Investigators say the woman was shot inside her apartment, then dragged to the patio and covered with a blanket before relatives found her.

ARLINGTON, Texas — A 21-year-old man was jailed on a murder charge after Arlington police said he shot his 68-year-old grandmother during an argument tied to his allowance money, then dragged her body outside the apartment and left it on the patio for relatives to find later that day.

Police said the killing turned a domestic dispute inside a northeast Arlington apartment into a homicide case now moving through Tarrant County. Investigators say Rontrell Jackson admitted shooting the woman early Friday, March 20, inside the apartment on Carriage House Circle. Her death left detectives piecing together what happened over several hours between the shooting and the late-afternoon moment when family members found her outside the front door.

Officers were called at about 4:40 p.m. Friday to an apartment complex in the 1800 block of Carriage House Circle after a relative reported finding the woman unresponsive on her patio. A blanket was covering her when first responders arrived. Paramedics quickly determined she had been shot, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The Arlington Police Department said in its initial public release Saturday that detectives later learned the woman and her grandson had recently been in a heated argument. That dispute, police said, led to the loss of Jackson’s allowance money. By the time officers publicly announced the arrest, detectives had already secured a murder warrant. Police said Jackson was taken into custody and booked into the Arlington City Jail.

Investigators say the shooting itself happened much earlier than the 911 call. According to police, Jackson told detectives he shot the victim inside the apartment early that morning and then dragged her body to the patio. Officers later recovered a firearm inside the apartment that they believe was used in the killing. Authorities did not initially release the woman’s name while relatives were being notified, and they did not say exactly when the argument began, how long it lasted or why the body remained outside until family members discovered it hours later. Later follow-up local reporting identified the victim as Rita Marie Jackson. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office was expected to make the formal identification and determine the official cause and manner of death.

The address sits near East Lamar Boulevard in northeast Arlington, an area of apartments, local roads and steady daytime traffic that can make an emergency call feel both public and strangely hidden. What investigators described was not a random attack but a family killing inside a home, followed by an effort to move the body before anyone else arrived. That sequence gave the case an especially grim shape: two scenes linked to one death, the apartment interior and the patio where relatives found the woman. The police account also narrowed the case quickly, because officers say the suspect was known from the start and spoke with detectives. Even so, the public record remains limited. Police have not outlined any prior disturbance calls at the apartment, and no public court filing available at the time of the initial reports gave a fuller narrative than the one in the arrest announcement.

As the case shifted from the crime scene to the jail system, Jackson was transferred to the Tarrant County Jail, where county inmate records showed he remained in custody on a murder charge with bond set at $750,000. Police said the investigation remained active, which means detectives could still submit more evidence, interview additional relatives and wait for forensic testing tied to the gun and the scene inside the apartment. It was not immediately clear from the public reports when Jackson’s first court appearance would take place or whether a defense attorney had entered the case. Under Texas procedure, prosecutors can continue building the case through lab work, witness interviews and medical examiner findings even after an arrest is made.

The case drew attention in part because of how ordinary the stated cause of the argument sounded next to the violence police described. A disagreement over allowance money became, in the police version of events, a shooting inside a family home and a body left under a blanket outside the door. Arlington police used restrained language in their public statement, saying detectives learned of a “heated argument” and that Jackson admitted moving the body. Those sparse lines left many human details unresolved, including what relatives saw when they arrived and how the family first realized something was wrong. For now, the public picture is made up mostly of the timing, the scene and the charge.

The case stood, as of the latest public records, with Jackson in county custody on a murder charge and detectives still describing the investigation as ongoing. The next major public milestone is likely a formal court hearing or updated filing in Tarrant County.

Author note: Last updated April 14, 2026.