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Detective George Elwell
We've all been angry at people that we love. And I think we've all probably done things that we wish we could take back or regret.
911 Operator
Beverly Hills 911. What is the address of your emergency?
Detective Mark Schwartz
October 10, 2017. The Beverly Hills Police Department received a 911 call of an unintended death.
911 Operator
What's going on there?
Detective George Elwell
We found mother unconscious.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
She's found on the floor by her son and daughter.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Violet Yacobi was a 67 year old widow whose husband had passed a year earlier. She was living in that house alone. It was a nice house.
Detective George Elwell
No one had heard from her that day, which was uncommon. Daniel Jacoby and his sister Dina Jacoby meet at the house. Daniel calls 911.
911 Operator
Okay. Is she still unconscious?
Detective George Elwell
Yes.
911 Operator
Yes. Is she breathing?
Detective George Elwell
No.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Daniel colby is a 36 year old son of Violet. He was a dentist.
911 Operator
How long ago did you last see her? Like how long has she been like that? Do you know?
Detective Mark Schwartz
No, I have no.
Detective George Elwell
He's asked by the 911 operator if anyone knows CPR.
911 Operator
Do you need me to walk you through it or does somebody know it?
Detective George Elwell
No, we're both doctors.
911 Operator
You're both doctors? Okay. We have.
Daniel Jacoby
Never mind.
Detective Mark Schwartz
He says, my sister's doing cpr.
911 Operator
Who's doing cpr?
Narrator
My sister.
Detective George Elwell
During that call was just a matter of minutes. The first patrol car had arrived at the house.
911 Operator
The police are there?
Detective Mark Schwartz
Yes.
Narrator
This is Violet's house?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Yes, this is it.
Narrator
Do you remember coming here?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Yeah. It was dark, nighttime. I remember walking up the steps and in the door.
Narrator
And no sign of forced entry?
Detective Mark Schwartz
No.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
It's a large entry doorway, marble floor. There's a large curving staircase that's to the right. The victim was laying on her back. Initially they thought that she had fallen over the railing.
Julie Rendelman
They just didn't know the cause of death. It wasn't like she'd been stabbed or shot. One of the issues that becomes incredibly relevant to this case is where she's laying, where it is in vicinity to a railing.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I'm looking straight down and her feet are under the staircase. That to me, she didn't fall over the railing.
Detective Mark Schwartz
He was the one who said, this is not sitting well with me.
Detective George Elwell
There was very significant abrasion on her jawline in a kind of V shaped pattern. There was a separate abrasion just below that on her neck.
Shane Michaels
What you're saying is they were suspecting pretty quickly that she might have been strangled.
Detective George Elwell
Certainly it was an option.
Shane Michaels
What did you learn about this family?
Detective Mark Schwartz
We learned it was a tight family. It was a tight community.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I'm telling you straight to your face, you're not being completely honest with us,
Detective Mark Schwartz
that it was not all roses and rainbows in that house.
Daniel Jacoby
Aaron Moriarty reports Beverly Hills 91 1.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Any unattended death like this we will get called out to. Some are clearly more suspicious than others.
Narrator
When Beverly Hills police detective Mark Schwartz got the call about an unintended death at the home of 67 year old widow Violet Jacoby, he didn't know what he would find.
Detective Mark Schwartz
This one gradually got more and more suspicious.
Narrator
It was October 10, 2017. Violet's son Daniel and daughter Dena had told police they found their mother on the marble entryway below the staircase around 7.30pm Responding officers initially suspected it might be a suicide.
Detective Mark Schwartz
The information that we got very early on about possibly being depressed and possibly falling over the railing, those are the things that we showed up with her dog had Just died. She had canceled her cleaning lady.
Narrator
Violet had just marked the one year anniversary of her husband's death. But when Detective George Elwell, now retired, arrived at the home, he didn't think she could have gone over the railing. In this crime scene photo, 48 hours rendered the body as a graphic to show the position.
Shane Michaels
Is that a pretty good description?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Yes.
Shane Michaels
And so what am I seeing there,
Detective Aaron Moriarty
where the body was laying at the time I got there?
Narrator
Alwell says that when he looked down from the top of the railing, he was surprised that he couldn't see Violet's feet, which were under the staircase.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I'm not an expert in physics, but anything that's going to go over that, that has any kind of weight to it, momentum is going to take it away from the staircase a little bit.
