Fort Pierce, Fla. — The CBS12 News I-Team is pushing for accountability and justice in the case of a murdered woman.
Until now, cops have been rather quiet about the death of Jackie Long.
The investigation was stalled for 6 months by a delay in the county’s medical examiner’s office.
Jackie’s loved ones do not live in Florida, and they say they feel the long distance and Jackie’s troubled lifestyle were making her unsolved homicide a low priority in Fort Pierce’s Police Department.
But Fort Pierce Police Major Michael Santiago agreed to sit down with us and talk through the case. It appears Jackie Long was beaten to death.
Long was first a Jane Doe: A body found inside a burned house on North 20th Street in October 2025. Her remains were found inside a suitcase in the kitchen.
The scene on North 20th Street. Jackie Long’s loved ones are waiting on answers. (WPEC)
She was so badly burned and decomposed, positive identification was made through her teeth and a DNA sample from a family member.
Her father, Leon Long, says he knows Jackie was often in rough company. Drug dealers. Addicts. Her life had spiraled.
“There is no real answer or solution, I wish there was, to help folks in similar situations. As a father, you do the best that you can, you try to help without enabling and sometimes the help is enabling,” Long said.
The Long family believes Jackie’s ex-boyfriend is the killer. A known criminal with a history of drug-related crimes, that individual is currently behind bars on unrelated drug charges.
“He is not cooperating with investigators about Jackie’s death,” Major Santiago said, “We were looking at him very early on in the investigation.”
WATCH PREVIOUS COVERAGE: WHAT HAPPENED TO JACKIE?
Since that man has not been arrested for Jackie Long’s death, we won’t name him in this report, but police say the property where Jackie’s body was found, the abandoned house, was a known spot for drug users and the homeless.
Police say they were responding to that address often.
“This is not a unique problem to this city,” Santiago said, “It happens everywhere where there are these vacant properties and people take up residence in these properties and do their business, whether it be drugs or just squatting, so we are addressing a lot of these issues. And anytime we identify a certain location that’s a part of this, we get involved with the owner, we try to get the houses boarded up to prevent access.”
Leon Long is hoping one of Jackie’s friends can help police and the state attorney’s office bring charges. “My daughter, God rest her soul, was a person often in trouble with the law, but if you are involved in unsavory activity, illegal activity, police aren’t after you, they are trying to get evidence to charge this individual, so please, please come forward. As a father, I am pleading, to try to help other women in my daughter’s situation,” Long told the I-Team.