Angry, misspelled words and rambling sentences, scrawled by the hand of the man who last week killed three and tore a downtown law firm apart with gunfire, sketch a rough-edged portrait of a frustrated, fragile mind that would eventually break.
Joe Jackson, a would-be inventor with a plan for a tractor-trailer toilet, believed a patent attorney had stolen his idea.
“I feel with no uncertainty that he sold or stole my project,” Jackson wrote in a document dated February 2003. “He has destroy my life after he sign a confidenitally a vow of secrecy that he wouldn’t betray me.”
On Friday, consumed by his obsession, Jackson gunned down patent attorney Michael McKenna and two others on the 38th floor of a West Loop high-rise before he was shot and killed by police.
The sad motive behind a seemingly inexplicable tragedy comes clear in Jackson’s words.
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“I need help because I am very upset,” he wrote. “I paid my hard earn money to a unmoral man. Pleased help me. He took this because of greed.”
The document, which begins “A portable toilet for truck driver which I am one,” says Jackson first met McKenna on Feb. 18, 2002:
“He wrote down every detail and ask me every last question about my project he said cause when he submit it to them patend people he needs to know everything about it … He told me this was so kind of joke and he told me it would not work or it was already on the market. I told him absolutely not I drive a truck for almost 25 years off and on and it did not exist.”
Material provided by Rev. C.L. Sparks, Jackson’s pastor at New Pleasant Valley International Cathedral, includes Jackson’s handwritten letter documenting his interaction with McKenna as well as a rough sketch–nothing more than a doodle–of the portable truck-cab toilet.
Pastor attended meeting
Sparks said he had attended Jackson’s first meeting with McKenna and kept up with the developments in his quest to get a patent. The pastor said Jackson truly believed McKenna had stolen his idea. He described how Jackson tried repeatedly to find an attorney who would help him sue McKenna.
“I think Joe Jackson found out the evidence and grew angry at lawyers and he went ballistic because nobody would represent him,” Sparks said. “Personally, I think he was frustrated with lawyers because nobody would take his case.”
On Monday, for the first time, McKenna’s family confirmed that he had done legal work for Jackson.
“Mr. Jackson paid Michael McKenna a standard fee of $825 to conduct a patent search for his proposed invention,” the McKenna family said in a statement. “The search showed that a patent already existed for his device.”
The statement did not say when the transaction occurred, but a receipt for $825 that appears to have been signed by McKenna on Feb. 18, 2002, was provided by Jackson’s pastor.
Family issues statement
The McKenna family’s statement denounced any accusation that McKenna tried to steal Jackson’s invention: “The only people who were cheated are the survivors of the victims, including Michael Malec McKenna’s wife and four children and those of the other families involved. … (T)here is no patent in our father’s name for a device that is anything like Mr. Jackson’s.”
In Jackson’s letter he goes on to say that exactly a year to the day after he first visited McKenna, he found a patent issued to someone else for a tractor-trailer toilet just like his.
“I will bet my life on it if he take a polgraff test and pass it he will fail without doubt,” Jackson wrote.
In February 2003, federal officials issued 53 patents for toilet-related inventions, including a self-lowering toilet seat and a toilet water recycling system, according to patent records. But none of the patents appear to concern portable toilets for truckers. The inventions range from a “sanitary plunger device” to a “cat litter box apparatus” to two kinds of splash shields.
Handwritten grievance
Jackson’s handwritten note documents his grievance against McKenna, but does not appear to be a formal complaint addressed to anyone.
James Grogan, chief counsel for the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, said unfounded complaints against attorneys are not made public.
However, the McKenna family confirmed Monday that Jackson had filed a complaint against the attorney, but that the ARDC cleared McKenna of any wrongdoing.
Jackson’s older brother, Henry Jackson, said Monday that his brother had been angry about his poor luck in life and upset that he had not become rich off his toilet invention. He said his younger brother had recently complained to another relative and to his pastor about a lawyer who was supposed to be helping him with his patent.
“He complained that he would call but they would just hang up on him or not return his calls,” Henry Jackson said. “He said he wanted to get his money back from the lawyer.”
Police are continuing to investigate the shooting, interviewing witnesses and trying to determine where Jackson got the snub-nosed revolver. Sgt. Eugene Mullins also said the department is working with the security firm at the Citigroup Center building.
“We want to make sure that if it happens again they’re prepared or have some kind of readiness about what to do,” Mullins said.
Security at the building is provided by AlliedBarton Security Services.
Funeral services Tuesday
Employees of the Wood Phillips law firm met at an off-site location Monday for a grief counseling session. The firm will remain closed Tuesday so employees can attend funeral services for McKenna and firm partner Allen Hoover.
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The firm said in a statement that funeral arrangements for the third victim, Paul Goodson, a mail clerk and retired schoolteacher, were pending.
In the documents provided by Jackson’s pastor, there’s a form titled “Description of Invention.” In it, Jackson struggled to explain the idea he believed in so strongly.
“This is mainly for over the road truck drivers and others with campers and even some vans who believing in driving to (word illegible) or a house 2-6 hour away and don’t have inside emergency bath room.”
He then described what makes his invention unique: “It take up no room and it very clean and not messey.”
Later on the form, Jackson was asked if he was aware of any competitive product. He wrote: “There are shower and bath room that take up tons of room and would cost a driver tons of money and you would only used this in emerengy case and cost less than a $100.00”
Asked what benefits the user of the invention would receive, Jackson wrote: “A confidence of safety.”