Portrait in facts — a brief ledger
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name | Jack Thomas Manigault Jr. |
| Born | June 4, 1971 |
| Died | October 9, 2011 (age 40) |
| Hometown / residence | Youngstown, Ohio |
| Occupation | Welder apprentice (Callos Company) |
| Marital status | Married to Tanjia Harris (married January 17, 1997) |
| Children | Jayquawn; Robert; Jack T. III; Jackeem; Edward (deceased) |
| Parents | Theresa M. Manigault (mother); Jack T. Manigault Sr. (father, deceased) |
| Notable siblings | Lester Walker; Gladys Manigault; Omarosa Manigault Newman |
| Public record notes | Prior convictions: 1999 (aggravated assault — ~2½ year sentence); 2003 (obstructing official business); later arrests for drug and weapons charges |
| Spiritual note | Became a born-again Christian ~2010 (per family account) |
Early life and the person behind the name
Jack Thomas Manigault Jr. walked a life of contrasts. Born June 4, 1971, he carried a childhood memory that later surfaced in small, luminous details: a junior-high “distinctive artist” award and poems that family remembered. He was often called “Tommy” in the circle closest to him — a nickname that suggests a private, familiar self inside a larger, rougher world.
He spent his adult years rooted in Youngstown, Ohio, where family ties and daily labor met. The obituary record and family memorials paint him as an artist and poet who also learned a trade: at the time of his death he worked as a welder apprentice with the Callos Company. That duality — the hands that could shape metal and the mind that wrote lines — is the thread this article follows.
Family map — names, relationships, and numbers
| Relation | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mother | Theresa M. Manigault | Listed as residing in Los Angeles |
| Father | Jack T. Manigault Sr. | Deceased at time of Jack Jr.’s passing |
| Older brother | Lester Walker | Listed in the memorial |
| Sister | Gladys Manigault | Residing in Long Beach, CA |
| Sister (public figure) | Omarosa Manigault Newman | Listed as a younger sister; became publicly associated with her sibling’s death |
| Wife | Tanjia Harris | Married January 17, 1997 |
| Children | Jayquawn; Robert; Jack T. III; Jackeem; Edward (deceased) | Multiple sons named as survivors; one son (Edward) noted as deceased |
| Grandmothers | Betty L. Walker; Gladys Manigault | Named in memorial |
The family list is long and layered — grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews — a network that is both ordinary and forensic. Posted memorial pages that accompanied the funeral provide the most exhaustive public roll call of relatives: names that anchor Jack to a community and to a chain of relationships that outlived him.
Work, art, and faith — three short acts
Jack’s working life was practical. He apprenticed as a welder with the Callos Company, a blue-collar job that kept him close to the rhythms of a Midwestern town. At the same time he was described as an artist and poet — someone who won an arts award in school and who wrote. That juxtaposition can feel like a hinge: the same hands that gripped a torch for metal might have traced ink on paper.
Near the end of his life, family accounts described a spiritual turn. The memorial notes that Jack “gave his life to Christ” about two years before his death — roughly 2009–2010 — an event the family emphasized in public statements. Whether in the chapel, the workshop, or on a page, these three dimensions—work, art, and faith—formed the small architecture of his public profile.
Legal history and the violent end
Jack’s life also carried the imprint of legal trouble. Public reports summarized a criminal record that included a 1999 conviction resulting in a roughly two-and-a-half-year sentence for aggravated assault, a 2003 conviction for obstructing official business, and other arrests for drug and weapons charges. These facts were cited in contemporaneous accounts and later reporting summarizing the case surrounding his death.
On October 9, 2011, Jack was shot in his Youngstown home and died from the wound at age 40. The public record states that the shooter was the ex of the woman who was with Jack that night; the assailant forced entry and fired multiple shots. Arrest followed quickly, and the subsequent criminal proceedings would carry this case through sentencing and into later developments.
The criminal case and later developments — dates and sentences
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 9, 2011 | Jack Manigault Jr. shot and killed in his home in Youngstown, Ohio. |
| April 2012 | Defendant pled guilty and was sentenced to a long prison term for aggravated murder and related charges (commonly reported as a roughly 20–to-life term, widely characterized as 21 years to life before parole eligibility). |
| 2012–2023 | Defendant incarcerated; later indicted for in-prison violent conduct. |
| November 2023 | Additional guilty plea for possession of a deadly weapon while incarcerated; an added 3–4½ years was imposed to be served on top of the earlier term. |
Those numbers — years, dates, sentences — map a slow legal arc that reaches beyond Jack’s death into the corrections system where his convicted killer later accrued additional penalties for violence while imprisoned.
The public aftermath — mourning, memorials, and media echoes
Funeral arrangements and public memorials followed in October 2011. Family statements, including remarks from his sister Omarosa, were circulated in national and local media. Memorial pages posted by relatives provided granular detail: the list of surviving family members, calling hours, and tributes that memorialized Jack’s artistic bent, his faith, and his role as a father.
Video footage and local television coverage from the time focus on the shooting, the arrest, and the sentencing. Online memorials remain as a quieter record: names, photographs, and short remembrances that convert a life into a series of tangible, shareable tokens.
Timeline — exact dates and anchors
| Date | Detail |
|---|---|
| June 4, 1971 | Birth of Jack Thomas Manigault Jr. |
| January 17, 1997 | Married Tanjia Harris |
| 1999 | Convicted of aggravated assault; sentenced to approximately 2½ years |
| 2003 | Convicted of obstructing official business |
| ~2009–2010 | Family describes Jack as becoming a born-again Christian |
| October 9, 2011 | Shot and killed at home in Youngstown, Ohio |
| Mid-October 2011 | Funeral and memorial services held |
| April 2012 | Guilty plea and sentencing in the murder case |
| November 2023 | Additional 3–4½ years added to the convicted attacker’s prison term for in-prison weapon possession |
A life reduced to chronological points can feel like a ledger, but the dates also operate as anchors for memory: a birth, a marriage, legal judgments, a conversion, and then the abrupt, violent end that carved a public record into family history.
A closing image
He was an artist who welded, a father with sons, a man who found faith near the end — and then a life that ended suddenly on an October night. Names remain: the mother who survived him, the wife he married in 1997, the children who were left to carry the private echoes. The story is numerical and human at once: dates, sentences, and a funeral register that folds these facts into an ordinary catalogue of kin. Like a scratched photograph, the record is both clear in detail and marked by the places where grief has rubbed the surface thin.
