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- [00:02]
A
The email was in all capital letters. He almost confessed to me. He almost gave it up. She being there for 20 something years is the only thing that saved this case. Because sure enough, she was exactly right.
- [00:28]
B
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
- [00:32]
C
I'm Anna Sega Nicolasi, former New York City homicide prosecutor.
- [00:36]
B
And this is Homicide 360.
- [00:44]
C
The overriding goal of any cold case homicide investigation is to achieve justice for the victim and a measure of peace for the victim's family. And as we know, many cold case investigators will dedicate not just years, but sometimes decades to doing just that.
- [01:01]
B
But there's another important goal of these investigations that sometimes can be overlooked. Capturing a killer that may pose an ongoing and deadly threat to the general public, sometimes for years.
- [01:14]
C
And while we often say that cold case investigators can benefit from the passage of time because of advances in technology or discovery of new evidence, the truth is that time is still of the essence. Because in any unsolved murder, the longer the killer is free, the longer that threat to safety persists.
- [01:31]
B
Which means closing cold cases are not just a matter of formality. They are often active and high stake investigations that are, as we'll see, in this case, they can be a matter of life or death.
- [01:44]
C
Brendan Bess is currently the chief investigator for Premier Protections and Investigations, or ppi, a security firm in Houston, Texas. But before he was there, he had a long career in Texas law enforcement.
- [01:57]
A
So I served a little over 30 years in law enforcement. I was a local police officer starting out in 1994 in a small East Texas town. I went on to be a deputy sheriff in that same area.
- [02:11]
B
Brandon was a state trooper for another 10 years, then was promoted into the Criminal Intelligence and Special Crime Service before joining the Texas Rangers assigned to its cold case investigations.
- [02:24]
C
You may have heard about the Texas Rangers before, maybe from TV or the movie. They're a pretty legendary law enforcement organization in this country and truly one of the best.
- [02:34]
A
So the Texas Rangers are the oldest state police law enforcement agency in the nation. The Rangers were actually formed in 1823, a number of years before Texas was actually a state, to protect the citizens of the emerging state of Texas. And we have evolved into what I would say is the premier law enforcement agency on the state level in Texas, and that their primary responsibility is for major crimes investigations with their local partners.
- [03:08]
B
In other words, the Rangers will often be called in to assist state and local authorities with investigations that may require some extra resources or extra expertise. They're a bit like the FBI, only with a bit More swagger and much cooler hats.
- [03:25]
C
Back in 2018, Brandon was contacted by a woman who had been searching for answers in the murder of her mother for over three decades. It was a mystery that had devastating effects on their lives, their family, and as you will hear on several communities across the country.
- [03:42]
B
And to solve this case, Brandon had to go back in time, back to east Texas in 1988, a time and place worlds away from today. We're talking no cell phones, no Internet, no social media, no DNA analysis, which by today's standards for law enforcement must feel like the dark ages.
- [04:03]
C
It was a simpler time for sure. And Silsby, Texas was a simple town, a small rural community located a couple hours drive east of Houston near the Louisiana border, where just about all the locals recognized each other on site.
- [04:18]
B
And one of those locals was 36 year old Patricia Jacobs, known to her friends and family as just Pat. Pat was married, the mother of three teenage kids and a well known fixture in this small town.
- [04:31]
A
Pat Jacobs was very well liked lady. She was a stay at home mom. She was again, very well thought of in the community, but she was also a tough lady. She was often described as a person that you didn't want to fight Pat, you didn't want to cross paths with her. Not that she was some, you know, street fighter or anything, but she was a tough lady.
- [04:55]
C
And honestly, she sounds like someone right up my alley. She worked hard, she played hard, and she didn't suffer fools, as anyone who visited this Silver Spur Tavern could have told you.
- [05:05]
A
There was a local bar, nightclub, pool hall. I don't know how many folks are familiar with that term anymore, but it's a, you know, you know, a place where folks went after work to have drinks, to play pool and other games and that sort of thing. And Ms. Jacobs frequented this bar often. That's where her friends went to hang out, that sort of thing. And I think she might have even been a pretty good pool player.
- [05:29]
B
In fact, Pat was even known to give lessons at the pool hall, racking up a little extra money on the side.
- [05:35]
C
On a Saturday night on October 5, 1988, she was at the Silver Spur with friends. You could almost hear the country music on the jukebox, the crack of the pool balls, the bottles of beer being handed over the bar. It was basically a typical fun night in this East Texas honky tonk.
- [05:53]
B
Pat's husband and kids were home in bed. There was work and school the next day, but come morning, Pat was still not home from the bar.
- [06:03]
A
Her husband knowing, you know, she Has a lot of friends. If maybe she had had too much to drink, maybe one of the friends would take her home or she would go to their house, that sort of thing. However, he was concerned about it. So he went to try and find her.