Narrator
Elwell, an old school investigator with a background in burglaries, also had an eye for more tactile evidence, like the dust that still covered much of the staircase railing.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Up and down the entire railing, there's dust patterns. But for a person of her stature, there's absolutely no disturbance on that railing that would have indicated anything had gone over.
Detective Mark Schwartz
When he got to the station, he pulled me aside and he said, we got to write a search warrant. I'm not comfortable with what I'm seeing.
Narrator
Around midnight, the two detectives went to the scene together, and they asked Daniel and Deena to come for a walk through. There were no signs of a burglary.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Her wallet was there. Her checkbook, cell phone, iPad, anything that would have been stolen was still there.
Narrator
And they soon became more convinced that Violet had not gone over the railing.
Detective Mark Schwartz
We had Deena stand next to the railing. I asked her how tall the mother was. She told me she said she was shorter than me.
Narrator
Violet was about 5ft tall, and the railing was just over 3ft, more than half her height. The railing would come up too high.
Detective Mark Schwartz
If she wanted to climb over. The dust would have been completely damaged. For her to accidentally fall over was just not reasonable.
Narrator
Raising more questions, were the injuries on Violet's face and neck?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
There was some sort of mark under her chin here. There's unnatural marks on her neck.
Narrator
It also appeared Violet had vomited.
Shane Michaels
And what does that say to you guys?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
To me, there was a couple of different possibilities. Did she choke? Was she strangled?
Narrator
During an initial interview with two other detectives, Daniel had also wondered if his mother had been strangled.
Daniel Jacoby
Let me ask you something, though. I mean, I don't know. I just can't get my head around,
Narrator
like,
Daniel Jacoby
I saw Ruth everywhere, right? And I saw a bruise right here,
Detective George Elwell
so
Daniel Jacoby
looks like she was trembling.
Detective Mark Schwartz
I, at that point, had not ruled out this idea that she had hung herself.
Narrator
Yet. There were no obvious signs like a rope or a belt near Violet's body. And Violet's family members rejected the idea that she would take. Daniel had described seeing her just two days earlier at a family dinner. And we were sitting right next to
Daniel Jacoby
each other and everything was fine.
Narrator
When Detective Schwartz learned that Violet was part of a close knit Russian Jewish community where suicide is taboo, it occurred to him that her children might be covering it up.
Detective Mark Schwartz
I'm a little more in tune with the Jewish community, so I was thinking, how would it be looked at?
Shane Michaels
And so you thought maybe the kids might hide?
Detective Mark Schwartz
Right? Right. Could it be an insurance thing? Could it be a shame thing?
Narrator
Later that day, they talked about oddities they both had observed in Daniel's behavior. For Elwell, it was during the walkthrough.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Daniel's in the foyer where the body was found, just moving from side to side. He's looking down, he's crouching, he's touching the tile. And it just didn't sit well with me.
Shane Michaels
You didn't think it could just be a grieving son trying to figure out why his mother ended up on the floor?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
No, it was so animated. It was just like watching an episode of Columbo when he would look for evidence.
Narrator
For Schwartz, it was Daniel's demeanor when they met.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Daniel was very eager to help.
Shane Michaels
And what's wrong with that?
Detective Mark Schwartz
Nothing. But it was like a nervous energy that he had.
Shane Michaels
But, I mean, all along, Daniel Jacoby is being cooperative.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Absolutely, yes.
Shane Michaels
Your concern may be too cooperative.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Yes.
Narrator
They had questions about the initial story that Daniel told to other detectives of how he and his sister had come to meet at their mother's house when he learned that no one had heard from Violet.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Apparently they went there because no one had been able to get ahold of her during the day.
Daniel Jacoby
So I called my sister immediately.
Detective Mark Schwartz
A few times Daniel calls his sister, and there's some sort of convoluted story about the keys.
Daniel Jacoby
Hey, sis, I can't find my keys anywhere. Do you know where do you have your keys?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
To the house.
Detective Mark Schwartz
So Daniel's telling Dena, meet me at the house.
Daniel Jacoby
So we meet exactly at the same time.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Didn't sit right.
