Death penalty trial opens in connection with 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 2

Noble Brigham, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Sep 3, 2025

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LAS VEGAS — Attorneys described the havoc of a 2017 shooting that killed two and led to three hospitalizations during Tuesday opening statements in the death penalty trial of a man accused of firing nine rounds into a townhome.

Clarence Wilson, 54, is accused in connection with the December 2017 shooting that killed 50-year-old Mark Cooley and 42-year-old Tina Jackson. The shooting occurred in the Desert Pines Townhomes at 3750 E. Bonanza Road.

“Chaos,” said defense attorney Richard Tanasi. “That’s what this case is about.”

He questioned whether prosecutors could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wilson did not act in self-defense and said prosecutors could not prove Wilson shot his fiancee’s gun or that he did so with the intent to kill.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci played a body camera video for the court showing the post-shooting scene, with a bloodied man on the floor and people moaning, screaming and crying. Jurors watched intently.

The shooting happened as a family gathered for their weekly card game, he said. Tina Jackson’s son and his girlfriend were present and their relationship “was not going well,” according to Pesci.

The woman had called her mother, Jawanna Chapman-Doucett, who lived in Los Angeles, informing her mother that her boyfriend had hit her and that she wanted her mother to pick her up, the prosecutor said.

Chapman-Doucett drove to Las Vegas with Wilson, who was in a relationship with her, and Wilson’s nephew, he said. When they arrived at the apartment, Pesci said they were invited in, but a fist fight broke out between the new arrivals and those already in the apartment.

Wilson then left the apartment and shot into the unit’s door and window, Pesci alleged.

“You’re going to hear that he just wanted to get everybody out of there,” Tanasi told jurors.

The defense lawyer argued that his client was attacked and threatened. Wilson saw a gun pointing at him through the door of the apartment, Tanasi said.

Pesci said investigators did not find a gun at the scene.

Tanasi said Chapman-Doucett confessed to the shooting in a 911 call, but Wilson discussed the case with a detective and took responsibility.

Pesci said Chapman-Doucett’s statement in the 911 call was false. She later denied to police that she was the shooter, he said.

Yvette Cooley, the male victim’s wife, testified that she heard a man’s voice from outside the apartment say, “Give me that thing.” Then, she said, the shots started.

She tried to give her husband CPR. “He was laying on his back, gasping for air,” she said.

Chapman-Doucett was charged with a count of selling, transferring or disposing of a firearm to a prohibited person and accused of transferring a gun to Wilson knowing he had previously been convicted of manslaughter in Los Angeles.

She died and her case was dismissed in 2021, according to court records.

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