- [06:19]
C
But Pat was nowhere to be found. In fact, the only thing he did find was her truck still parked in the parking lot of the Silver Spur.
- [06:27]
A
And he found her vehicle at the location. And of course she wasn't there. I believe the vehicle was unlocked again for 1998, rural East Texas.
- [06:37]
B
Not.
- [06:37]
A
That's highly unusual. People left their keys in their cars parked in parking lots. So did a little search himself. But it was quite a few hours before he reported her actually missing again. This is before cell phones. This is about the time the advent of the pager, even him trying to get in touch with all her girlfriends that she might have went and spent the night with. When he finally determined that she wasn't with any of them, he grew concerned enough that he called law enforcement.
- [07:07]
B
The call to police was made about 3pm on October 6. When asked some basic questions about where he thought she may be, he assured police that she didn't have any reason to leave town. They weren't having any marital issues to speak of. She didn't have any mental health issues or issues with narcotics, which made her sudden disappearance, especially without her truck, all the more strange.
- [07:33]
C
But little did he know that more than 40 miles away in the next county over, two men had just made a shocking discovery. A woman's body lying half submerged in the water of the Neches river beneath a bridge in Port Arthur.
- [07:48]
A
It was actually found by a couple of gentlemen who were out rabbit hunting with dogs on the river there. The Neches river, which is right on the Louisiana border. This part of East Texas borders Louisiana and that river is one of the rivers that dumps into the Gulf of Mexico.
- [08:04]
B
Police from the local jurisdiction had responded to the scene. The middle aged woman was fully clothed and had no obvious signs of physical trauma, meaning no blood, large lacerations, or really any visible bruising.
- [08:17]
A
Of course, they checked for gunshot wounds. They checked for stab wounds at the scene so they could further process their semen.
- [08:25]
C
The woman also had no purse, no wallet or any form of identification.
- [08:30]
A
Of course, they don't know who it is. And in 1988, there had been no media coverage of a missing woman from Silsbee at all. So she's taken for an autopsy. She wasn't identified by fingerprints immediately and of course, unfortunately, she had been in water. There had been some Animal activity on her body. So she was identifiable, but there were issues to the identification.
- [08:55]
B
In fact, as Brandon told us, given the location, it was almost a miracle that the victim's body was found at all.
- [09:03]
A
Her body could have very easily floated into the. It actually flows into a big lake, a saltwater type lake, and then into the Gulf of Mexico. There's a lot of alligators that are in the area, and especially back then. So folks knew that. They know that alligators will eat anything that they can. So also the crabs, the fish, that sort of thing. Any. Any time that we recovered a body in the water, if it had been any amount of time, you lose an awful lot of evidence really fast.
- [09:36]
C
The autopsy was conducted within hours of the discovery, and it would reveal the extent of her injuries and the cause of death.
- [09:44]
A
So they did find that she had suffered from strangulation. You know, they found petechia in the eyes. They found, if I recall correctly, bruising around the throat area, which were both
- [09:59]
B
signs that she had been assaulted, confirming that her death was not natural or accidental.
- [10:06]
C
But as it turned out, strangulation was not actually the cause of death because there was water found in her lungs and some telltale signs from the crime scene.
- [10:16]
A
There were photographs from the crime scene that they took and did a really good job of that at the crime scene, especially back in the day, where you could tell that someone was dragged from the location or to the location, I should say. So they're looking at the body, they're able to backtrack, and they can see that a person was dragged in the sand into the water.
- [10:39]
B
Between the autopsy and the crime scene photos, investigators were already getting a terrifying idea of the last few moments of the victim's life.
- [10:48]
A
We believe that he had knocked her out, maybe choked her and drug her to the water and put her in the water. And the eventual cause of death was was homicide, and it was drowning. So probably was unconscious and breathing when she was dragged from his truck. And then she drowned as a result of being thrown into the water.
- [11:09]
C
It was a cruel and likely terrifying way to die.
- [11:13]
A
Everything pointed to this being a crime, that it was gonna be a homicide. And at autopsy, they confirmed that.
- [11:20]
B
So the water in the lungs is a headline for me, not the strangulation. That one finding tells you she was breathing when she went into the river. She was alive for whatever happened along that riverbank. And let me add the drag marks, Tell the rest. So whoever did this didn't carry her. They pulled her across the sand. And Anasega, you've Worked plenty of cases that started just like this one. A body in an autopsy and a scene which is kind of already telling your story. You know, what do you see when you hear this?
- [11:50]
C
I mean, I think it's exactly what you just said, that she started someplace else. She was brought to this location. And the drag march, right. They're pretty obvious, right, that you can tell that she is pulled across. And now to your point, the water in the lungs is important because it doesn't tell us the why, it doesn't tell us the who, but it does kind of tell us the what. And that's going to go in trying to figure out the crime later, which may help figure out motives. And hopefully down the line, they find something with the hoop, but we're not there yet.