Narrator
And there were conflicting stories about who would perform CPR on the 911 call. Daniel told the operator his sister was performing CPR, but when talking to detectives, he said he also had done compressions.
Daniel Jacoby
My sister and I she did more
Detective Aaron Moriarty
of the mouth to mouth.
Daniel Jacoby
I did the compressions. Did your brother help with the cpr?
Deena Jacoby
No.
Narrator
When Detective Schwartz called Deena, she confirmed that Daniel had not done CPR.
Detective Mark Schwartz
20 George and I said, there's only one person that doesn't seem to be forthcoming and doesn't seem genuine.
Narrator
They decided they needed to interview Daniel themselves, especially once they learned that Violet had died the night of Monday, October 9, nearly 24 hours before she was found.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Based off of missed phone calls, contents in her stomach, we're pretty confident right now that it's the night of the
Narrator
night that she dies and detectives want to know where was Daniel.
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Galena Blackmon
Initially. It's like unbelievable explosion of horrible news.
Narrator
The nudes of Violet Jacoby's death stunned and saddened her large circle of friends in Beverly Hills, including Galena Blackmon.
Galena Blackmon
Who would ever kill Violet?
Narrator
Violet and her husband had long been pillars in their community.
Galena Blackmon
Perfect couple. He was a very, very solid doctor. They were very well known
Narrator
what was
Galena Blackmon
important to Violet family, her brothers, her husband, her children. She had a mission of making everybody happy.
Narrator
I think her son Daniel was a dentist, and her daughter Dena worked in physical therapy.
Detective Mark Schwartz
They are the American dream immigrant family and were able to create a beautiful life in Beverly Hills. From the outside, it is a tight knit, successful family, and that's what we saw initially.
Narrator
But detectives began to take a closer look. On Friday, October 13, nearly three days after Violet's body was found, the deputy medical examiner completed the autopsy. The official cause of death was asphyxia by neck compression. Strangulation.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Yes.
Narrator
Her death was being ruled a homicide. This was now a murder investigation, and detectives asked Daniel to come back for another interview.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Any interview at this point forward is voluntary. You're not under arrest. So we know that he is saying he had not seen his mother since Sunday. First time he sees his mother is Tuesday, when he discovers the body. So we have that full time frame that we're looking at.
Narrator
They first asked Daniel to go through the events of Tuesday, October 10, and the night he and his sister had arrived at Violet's house.
Daniel Jacoby
We both get there at the same time.
Narrator
He told them he was in a panic when he walked in and saw her on the floor.
Daniel Jacoby
And I go there, like, in utter shock and, you know, like, it's my mom, so I'm, like, hysterical.
Narrator
He said he hugged his mother's body before starting cpr.
Daniel Jacoby
I grab her a little bit and just, you know, one hug, and then they start doing chest impression.
Narrator
But when detectives shared with Daniel the results of the autopsy, he didn't seem surprised to learn her death had been ruled a homicide.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I can tell you that she has ligature marks on her neck at this point.
Detective Mark Schwartz
She was frightened.
Daniel Jacoby
Oh, my God.
Detective George Elwell
I knew it.
Daniel Jacoby
I had a sense of that.
Narrator
They told him, based on the lividity patterns, the way the blood settles in the body after death, that they suspected Violet's body had been moved shortly after she died.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
She wasn't lying on her back like that for hours at a time and died.
Daniel Jacoby
She was moved.
Narrator
They also told him they believed he was hiding something.
Detective Mark Schwartz
But you're not giving us the truth. Your story on the body is not lining up, Daniel.
Narrator
Daniel continued talking even when he was asked if he was responsible for his mother's death.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Was there any animosity between you and your mom? Did you ever think about killing her?
Daniel Jacoby
No.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Did you kill him?
Daniel Jacoby
No. God, this is awful. I was a stuck with him.
Narrator
Detectives decided they needed to lock down Daniel into his story about where he was the night Violet died.
Detective Mark Schwartz
What'd you do Monday night?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Driving home
Narrator
from Inglewood, he had consistently told them that on that Monday, he worked at his dental office In Inglewood, about 12 miles from Beverly Hills, and then drove straight home, which was another six miles from Violet's house.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Did you stop at the house?
Daniel Jacoby
No. On Monday? No.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Positive.
