The Tragedy of Jackie Waller: A Missouri Family’s Search for Justice

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Part One: A Family’s Joy and a Hidden Storm

To look at the happy holiday gathering of family and friends in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, you’d never guess that six months from that moment, everything would change. Missouri mother of three, Jackie Waller, was surrounded by laughter and warmth, her triplets running underfoot, her sister Cheryl Brenie nearby. But beneath the surface, trouble was brewing—a storm that would soon tear this family apart.

Jackie Waller was a woman whose life, on the surface, seemed enviable. She was a manager at a major insurance firm, perfectly able to provide for her family, and she embraced motherhood with a rare joy. Even with three screaming kids in the car, Jackie would laugh, finding humor and love in the chaos. But if only those triplets were the only ones who needed mothering. Jackie’s husband, Clay Waller, was another story.

Cheryl Brenie, Jackie’s older sister, remembers their childhood as distant. “I got married when I was 16 and she was 10,” Cheryl recalls. “I was busy starting a family, raising kids, and my children were just like irritating younger brothers and sisters to her. So, we were never close.” But that changed in adulthood, when Jackie—then in her 30s and married to Clay—announced she was pregnant. For the first time, the sisters bonded, finally finding something in common. “Then we were stuck together at the hip,” Cheryl says.

But as their relationship deepened, Cheryl began to learn more about Clay, the man Jackie had chosen to make a father. Clay was awkward, but with Jackie, it worked to his advantage. He had a speech impediment, and Jackie confessed, “I’m an enabler and I’m codependent. I take care of him. I feel sorry for him.” Jackie’s parents felt something else. “I always knew he was kind of a jerk,” her mother said. Her father was blunt: “I didn’t like him the first minute I saw him. He was not compatible at all with my family.”

Clay Waller bounced from job to job, at one point even serving as a deputy for the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Office—but only for about a year. “He had kind of a deceptive demeanor about him,” Cheryl’s father remembered. But Jackie was the breadwinner, and she embraced motherhood wholeheartedly, even as Clay remained unwilling to help. “It was just like having another child,” Cheryl says. “I seriously do not think he changed one diaper. She would get up nine or ten times a night and still work 40 hours a week.”

After years of this, Jackie started spending more time with Cheryl’s family. Clay’s unwillingness to help was only part of the reason. Jackie knew he had affairs. “Did she ever confront Clay?” Cheryl is asked. “Oh, yeah. And she’d say, ‘He denies everything.’” But there were some things Jackie knew to be true. Clay had become both emotionally and physically abusive.

A Dangerous Plan

Jackie wanted a divorce, but she told Cheryl she had to do it slowly—to get out safely. The last Christmas they were together, Clay came to the house. Cheryl remembers, “I said to him, ‘I’m surprised you’re here.’ And he said, ‘I’m hanging on by my fingertips.’”

It was the day before Jackie’s 39th birthday—the last year of her life. Over that year, things got worse and worse. As Jackie became more determined to leave, Clay became more unhinged. He probably knew she was starting to move on, and as Cheryl says, “It’s the most dangerous time. The first 24 hours are the most dangerous, and she had to be very careful and form a plan.”

Fearing for her life, Jackie started keeping a diary on her work computer, documenting all the threats Clay made toward her and her triplets. The entries are chilling:

“Friday, December 3rd: I told him that I was going to file for divorce. He said that he had a feeling that one of us would not be around to watch our kids grow up.”
“Friday, March 18th: Clay told me that I did not deserve to live. He told me that a divorce would be my death sentence.”
“Wednesday, March 23rd: Clay told me that if he couldn’t get me, he would kill our kids. He would take them for a weekend fishing trip and then he would personally tell me they drowned so he could see my face.”

Cheryl was afraid for her sister. “We were sitting here one day and she looked me square in the eye and she said, ‘Cheryl, I know what he is capable of and I just don’t want to be dead.’”

The Separation and Hope for a New Beginning

A blessing in disguise came that spring: Clay lost another job, and the couple lost their house. Jackie was relieved. “You get you a place, I’ll get me a place,” she said. She felt everything was lining up for her break. She took the kids, then five years old, and moved in with Cheryl and her husband Bob, while Clay moved over an hour away to Jackson, crashing in a house owned by a friend.

Both Jackie and Clay moved on in other ways, starting new relationships. Jackie thought Clay was accepting the separation, that he was going to accept the divorce. “I just think we’ve really turned a corner,” she said. All that was left was to finalize the divorce, a process Jackie and Clay agreed to discuss in person just after Memorial Day, June 1st. Jackie’s son, Maddox, had stayed with Clay over the weekend. Jackie planned to meet her soon-to-be ex at her attorney’s office before picking up Maddox.

