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A father of a man who is serving a life sentence for murder was sentenced this week to 16 years in prison for his involvement in hiding the victim’s body.

Charles Lennon Jr., 60, of Bullard, entered a plea agreement with the Smith County District Attorney’s Office after pleading guilty to the felony offense of tampering with a human corpse, according to Smith County 114th District Court Judge Austin Reeve Jackson.

Lennon was charged with this offense because of his involvement in trying to hide the body of 31-year-old Rachel Lynn Jackson, a woman the judge said was ”violently murdered” by Lennon’s son, Charles Lennon III, also known as “Trey.”

In April 2019, the younger Lennon entered a guilty plea to the murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Lennon III, and Rachel Jackson got into an argument in July 2018 and Lennon hit Jackson with a tire knocker, a wooden tool that resembles a sawed-off bat and is used by truckers to check tire pressure, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Lennon was arrested just days later when police were called to the Timberline Drive property, where his father told police he found Jackson’s body.

Lennon Jr. told investigators he found Jackson’s body wrapped in a blanket on the porch of the mobile home and watched his son put the body in a trash can on the night of July 2, 2018.

Lennon Jr. also was charged with Jackson’s murder. That charge was later dropped and he was charged with tampering with a corpse, which also was dismissed at the time until Lennon III’s capital murder could be tried to a jury or pled before the court, according to court documents. It was later re-presented after Lennon III was sentenced to life in prison.