Mother: Jerry's seen 'a lot of trauma'

Jerry Nale says he is willing to accept responsibility for his actions. And he wants to go to Montana.

Law enforcement officials say he can’t go to Montana because he is responsible for the death of a 16-year-old girl last spring in Portales.

When police first interviewed him, “All he wanted to do was ... tell them it was his fault,” said Ruby Nale, Jerry’s mother.

“He knew he was going to go to jail for a very long time. All he requested was to do his time in Montana. That’s where he grew up with his grandparents.

“He wanted to go to Montana because he wanted to see his friends one last time. And the fair was coming. He wanted to go to the fair with his friends one last time before he went to jail.”

Jerry Nale, now 19, is charged with homicide by vehicle, fleeing a police officer, stealing a car, and contributing to the delinquency of minors.

His mother believes Jerry, whom she says has the mental capacity of a 5-year-old, would never intentionally hurt anybody, except for Jerry.

“My son is not a monster,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Lubbock last week. “They got scared. They’re kids. They got scared and they ran.”

Court records show Trinity Jackson, 16, her 14-year-old brother and Jerry were in Portales because Jerry was going to help the siblings gain residence in a Portales children’s home. They took the Jackson family SUV without permission. They arrived late at night and went to sleep in the vehicle, parked in an alley behind a convenience store. They were awaken by police engaging emergency lights behind them.

“(T)he driver of the vehicle immediately turned west out of the alley on to University Street and fled west,” court records show. “The driver ... lost control ... and the vehicle rolled, ejecting (Trinity and Jerry).”

Trinity died from her injuries. Nale was hospitalized. The other teen, the only one in the car wearing a seatbelt, was not seriously injured.

Jerry was arrested on May 18, was released on bond, then failed to make a court appearance in August. Authorities located him in Billings, Montana.

Today he’s in jail in Los Lunas.

“I don’t think he understands what’s going on here, I really don’t,” Ruby Nale said.

“In his mind, he is trying to take responsibility for this, but he doesn’t understand all the consequences that are involved.”

She’s convinced Jerry was not driving, despite Jerry’s confession.

Jerry’s attorney, James Baiamonte of Albuquerque, said Jerry has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Baiamonte told the court there are competency issues with his client. “It’s almost as if I am speaking to a child,” he said.

Ruby Nale said Jerry’s life has seen “a lot of trauma.”

“I made wrong choices in my life and unfortunately I lost (custody of) him when he was 5,” she said.

Jerry has since lived with his grandparents and in the Portales children’s home where he tried to deliver Trinity and her brother. He’s repeatedly “been in a lot of trouble,” Ruby Nale said.

Mostly, she said, Jerry hurts himself.

Once he cut up his face with a pair of scissors.

He was moved to Los Lunas from the Portales jail because of a series of violent incidents. He was stabbed with a pen during a fight with another inmate, Ruby Nale said. He suffered a broken hand, but she doesn’t know how. He “bashed his head into a brick wall,” she said.

But she said Jerry also “tends to bend the truth. Maybe not bend the truth, but he tends to make it better than what it is.”

Ultimately the court will decide whether Jerry is competent to stand trial. Prosecutor Jake Boazman said a key factor in that decision is whether Jerry can assist his attorney in his defense.

A status hearing is scheduled May 31, but Ruby Nale said Jerry may not be able to attend. She talked to Jerry on Friday and he said he’d been accused of trying to hang himself. Jerry denied the allegation.

Ruby Nale said she understands the grief Trinity’s family is going through, because she lost a child of her own. “My 11-month-old son died in 2006 when he was mauled by a Rottweiler,” she said.

“I know how much they’re hurting,” she said.

But she also wants someone to help Jerry find peace over Trinity’s death and she doesn’t understand why the justice system moves so slowly.

“I am wanting to know why the hell he is already put into the prison system,” she wrote in an email expressing her concerns about her son’s safety.

“(He) has tormented himself terribly since being in jail. My son has seizures and he is very very much like a five year old child still. Please please do not let my son die in there.”

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]