Narrator
But each time he was asked to describe his drive home, he seemed stymied by the details.
Detective Mark Schwartz
What route do you take to go out?
Daniel Jacoby
Because I was. I take.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I take.
Daniel Jacoby
Sometimes I go through Beverly Hills. So I did go through Beverly Hills when on, but I didn't go through that street.
Detective Mark Schwartz
When we started getting his time frame of Monday, that's where he got uncomfortable. At this point, we don't know he wasn't at Inglewood. But his description of how he got home it was so labored for such a simple question, and he could not give a clear answer.
Narrator
But Daniel was adamant when asked if he was at or near his mother's house Monday night or any point Tuesday before he reported finding the body.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
The next day.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Do you ever come into Beverly Hills the next day?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
No.
Detective Mark Schwartz
So we're not gonna find your car or you anytime. Tuesday? No. Or Monday night?
Daniel Jacoby
Monday night.
Detective Mark Schwartz
You sure about this?
Daniel Jacoby
Yes.
Detective Mark Schwartz
We couldn't call him out on the lie, but we knew he was lying. And I knew he was lying during a time frame that was very significant in this case. Whatever he was holding in, it was for a reason.
Narrator
Detective Elwell told Daniel that they suspected he had been alone inside his mother's home before going over with his sister on Tuesday night.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I see right through you. I can read you. It's right in there bugging the crap out of you.
Narrator
But Daniel pushed back and said the detectives had it all wrong.
Daniel Jacoby
I'm telling you everything I know. You think this is easy for me?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
My mom just died.
Daniel Jacoby
There's nobody closer in this world than my mom.
Narrator
Nobody. And there was something else. He had told detectives he had a great relationship with his mom, saying they talked and texted on a regular basis.
Daniel Jacoby
I text her baby pictures all the time. How are you? Blah, blah, blah.
Narrator
But when Detective Schwartz looked at Daniel's phone, the last phone photo he had sent his mom was a month earlier. It's been a while. And it wasn't a picture of his baby, but of his bank account.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Were you having financial problems?
Narrator
No.
Daniel Jacoby
We're just always, like. We're very open about everything.
Detective Mark Schwartz
At this point, I found that to be significant. By that Friday, he's our suspect. No. No doubt about.
Narrator
I think a lot of people, when
Shane Michaels
they hear the name Beverly Hills, they think of movie stars.
Galena Blackmon
No, that's not Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills is very, very reachable. You can drive and you see the homes. Movie stars live in areas where they cannot be rich.
Narrator
That wasn't the case with Violet Jacoby, says Galena Blackmon.
Galena Blackmon
She liked to impress.
Narrator
Blackmon, a Beverly Hills realtor for more than 36 years, specializes in luxury properties like Violet's. Galena was asked to appraise the home while Violet's husband was still alive.
Galena Blackmon
At that time, I said, I think it's an $8 million house.
Narrator
When interviewing Violet's son Daniel, just days following her death on Friday, October 13, Detective Schwartz wondered if money was a motive.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Who gets the house?
Daniel Jacoby
I do.
Detective Mark Schwartz
How much is that house worth?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
A lot.
Narrator
Daniel stood to inherit half of the family fortune.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Any discussion about the will or the money or where the house is going, anything like that, it's all to me.
Daniel Jacoby
It's all to you and to my sister.
Narrator
Detectives now had a murder, a potential motive, and a suspect. But after more than two hours of questioning, they let Daniel go.
Detective Mark Schwartz
We can't arrest him.
Shane Michaels
Why not?
Detective Mark Schwartz
We don't have the evidence.
Narrator
Dino was ruled out as a suspect, but they needed to shore up their case and dig deeper into Daniel's finances and his relationship with his mother.
Detective Mark Schwartz
This is not like a business deal gone bad. There's a complexity to that that we had to understand.
Narrator
Daniel, who had grown up in Beverly Hills, was now living near Tony Bel Air. His wife was also a medical professional, and their baby was five months old.
Dean Summers
Everything in his life was wonderful. Dear good boy.
Narrator
Dean Summers got to know Daniel casually. Dean's brother was Daniel's neighbor.
Dean Summers
Daniel lived right next door. He was marketed as the dentist to the stars.
Shane Michaels
First time you met Daniel, what were your impressions? Nice guy, someone you wanted to be friends with?
