C hristine Jacobs faced her menacing neighbor and demanded he hand over the clothes of the nearly naked woman he'd just dumped onto a cold Jacksonville street - moments after he stuck the tip of an assault rifle between his girlfriend's eyes. Jacobs, a short, spunky woman, never met Gawain "Rush" Wilson before, but she showed no fear. Wilson's girlfriend, Danielle Johnson, shivered outside her home on that April dawn as her weeping 8-year-old daughter begged Jacobs to help her mother.
I'm here to protect these two. Women rarely stood up to Wilson, who charmed them into believing he was the man of their dreams, only to later dominate them with his booming voice, the back of his hand and, sometimes, his AK, according to court records and Times-Union interviews with several of his victims. When he didn't beat them, they said he threw things at them, smashed their cellphones and accused them of being with other men. He also threatened to kill anyone who got him in trouble with his Navy command.
One woman fought back, shooting Wilson in the groin during a struggle, then faced a prison sentence after being charged in the attack. Only months later did prosecutors drop the charges after her attorney convinced them she shot Wilson in self-defense. Police said Wilson burst into the Oceanway home where he lived with Hiatt and their twins on Nov. When it was over, the twins, whom Hiatt said Wilson forced her to hold, were dead. So was their grandfather. Neighbors were stunned by the mid-afternoon shooting and the police and ambulances that clogged their middle-class subdivision.
Megan Hiatt, 22, continues to recover from being repeatedly shot. In her only public interview, given to Times-Union news partner First Coast News, she lamented her losses, referring to the dried blood that remained in her hair six days after her first surgery. Several Wilson victims questioned whether authorities familiar with his violent past, including the U. Navy, could have done more to prevent November's slaughter. The Navy said he got counseling, while he also completed a state batterers' intervention course in the Johnson case.
Wilson grew up in a small community in northern Jamaica where his parents were among its most respected elders, said family friend Nicardo Garrick, Wilson later demanded that type of respect from his lovers and abused them if they didn't give it to him, they said. Garrick described Wilson as a quiet youth who enjoyed cricket, excelled in school and had many friends in the middle-class community of about 8, people.
