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Man charged with murder of Hartford mom appears in court

HARTFORD — A Hartford man is back in police custody after being charged with the young Hartford mother of a 5-year-old. Robert Lee Graham was charged with...
Robert Graham and Tashauna Jackson

HARTFORD -- A Hartford man is back in police custody after being charged with the young Hartford mother of a 5-year-old. Robert Lee Graham was charged with murder in the death of Tashauna Jackson, 23. He was arraigned Monday, and bond was set at $2 million.

Police said Graham was the last person seen with Jackson--she was seen getting into his pickup truck late at night on August 11, the night she disappeared. Exactly a week later, Jackson's body was found behind a slaughter house on Granby Street in Bloomfield, naked and covered in brush.

Friday night, an arrest warrant was issued for Graham, and at 11:30 p.m. officers entered his home on East Harold Street, where they found him hiding in his attic, police said.

According to the warrant, police found Jackson's blood in a minivan belonging to Graham, which detectives seized from behind a home on Edgewood Street in Hartford.

"He threw her away like she was garbage," Jackson's aunt, Ana Perez, said.  "And that's why he needs to be locked up and throw away the key like he's garbage."

Due to her body being so badly decomposed, the state Medical Examiner's Office is still working on Jackson's official cause of death.

Graham is due back in court September 14.

Editors note: A previous version of this story said Graham served a lengthy prison sentence for the murder of Lulu Ceasar in 1983. Hartford police confirmed to the Hartford Courant Monday that he was never convicted of that crime. Read more from The Courant here. 

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