Dean Summers
Somebody that I could potentially be friends with. Just a nice, normal guy that had his act together.
Narrator
But it may have been just an act, say investigators.
Detective Mark Schwartz
I think resentment was one of the things that we started to learn pretty quick, that he had a lot of resentment towards his parents, that he had to live a certain life and be a certain way.
Narrator
Dean Summers says Daniel had later confided in him about those feelings. It was the last time Dean saw him, sometime in the year before Violet's death.
Dean Summers
He was not talkative. He just looked very unhappy. And I said, daniel, what's wrong?
Narrator
That's when he says, daniel unloaded a laundry list of complaints.
Dean Summers
I hate my life. I hate being married. I hate what I'm doing for a living. I hate my mother. I hate my father. Those were his words, and I was just taking it back.
Narrator
He says Daniel complained about how both his parents, his mother in particular, had controlled every aspect of his life, even pushed him into dentistry and marriage.
Dean Summers
I asked him, why don't you just break free of it and live your own life? He goes, I can't. I'm not making any money. They basically helped support me. He felt he was stuck because he's financially dependent on them.
Narrator
Although Daniel had at one point owned his own practice, he now worked for
Shane Michaels
other dentists, even though he said he hated his parents.
Narrator
Did you get any sense that he
Shane Michaels
might hurt his mother?
Daniel Jacoby
Never.
Dean Summers
Never.
Narrator
But according to investigators, after his father died, Daniel's relationship with his mother and access to the family fortune became more complicated. They had received a tip early on from Dr. Elena Spector, who was Violet's sister in law at the time.
Detective Mark Schwartz
She tells me that Daniel has had an obsession with money and control of the estate for some time, that Violet would confide in her.
Narrator
Detectives went back and reviewed the video of their interview with Daniel on October 13, during a period when Daniel was left alone, he had contacted his sister.
Detective Mark Schwartz
We leave the interview room, but it's still recording.
Narrator
He says Daniel didn't realize that his sister was with other detectives in another room.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Daniel starts sending texts to the sister about, hey, just remember, I was doing CPR, too.
Narrator
Daniel wrote, I remember we both doing chest compressions one at a time, but both of us, just to keep the
Detective Mark Schwartz
story straight, the sister tells the detectives, you know what? He's sending me some weird texts. So she calls him, hey, hey. And again, these are being recorded separately, but you can hear it all.
Deena Jacoby
What is this about chest compressions?
Narrator
When Deena called Daniel, she told him that she had done the compressions.
Deena Jacoby
No, no, no, Danique. I did the chest compressions. And you called 911.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
No.
Daniel Jacoby
But you had torsure.
Deena Jacoby
No. Oh, no, you didn't.
Daniel Jacoby
Da, da, da, da, da.
Narrator
Daniel speaking in Russian, insisted he had as well.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Daniel is trying to put himself on
Shane Michaels
the body because he's concerned there's DNA on the body.
Detective Mark Schwartz
He's concerned there's DNA. That's exactly it.
Narrator
Detectives were convinced that Daniel was likely lying about where he was on Monday, October 9, the night Viola died. But they couldn't prove it until they received his cell phone records the following week.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
The cell phone records blew his story out of the water. He wasn't in Inglewood at all?
Detective Mark Schwartz
No.
Narrator
On that day, the phone records placed Daniel in Beverly Hills and not just driving through. And not only that, police had obtained footage from NEST security cameras inside Daniel's house that showed him arriving home around around 8pm that night. Later, they saw this man typing at a computer. They were surprised to learn who it was.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
We didn't know Daniel was bald and
Narrator
here he is with his hairpiece at the same computer 40 minutes after he came home.
Detective Mark Schwartz
You don't know what he's typing until we get the results from the computer search from our forensic team.
Galena Blackmon
And.
Detective Mark Schwartz
And he does a search of latent fingerprints on human skin. And that's when I knew it's time. We gotta go arrest him. He killed his mother and he did it for the money.
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Detective Aaron Moriarty
I was getting ready to retire. I wanted to be the one to walk up and put the handcuffs on him.
Narrator
On February 12, 2018, four months after launching the investigation into Violet Jacoby's death, Beverly Hills detectives George Elwell and Mark Schwartz arrested Daniel Jacoby at home for his mother's murder.
