forensics lab, judge recusals and potential new evidence.
While the family wants to see the case resolved — and the harshest punishment imposed — they seek resolution so they can bury Jackson’s remains.
Until the case is closed, her body is maintained as evidence.
At the time the interview with the Sulzhenkos was conducted in early December, a trial was scheduled for February 2025. Just days later, the trial was pushed again to August 2025.
What happened to Ella?
The 47-year-old Jackson was reported missing by Hans in October 2019, leaving behind her phone, wallet, car and then 5-year-old son.
In April 2020, Glenn Jackson, 44, was arrested with her murder, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse.
Jackson was employed by EKU as a lecturer at the time of Ella Jackson’s disappearance, but was terminated in February 2020 following his wife’s disappearance, prior to his arrest for her murder according to EKU documents obtained by the Herald-Leader.
Richmond police discovered Ella Jackson met with a domestic violence advocate a few days before her disappearance and had spoken with a divorce attorney, according to police.
A significant amount of Ella Jackson’s blood was located in the trunk of Glenn Jackson’s vehicle, which resulted in his arrest. A week after his arrest, Ella Jackson’s skeletal remains were found in Pulaski County — a neighboring county to property Glenn Jackson owns — along with women’s clothing strewn around, according to Richmond police.
It is not only Ella Jackson’s family who has been frustrated with adjudication process length.
Glenn Jackson’s attorney, Thomas Lyons of Lexington, previously said he has never seen testing on evidence take so long. He did not immediately respond to a Herald-Leader request for comment in early January.
How the family remembers Ella Jackson
Ella Jackson’s mother, Taira Gutieva, declined to do an interview with the Herald-Leader but did offer a comment to remember her daughter.
“I have never met a more sincere, friendly, gentle person,” her mother said. “She wanted good for everyone, was friends with everyone, did not judge anyone, so she was a favorite of everyone around her. In addition, she was talented, wrote poetry, loved classical music, painting, poetry, classical literature. I saved her library.”
Tonya and Edik Sulzhenko said the same. As cousins, Edik grew up with Ella Jackson, and they were close as children, going fishing together.
He remembers his cousin as a vivacious and playful child. Toyna Sulzhenko met Jackson as as teenager, and when she married Edik, the two became close and eventually raised their children together.
“She was so trusting,” Tonya Sulzhenko said. “She didn’t know how to cheat and lie to someone. I never imagined this would happen to her. All the memories of her are so lovely and warm — our deep and sincere conversation, how we were raising our kids together.
“We stay with these memories and they are beautiful.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