Jackie called Cheryl just after the meeting. “I just left the attorney’s office and I’m pulling up to Clay’s and I’m going to grab Maddox and I’ll be on home.” It was the last time Cheryl would ever talk to her sister.

Three hours after that call, Jackie Waller still wasn’t home. Cheryl felt a sick feeling and started blowing up her phone, leaving messages but getting no response. She tried calling Clay. No answer. “Clay Waller, if I don’t hear from my sister in five minutes, I am going straight to the police.” The phone rang. “Hey Cheryl, what’s going on?” Cheryl pressed: “You know exactly what’s going on. Where is my sister? You’ve done something to her.” Clay replied, “If I see her, I’ll let you know. I’ll tell her to call you.” Click.

Cheryl wasn’t about to wait. She left Jackie’s other two triplets with her parents in Ste. Genevieve and made the hour-long drive down to Jackson. She walked into the Jackson PD and said, “I know Clay Waller has killed my sister.”

Part Two: The Investigation Unfolds

Cheryl’s gut feeling was enough to get the police listening. Most agencies tell family members to wait 24 hours before declaring someone missing, but circumstances were suspicious—Jackie and Clay had been at the divorce attorney’s office, and something just didn’t seem right. Jackson police began working immediately.

A sergeant was sent out to question Clay. His story was inconsistent: he claimed Jackie met him at a drugstore after 11 a.m., they had lunch, split up until their attorney’s appointment, then Jackie came over “just to discuss the divorce,” not to pick up her son, who he said was actually with his girlfriend in Illinois. Clay said the last time he saw Jackie, they took a nap together, then argued over the bank, and she “just walked off.” He said he looked for her in his car, went to get a soda, and when he returned, her car was gone.

Within hours, authorities assembled the Major Case Squad—a team of elite detectives and crime scene experts from seven departments. Almost immediately, they found a major clue: Jackie’s car, abandoned on the interstate with a flat tire. At first, investigators considered the possibility that Jackie had flagged down the wrong person for help, but that scenario faded when they saw the tire had been punctured while stationary. The rim wasn’t damaged, meaning she hadn’t driven on it. The scene was staged.

Clay lawyered up less than 24 hours after Jackie disappeared. Detectives quickly applied for warrants to search Jackie’s car, Clay’s truck, and the house where he was staying. During the search, FBI Agent Brian Ritter noticed what looked like a blood spot on the back of Jackie’s car. More blood was found smeared inside Clay’s truck. Both samples were sent to the lab, and the results were shocking: fish blood, specifically bighead carp. Clay had recorded himself putting fish blood on the door of his truck—a test for law enforcement, to see if they would be “shady.”

But that wasn’t the only DNA police found. At Clay’s house, the hallway carpet was missing. Investigators found blood on the walls in the hallway, tags marking everywhere something had happened. There had been a violent confrontation. In the basement, they found a crawl space with a disturbed path in the dust. Four days after Jackie disappeared, Clay left her a voicemail: “Hey honey, it’s Sunday afternoon. You’ve been missing since Wednesday. Please, you get this message, please call me. I don’t know where you’re at. I miss you so terribly.”

The carpet runner and padding, cut up and soaked with blood, were found hidden in the crawl space. The blood was Jackie’s.

The Search for Jackie

Without a body, there still wasn’t enough to prove anything. Investigators began reconstructing Jackie’s last day. She was seen at a drugstore around 11 a.m., then caught on ATM surveillance video two hours later—the last time she was known to be alive. Clay was spotted later at a toy store wearing a different outfit, meeting his girlfriend who had Maddox. Clay’s truck had a trash can in the back and was towing a small boat, seen later at a car wash, where Clay was scrubbing the boat, apparently looking for blood.

Police released images of the boat to the public. A young couple saw a boat matching the description floating next to Devil’s Island, a remote sandbar on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. Investigators searched the island multiple times but found no signs of Jackie. They felt Clay knew more than he was saying. Days after Jackie disappeared, Agent Ritter convinced Clay to come in for a formal interview. Clay claimed the blood in the hallway was the result of an accident in the kitchen, which he said was “not a big deal.” But the carpet, the blood, and the missing mother told a different story.

Weeks passed. Investigators kept a close eye on Clay, putting a tracker on his truck. Clay, a former sheriff’s deputy, knew the tracker was there and sent search teams on wild goose chases, sitting in vacant lots to mislead them. He taunted police, drove by search crews, laughed, and made obscene gestures.