Shane Michaels
What was his reaction?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Not shock, like he just sunk into himself.
Detective Mark Schwartz
The first thing he asked me, he says, can I get my toupee?
Narrator
Daniel Jacoby was denied bail and would spend more than seven years in jail due to court delays before finally going on trial for murder in July 2025. Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Shane Michaels says the evidence shows that Jacoby strangled his mother for financial gain.
Detective George Elwell
It's a very personal type of crime. You have to physically squeeze the life out of someone. That's what strangulation is.
Narrator
According to the autopsy report, Violet had petechia around her eyes and face. The rupturing of small blood vessels, a classic sign of strangulation.
Detective George Elwell
There was also very significant abrasion on her jawline. There was a separate abrasion just below that on her neck.
Shane Michaels
We're talking about a line around here.
Detective George Elwell
Yeah.
Narrator
But at trial, the defense presented a very different theory.
Dr. Larry Sims
The truth is that she wasn't killed, period. Full stop. End of story.
Narrator
Dr. Larry Sims is a forensic pathologist and a former medical examiner in Las Vegas, Nevada, who says he has conducted about 10,000 autopsies. You don't believe that Violet Yacovi was murdered? No.
Shane Michaels
But her son went on trial for her murder.
Dr. Larry Sims
That is correct. And I testified at that trial.
Narrator
Dr. Sims rejected Violet's official cause of death.
Dr. Larry Sims
There was no evidence that she was strangled, period.
Narrator
None?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
None.
Narrator
Dr. Sims says the petechia were just sunspots. And those marks across Violet's neck? Skin folds. What's more, he says the deputy medical examiner missed injuries that pointed away from strangulation and toward a fall from the second story landing.
Dr. Larry Sims
This is where the fracture is, right here.
Narrator
Violet had a spinal fracture that was not mentioned anywhere in the autopsy report.
Shane Michaels
Are you at all concerned that the autopsy that you were relying on for this prosecution had errors in it? That's a pretty big mistake, isn't it?
Detective George Elwell
Yeah, well, when we talk about, you know, errors, I think that was an omission.
Narrator
That wasn't the only omission. The same deputy medical examiner also failed to take note of rib fractures, including several on her back. He didn't testify at trial, and the prosecution tried to address the problem, pointing out that the injuries had been photographed and that none of them contributed to Violet's death. The medical examiner's office declined a comment for this story.
Julie Rendelman
I've handled many homicide cases. I've never seen an autopsy with so many mistakes. And that was a deeply troubling part for the prosecution to have to explain.
Narrator
Julie Rendelman, a criminal defense attorney and former homicide Prosecutor, is a 48 Hours conf consultant who reviewed the case.
Julie Rendelman
It left, in a sense, open for an expert on the defense side. To kind of jump in and say, these mistakes are so overwhelming, we have to start to question everything about this case.
Narrator
Daniel Jacoby's trial became a battle of experts, with five doctors testifying about how and why Violet died, including a new deputy medical examiner brought in by prosecutors who agreed with the finding of asphyxia due to neck compression. But Dr. Sims told the jury that he believed Violet's death was instead caused by a rare mass of blood vessels in her brain stem called an arteriovenous malformation, or avm.
Dr. Larry Sims
This is an arteriovenous malformation here. That's in the fourth ventricle.
Shane Michaels
This is what you think contributed to Violet's death?
Dr. Larry Sims
Yes.
Narrator
He says he spotted the problem in this microscopic slide of Violet's brain stem. According to Dr. Sims, the AVM had hemorrhaged, causing Violet to become disoriented.
Dr. Larry Sims
She's stumbling around and she slammed into the railing. Before she went over the railing, the
Narrator
defense presented a photo superimposing the abrasion against a star shaped design on the railing. Dr. Sims says it's a match.
Dr. Larry Sims
This is a very unusual patterned injury and it fits it perfectly.
Shane Michaels
Is this at all possible that Violet could have died because of a medical event and fallen down?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
For me, no. I went up and down every inch of that railing. And there's absolutely no physical evidence to show that anything went over that railing.
Dr. Larry Sims
I look at the body. Those are things that are hard evidence that speaks to me.
