CLAY, W.Va. — A Clay County man was sentenced to the maximum 38 years in prison Monday for killing his mother and then setting the car she was in on fire.
Johnny Dale Rogers II, 35, of Widen, was sentenced after pleading guilty earlier this year to voluntary manslaughter, use of a gun during a felony, destruction of property and third-degree arson. Rogers killed his mother Darlene Faye Jackson, 65, in April 2022 in her home on Kanawha Street in Widen. After shooting her, he set her car on fire, with her body inside the vehicle, then pushed it over an embankment along Widen Ridge Road.
Rogers was originally charged with murder but Clay County Prosecutor Jim Samples said there were several issues with the evidence.
Samples said Rogers maintained the gun accidentally fired. He said testing of the gun at the crime lab indicated that could have indeed been the case.
“When they test-fired the gun, when they put it through their forensic analysis, they came to the conclusion that the gun did not function properly and it was possible that it misfired,” Samples said.
Samples said another issue was that a key witness in the case has been homeless and difficult to locate. A third issue has to do with the crime scene not being protected for several hours. He said firefighters originally didn’t realize there was a body in the burned out-car. It was only confirmed by state police hours later.
“We had a crime scene that was not secure until the evening shift of the West Virginia State Police,” Samples said. “We had an unattended scene for all of those hours.”
Samples said Clay County Circuit Court before Circuit Judge Richard Facemire sentenced Rogers to the maximum sentence on each crime and ordered them to run consecutively.
“We put a lot of work into the case and felt like this was a fair resolution for everybody involved,” Samples said.