Woman Admits To Torturing Teen Using Hammer And Screwdriver For Being 'Bad'

An Iowa woman who has been accused of kidnapping and torturing a 15-year-old girl has admitted to the police that she has been beating the teen using a hammer, electric cord and stabbing her with a screwdriver as punishment.

Mary Jane Jackson Thomas, 47, of Cedar Rapids, has been accused of abusing her teen relative for several months. She appeared in court this week for the trial on charges of kidnapping and beating the teen girl.

Jackson Thomas admitted in a video interview with the police that she had been torturing the victim for being “bad." She said that she had punished the girl for not listening to her and lying. The video was played in court and testified by Sarah Lacina, Cedar police officer, reported The Gazette.

She was charged with first-degree kidnapping, two counts of willful injury causing bodily injury and two counts of going armed with intent.

The teen transferred from Micronesia when she was 12 and moved into Cedar Rapids a few years later, Gazette reported.

The incident came to light in November 2019, when the teen girl managed to escape from Jackson Thomas’ house and walked into the Cedar police department. She told the police that she was repeatedly abused by her relative from April 1 to Oct. 11, 2019, reported news outlet North West Georgian News.

The girl told the police that Jackson Thomas used a fork, extension cord, hammer and screwdriver to hit her and repeatedly slapped, scratched and bit her. The victim said that she was locked in the bathroom and forced to strip off clothes when Jackson Thomas would beat her for several hours, according to the criminal complaint.

Jackson Thomas also admitted that she gave the teen girl a haircut as a form of punishment because, at some point, she got “tired of beating her.” In the video interview, she kept blaming the teen girl for behaving badly.

“ I don’t know why she’s doing this to me,” Jackson Thomas said repeatedly in the video. She also claimed that the teen’s mother, who is still living in Micronesia, had instructed the teen to provoke Jackson Thomas to commit abuse so as to send her to jail.

If convicted of first-degree kidnapping, Jackson Thomas could face life in prison. The trial is expected to wrap up Friday or Monday in Linn County District Court.