Narrator
Prosecutor Shane Michael argued that Dr. Sims simply cherry picked the evidence and disputes his theory about the cause of that odd abrasion.
Detective George Elwell
He didn't know the dimensions of the star. If you were to fall and smack your chin on a piece of metal, you would not expect an abrasion. You'd expect to see bruising. You might see a cut, bleeding.
Narrator
And he says Violet had osteopenia, a weakening of the bones.
Detective George Elwell
A 67 year old woman would have had to have been on the floor with her back arced like in a yoga class cobra pose to get her chin flush with that.
Shane Michaels
What do you think then caused that V mark on her chin?
Detective George Elwell
Her son strangling her?
Narrator
The prosecution's radiologists also testified that if Violet had fallen from the railing, he would expect to see more catastrophic injuries.
Detective George Elwell
There was no skull fracture. There were no fractures in her arms. There were no fractures in her legs. There was no pelvic fracture. There was nothing on the floor that would be consistent with falling from approximately 13ft onto a marble floor.
Narrator
The other doctors testified there was no brain hemorrhage. Nor did they say they saw an AVM, including the neuropathologist who created the very slides Dr. Sims used to form his opinion. The fact that you have dual medical experts who can't agree on how Violet
Shane Michaels
Jacoby died, doesn't that add up to reasonable doubt?
Julie Rendelman
It can. If you can convince the jury to believe that she died of natural causes, then Daniel Jacoby's not guilty of a crime.
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Narrator
Thank you. Prosecutor Shay Michael used the trail of evidence left by Daniel Jacoby to show that his relationship with his mother had reached a breaking point in October 2017 and that greed for of the family fortune worth an estimated $13 million had fueled his plot to kill Violet.
Shane Michaels
Do you believe that he killed his mother because he wanted his inheritance early?
Detective George Elwell
Yes.
Narrator
The defense disputes that Jacoby was in the process of buying a new dental practice and had recently secured a million dollar loan. Still, his now ex wife admitted in court they had lived beyond their means. And Shane Michael pointed to Jacoby's own statements.
Detective George Elwell
He was regularly talking about his need for money and need to make more money.
Narrator
A family friend testified that Jacoby had asked him about inheritance tax a couple of weeks before Violet's death.
Detective Mark Schwartz
The ideation and thought of killing his mom had been building.
Narrator
The prosecutor also presented a timeline of Jacoby's online searches going back to August of 2017 that he said revealed Jacoby's plan to murder his mother and stage the scene.
Detective George Elwell
He was searching unexplained deaths, death statistics, things like chokeholds, bruises caused by chokeholds falling downstairs. That he was trying to figure out a way to deflect any suspicion that might be pointing toward him.
Narrator
Of particular interest to the Prosecution was a YouTube video. This is the rear naked choke, demonstrating what's known as a rear naked chokehold. They played it at trial.
Detective George Elwell
It's certainly the kind of chokehold that could cause abrasions similar to the ones that we saw in the photos of Mrs. Jacoby.
Narrator
The prosecution theorized that Jacoby caused the spinal and rib fractures while choking Violet from behind.
Detective George Elwell
If he's choking her from behind. You assume he's applying as much pressure as he can. If he's lifting her off the ground, if he's got his hip in her back, there are any number of ways that you could apply force to her back.
Shane Michaels
Do you believe that is how Violet Jacoby died? That her son actually used his own arm to kill his mother?
Detective Aaron Moriarty
I do, yes.
Narrator
And Detectives Elwell and Schwartz say Jacoby's DNA under Violet's fingernails proves it.
Shane Michaels
Did you notice any kind of scratches on him?
Detective Mark Schwartz
We weren't looking. The DNA's under her fingernails for a reason. He's asking about DNA for a reason. He did the research.
Narrator
It was calculated Detective Schwartz had done some calculations of his own using data from Daniel's iPhone Facebook account, and he says it places Daniel at his mother's house at the time he believes she was killed.
Detective George Elwell
One of the things that came back in the Facebook records were latitude longitude coordinates.
Narrator
Schwartz used those coordinates to pull video from the city's closed circuit cameras and security cameras from Violet's neighbors.
Detective Mark Schwartz
We were able to track his movement through the whole day into the next day.
Narrator
That's Daniel Jacoby's white Jaguar in Beverly hills traffic on October 9. Before the prosecutor describes him stalking his
Detective George Elwell
mother's house, he was driving up and down the street at least two or three times.
