Effort to start over ends in prison

Maeve Clifford said she had moved to California and hoped to turn her life around after her young daughter was killed at the hands of her teenage father. Maeve only found more trouble.

By PAT PHEIFER, Star Tribune

Last update: January 15, 2009 - 12:06 AM

Sixteen months ago, Maeve Clifford stood beside her mother in a St. Paul courtroom sobbing as she spoke about how much she loved and missed her 15-month-old daughter, Destiny (Pinky) Jackson, as the toddler's teenage father was sentenced for his child's death.

"With her constant eyes looking over me and guiding me, I have started over," Clifford said that day in September 2007. She said she had moved to California, was working fulltime and was "happy in a mature and healthy relationship, taking things slow, living each day at a time."

Things haven't worked out as well as she might have hoped.

Clifford, now 20, pleaded guilty this week to two felony charges in an Alameda County, Calif., courtroom for her role in the carjacking of a former California state senator on Dec. 29, 2007, and a gas-station shooting 12 days later in Oakland that left a 10-year-old boy paralyzed.

Part of her plea agreement includes testifying against her boyfriend, Jared Adams, 25, who is accused of firing the shot that paralyzed the boy, and against another defendant, Ryan McGough, 28, a co-defendant in the carjacking of Don Perata, former president pro tem of the California Senate.

Clifford is expected to be sentenced to six years in prison, officials said.

She did not face any criminal charges in Ramsey County District Court in connection with Destiny's death in February 2007.

Destiny had been taken away from her parents, Clifford and Beauford Jackson III, then 18, and put in foster care on Dec. 19, 2006, after the girl suffered a skull fracture while in the care of her father. Clifford and Jackson both initially lied to police about that incident.

The toddler was returned to her parents Jan. 31, 2007, just two weeks before she was beaten to death. Clifford had again left the girl with her father when she went grocery shopping. Jackson admitted he punched and hit the girl repeatedly after she started crying and threw up in bed. Paramedics were called shortly after midnight Feb. 13, but Destiny died at 1:34 a.m.

Jackson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 13 years and nine months in prison.

Clifford moved to Oakland, Calif., to start over. She was arrested along with Adams, her boyfriend, on suspicion of robbery Jan. 10, 2008, after shots were fired during an attempted robbery at a gas station. One of the bullets traveled across the street and into a music school, lodging in the spine of a 10-year-old boy who was practicing piano. That boy, Christopher Rodriguez, was left partially paralyzed.

An indictment handed up by a grand jury alleged that Clifford helped carjack Perata at gunpoint in December 2007. Prosecutor Nancy O'Malley said the defendants in that case used the fancy tire rims and car parts they grabbed in other carjackings and car thefts to rebuild Clifford's Chevy Camaro.

Clifford's mother, Mikel Clifford, said Wednesday that her daughter "grieves nearly as much for Christopher Rodriguez as for Destiny."

Maeve Clifford went against her lawyer's advice when she offered truthful testimony to police, her mother said. In jail, she received her GED and continues in class as a teaching assistant.

"Maeve is desperate to try to mend as much as she possibly can," Mikel Clifford said. "As for her choices in men, I have no insights."

Pat Pheifer • 651-298-1551

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