A Community in Mourning

Meanwhile, the community rallied around Jackie’s family. The court awarded custody of Jackie’s triplets to Cheryl. Clay posted a comment online: “You are dead. I promise if those kids get hurt, I will get you 5, 10, 25 years from now, you have it coming.” Cheryl saw the post and called Agent Ritter, knowing Clay had committed a federal crime.

Four months after Jackie disappeared, Clay was arrested—not for murder, but for threatening Cheryl’s life online. Prosecutors dug up allegations of Clay stealing over $50,000 from a previous job and harassing a former friend. Clay denied involvement in Jackie’s disappearance, claiming he was the real victim and blaming a former associate named Gary. Police had already disproven his stories.

Clay eventually pled guilty to the federal charge of threatening Cheryl and was sentenced to five years in prison. Prosecutors worked to ensure he would also face justice for Jackie. Circumstantial evidence mounted: blood in his house, surveillance videos, Clay actively hindering the investigation. But without a body, getting a conviction was no guarantee.

Jackie’s parents, Stan and Ruby Rosson, wanted more than punishment—they wanted Jackie back. When Clay’s attorneys approached prosecutors to make a deal, they agreed: Clay would plead guilty to second-degree murder and accept a 20-year sentence in exchange for revealing what he did with Jackie.

The Discovery and Confession

Clay led investigators to Devil’s Island, the remote sandbar. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact location, but a clue emerged: Clay said he put a bag of fertilizer on Jackie’s body when he buried her. Too much fertilizer kills the roots of a tree. Investigators found three trees—one was completely dead. Under that tree, they found Jackie’s remains.

Her funeral was held on Cheryl and Bob’s 50th wedding anniversary. The triplets, now orphans, were told their mother was dead and their father had killed her. “We just all cried together,” Cheryl says. “We assured them we would love them and take care of them.”

As part of his plea deal, Clay had to confess on camera to every brutal detail. He claimed the wheels were set in motion the year before Jackie died, when she started talking about splitting up. “You take those kids from me, Jackie. I’m going to kill you,” he warned. He said he dug the hole the day before the murder.

Clay’s confession was riddled with inconsistencies. He claimed Jackie wanted “one last bang” before the divorce, and that after sex, they ended up in the kitchen, where he accidentally hit her nose with his head. Jackie ran, tripped, and Clay backhanded her across the neck. He punched her, pressed his forearm into her neck until she stopped moving. He insisted it was a crime of passion, not premeditation. But the autopsy revealed multiple fractures consistent with blunt force trauma.

After killing Jackie, Clay put her body in a trash can, drove to meet his girlfriend and son at Toys R Us, then took Jackie across the river to Devil’s Island and dumped her in the pre-dug grave.

Justice and Aftermath

Clay’s confession was hard for many to accept. He turned his three children into orphans, lied through his confession, and blamed the victim. He would serve a maximum of 20 years. But prosecutors had one more trick: during his confession, Clay admitted he dug Jackie’s grave in Illinois the night before the murder, then returned to Missouri to kill her. That violated the rarely used Interstate Domestic Violence Act. Clay’s travel across state lines with intent to commit domestic violence resulted in a federal charge. His punishment: 35 years in federal prison, to begin after he serves the 20 years for murder.

Before Clay was taken away, he stood in court and listened to victim impact statements. The most dramatic came from his own son, Maddox: “You killed our mom. You betrayed your kids. You big fat jerk. I wish you were never my dad. I never want to see you again my entire life. This is the last time you’ll hear of me. Bye.” Clay had no reaction.

Clay wrote a book after the murder, titled, “If you take my kids, I’ll kill you”—one last slap in the face to the family he tore apart.

But while Jackie’s family remains forever fractured, they are far from broken. The triplets have been officially adopted by Cheryl and Bob. “They are such good kids,” Cheryl says. “The biggest positive comment I hear regularly is that new people meeting them would never know these children had been through so much.”

Jackie’s memory lives on. Her children, now 12, were just five when it happened, but they remember her as kind, funny, and caring. Maddox, who gave the victim impact statement, says, “I just wanted to help make a difference. I wanted him to know he ruined the bond between us and him, and he’s never going to have that back. He just took our mom away, and you can’t undo that.”

While the triplets miss their mom and are angry with their dad, they are now being raised in a house full of love. Their mother’s memory is kept alive by Cheryl, the sister who started the investigation into her death. “We just love them so much,” Cheryl says. “They never have to doubt that.”

Conclusion

The story of Jackie Waller is a heartbreaking reminder of the dangers hidden behind closed doors, the resilience of family, and the pursuit of justice. It is a story of loss, but also of hope—a testament to the love that survives even the darkest tragedy.