Fifteen-year-old Seath Jackson was brutally murdered in a Florida mobile home in April of 2011.
Seath grew up in Belleview, Florida. He grew up with two brothers and attended Belleview High School. When he was 15 he began dating a classmate named Amber Wright. According to All That’s Interesting, the pair dated for three months before he accused her of cheating on him with 18-year-old Michael Bargo, and they broke up.
Wright and Bargo began dating shortly afterward, leading Jackson and Wright to feud on Facebook, as reported by ABC News. What started as teenage online bickering, began to take a darker turn. While Amber and Seath bickered online, Micheal Bargo was harvesting an unimaginable hatred for Seath. A contributing factor to that distaste was the fact that Bargo believed Seath had abused Amber during their short-lived relationship.
In the following month, Bargo confronted Jackson at their home, and reportedly threatened that he had a gun that he seemed more than willing to use. The 18-year-old has a record of theft and other juvenile misdemeanors, and may have even been openly carrying a gun.
Bargo and Hooper recruited three other people, including Amber Wright, to help them pull off the murder, acting in their collective anger and distaste for Seath. Wright helped to lure Jackson into the home where Bargo and his friends would jump him and shoot him. With the promise that Bargo wanted to get back together, Jackson arrived at the trailer and the teenagers tackled him, beat him up, shot him, rolled him up in a sleeping bag, and dumped him in a fire.
The teens seemed to clean up the body and its ashes and sleep soundly the rest of the night. 37-year-old James Haven, Amber’s mother’s ex-boyfriend also helped dispose of the body and even drove Bargo out of town the next morning to avoid legal repercussions.
Hopper confessed his actions to his mother the next day after reports of Jackson’s disappearance. The rest of the group was rounded up and arrested quickly after. Their ages ranged from 15 to 20, and all of them were charged with first-degree murder. Haven was charged with accessory to murder.
All of the teenagers were tried as adults, and sentenced to life in prison in June 2012. Micheal Bargo was sentenced to death, making him the youngest inmate on Florida’s death row.
At the time, Jackson’s family and loved ones took to Facebook to honor his life, many of them cursing his killers in the comments. One even said, “I hope his murderers rot in hell.”
