LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A man who swore to serve and protect the public molested the daughter he adopted for years as he climbed the ranks of the Louisville Metro Police Department.
Retired LMPD Lt. Sean Jackman was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday in a Louisville courtroom. He pleaded guilty last October to a dozen charges including sodomy and incest.
Samantha Killary, Jackman’s adopted daughter, has publicly spoken about the abuse.
“I love you and I hate you, and despite everything that you’ve done to me, all I want is for my dad to take me into his arms and make this all go away,” Killary told Jackman in court Wednesday.
Jackman sat silent in court as his daughter poured her heart out, but it was his words in a recording that finally brought closure to years of sexual abuse. In a Sept. 2016 phone call recorded by police, Killary confronted Jackman about the abuse. WDRB obtained the recording from the public court file:
Jackman: “I do have this pit in my gut all the time when I think about it. How remorseful I am about the worst, worst thing ever in my life.”
Killary: “I’m so confused how we went from, from you trying to educate me to you performing oral sex on me, Dad.”
Jackman: “I told you, I don’t really have any type of a logical lie. Way back when your mom and I were still together, I got tied up in stupid Internet porn crap.”
Jackman adopted her as a toddler, and Killary said the molestation happened in her pre-teen and teenage years from 2001 to 2005. She came forward as an adult in 2015 after Jackman retired from LMPD. He served on the now-defunct VIPER unit tasked with solving the city’s most violent crimes.
With the phone call in evidence, Jackman ultimately confessed to sodomy, wanton endangerment and incest.
Traditionally, child sex abuse victims are not named, but Killary took her story public, saying her father was about to get a slap on the wrist: a possible plea deal where he’d only have to serve two years of the 50 he faced if convicted at trial.
“I hope that someone can hear my story and know that it’s OK to come forward, and your voice does matter,” she said.
Jackman’s 15-year sentence includes sex offender treatment.
“I hope you think about this,” Judge Darryl Lavery said. “I don’t understand at all why you did these things, what led you to do them, but treatment is going to be part of your sentence, and I hope you think about how it’s impacted your daughter.”
Killary said that, while she’s a survivor, this it is not a victory.
“I am happy to have closure, and I feel like no matter how long the sentence is, it’s still me losing my father,” she said.
Jackman is eligible for parole in three years.