Narrator
Around 4 o', clock, Daniel Jacoby's car appeared on the next door neighbor's security footage. A few minutes later, it popped up again on another home security camera in the alley behind Violet's house.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Almost like a shark. He's circling the block and he's going down the alley. He pulls up right around here, just behind the residence, and for whatever reason, he stops. And then he slowly backs up.
Detective George Elwell
He never gets out. And he's not moving the garbage cans back there. He is in the car, presumably looking into the back of his mother's property.
Narrator
Then he drives away. But Facebook coordinates place him at his mother's house from 6:39pm until 7:48 that night.
Detective George Elwell
How he entered the house? Don't know. Don't know if he rang the doorbell. Don't know if he snuck around the side.
Narrator
What the data establishes, according to the prosecution, is that Violet was alive when Daniel arrived. And by the time he left, she was dead. Afterwards, Jacoby drove straight home.
Detective Mark Schwartz
Now we have his NEST camera, and almost to the second you're seeing him
Narrator
walk through the door less than 45 minutes after walking in, he was typing in that search for latent fingerprints on human skin.
Detective George Elwell
22%, hours before his mother's body was located, he was already thinking about what evidence might have been left behind at the scene.
Narrator
It's evidence of consciousness of guilt, says Shane. Michael and Jacoby would do it again the following morning when he went back to the scene for less than four minutes and then drove back home. At around 1:00 o', clock, he contacted a financial investor via Skype. If I get a mill, I'd want garlic to manage it.
Detective George Elwell
A million dollars. And six hours before his mother's body is found, his belief was that he was coming into Money.
Narrator
In late August 2025, after three weeks of testimony and nearly eight years after Violet's death, the jury got the case.
Detective George Elwell
They come back not guilty. On some level, this guy has gotten away with murder.
Narrator
After deliberating for nearly five and a half hours over two days, the jury was unanimous. Guilty of first degree murder for financial gain. It's a judgment that carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Detective Mark Schwartz
This broke that family apart.
Detective Aaron Moriarty
Very sad that it ended that way.
Galena Blackmon
I feel for Violet. And I feel for Daniel.
Shane Michaels
You feel for Daniel too?
Galena Blackmon
I feel for for him, yeah. What in the world made him do that?
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This powerful episode of “48 Hours” walks listeners through the investigation into the death of Violet Jacoby, a well-loved Beverly Hills widow. Through interviews with detectives, prosecutors, family friends, and medical experts, CBS News explores whether Violet’s demise was a tragic accident, suicide, or a calculated murder for financial gain. The episode meticulously tracks the investigation process, the complex family dynamics, the shocking trial, and the forensic battles that ultimately led to her son, Daniel Jacoby, being convicted for her murder.
| Timestamp | Segment / Topic Covered | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:01-04:12 | 911 call, initial scene observations | | 06:12-08:30 | Ruling out fall/suicide, doubts about family accounts | | 12:46-16:20 | Daniel’s interviews, suspicions about his timeline and behavior | | 22:56-25:56 | Family background, money as motive, Daniel’s resentment | | 27:07-28:06 | Daniel’s texts to his sister during police interview—possible cover-up | | 28:21-29:07 | Cell phone records and digital evidence contradict Daniel’s alibi | | 31:16-32:07 | Arrest of Daniel Jacoby | | 32:24-38:12 | Medical examiner controversies, alternative theories presented at trial | | 39:04-44:47 | Prosecution case: digital trail, search history, premeditation | | 45:17-45:51 | Verdict and sentencing | | 46:00 | Community/family reaction |
The episode maintains a sober, investigative tone, blending methodical police work, legal strategy, and profound personal tragedy. The reporting style is direct, empathetic, and rich with detail—designed both to explore the procedural complexities and human costs involved.
"Beverly Hills 911" offers a compelling true crime narrative where acute investigative instincts, digital forensics, and expert medical testimony unravel a family’s dark secrets. The episode is a sharp study of motive, opportunity, and the many ways truth can be obscured—showing how, beneath Beverly Hills glamour, a web of resentment, financial desperation, and forensic ambiguity led, after years of doubt, to a murder conviction that shattered a family and stunned a community.