‘What’s the truth?’ Man says mom mysteriously died on Vodou retreat in Haiti

CHARLOTTE — A man tells Channel 9 he just wants to know what happened after his mom died at a spiritual retreat in Haiti.

“What’s going through your mind?” Channel 9′s Almiya White asked him.

“I guess, at this point, just trying to really understand what happened to my mom,” Timothy Jackson said.

He has more questions than answers after his mom, Dana Jackson, traveled to Haiti last month but never returned to her home in Charlotte.

“My mom did not go to Haiti to not come back,” he said.

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Jackson said Dana felt called to practice Vodou and went to Haiti for a spiritual retreat to become a mambo priestess. She landed there on July 1.

“Once she let me know she was OK, that was like the biggest thing, because it was like, ‘OK, you’re where you’re supposed to be, and you’re safe,” Jackson said.

The two stayed in touch through WhatsApp and Dana would often send videos and pictures.

“My mom was happy, my mom was healthy, my mom was taking it in. And just, I feel like she needed this,” Jackson said.

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He said the last message he received from her was on July 12.

“She said, ‘Hey, we’re going to church tomorrow.’ And then she said, ‘We’re going in for this last piece. Pray for us.’”

He was supposed to hear back from his mom on July 21, but then the worst happened.

“I did not hear from her, and then I received a phone call on the 22nd stating that my mother had passed away,” Jackson said.

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It was his grandmother who had called to tell him the news. Jackson got emotional when he told White about that day.

“Be quite honest, I lost it at work. I just lost it at work,” he said. “That’s my best friend. I lost it. Nothing else to say. I just lost it.”

His mother’s cause of death has been a mystery.

“I was told that my mom got sick,” he said.

“Maybe a panic attack that was mentioned, of like a stroke and then a heart attack and some seizures.”

Jackson said the only thing they’ve received so far is a death certificate.

“To be honest, it’s in Haitian Creole,” he said, adding, “Anybody could have filled this out and given us this.”

Jackson said he wants closure but he can’t achieve that without the truth.

“I’ve been told so many stories of what happened and what transpired. Just trying to figure out what’s the truth?” he said. “What’s the truth? So that we can start healing.”

Jackson is raising money to bring his mom’s body home. Click here to donate to his GoFundMe.

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