- [12:20]
B
Yeah, Just following the autopsy. Police in Port Arthur received the missing persons report from neighboring Hardin County.
- [12:28]
A
So Port Arthur police gets the report of the missing person. The descriptors are there. They get in touch with the Hardin County Sheriff's Office, which is the county that Ms. Jacobs went missing in, and were able to make that possible in
- [12:42]
C
a. Pat Jacobs husband and children ages just 17, 16 and 12 years old were notified that their mother had been found, that she had not just gone missing, she had been murdered. The idea that their mom could have been the target of violence was almost unthinkable. They knew her as a loving and warm person, someone who loved her friends and family unconditionally and treated others with kindness and respect.
- [13:07]
B
But they also knew that she wouldn't have been an easy target. Like we said earlier, she was a tough lady, not someone easily coerced or overpowered.
- [13:17]
A
And that was told us because, you know, the whole family thought, you know, there is no way that she went down without a fight. The family even said it would have taken a very tough guy to be able to abduct Pat.
- [13:33]
C
But less than 24 hours after she disappeared from her favorite bar, who that person was remained a mystery. And it would remain that way for decades to come. Clothing trends may come and go, but one thing that doesn't change is the need for quality skin care. It's something I realized all the more as I get older. So I'm super happy. I found OneSkin, especially their OS1 peptide products. OneSkin works differently than other products I've used before. First, it's led by science, not hype. And OneSkin's OS1 peptide was specifically engineered to address those visible signs of aging. So you're getting everything you'd expect from great skincare. With OS1 doing something most skincare was never built to do, I'm using both OS1 face and eye. I can already start to see a renewed silkiness and smoothness. Something I'll take every day. Oneskin is built for everyone. Whether you're getting older or trying to future proof your skin, Oneskin has products right for you and their summer bundles make this a great time to try them. Born from over a decade of longevity research, Oneskin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code H360 at OneSkin co. H360, that's 15% off OneSkin co with code H360. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.
- [15:24]
B
In October of 1988, in a small East Texas town, 36 year old Pat Jacobs went missing from a local bar. The next morning, her body was found in the water of the Neches river near the Louisiana border.
- [15:39]
C
Investigators concluded that Pat had been in the river for approximately 12 hours, meaning her death had occurred shortly after she was last seen at the Silver Spur Tavern. How she got there remained a mystery.
- [15:51]
A
The primary resident of that area is a refinery worker and where she was located was in one of the refinery areas. And I'm gonna say, you know, driving probably 30, 40 miles at most and, you know, not a lot of traffic. So you're Talking about a 20 minute drive from where we believe that she was abducted there at the bar to where she was located in Port Arthur on the Neches River.
- [16:17]
B
Multiple agencies, including the Texas Rangers, the Port Arthur Police Department, and Hardin County Sheriff's Office began working together to investigate this homicide. Their first move was a search for witnesses at the bar who could help establish a timeline of Pat's night, who was she with, how long she stayed, and who might she had left with.
- [16:40]
A
The detectives did go there immediately, started talking to folks, started identifying who her friends were that she was there with, interviewed all them, and if my recollection serves me right, I believe that one of the friends said she sort of just disappeared. They're all there, they're playing pool, they're having drinks, they're talking, you know, maybe she went to the bathroom or something like that and then she was just gone.
- [17:04]
C
With no eyewitnesses, who could say when Pat had left the bar and with whom? Investigators looked to the crime scene itself for possible clues, specifically the location of where Pat's body was found.
- [17:16]
B
Because the spot on the river was not the kind of place that someone would just stumble on randomly. In other words, it felt intentional.
- [17:25]
A
It was just a little road that led from a farm to market road. So a very rural area that had a dirt road or a sand road that led off of it, that led down to the river. It's where people went to, again, hunt or fish or hang out. But it was not a common area. So it would have been an area, we believe, that the suspect would have known about in advance, would have been somewhere that he had been before, not a place that you would just accidentally run into in the middle of the nighttime.
- [17:55]
C
And that's a pretty good clue that any potential suspect would have been really familiar with the area, maybe a local of Silsby or Port Arthur. And since Pat could recognize just about everybody in town, maybe even someone Pat knew or even lived with.
- [18:10]
A
So the initial investigation focused on her husband, quote, unquote, suspicious circumstance of him not immediately reporting her as a missing person.
- [18:20]
B
It was also a poorly kept secret that he and Pat had been having some trouble at home.
- [18:27]
A
They, like anyone else in a relationship, had had some issues. You know, they had had their fights, they had had things go on. And not that it was well known and not that they were, you know, folks that went to jail every other day for fighting each other, but it was just known that he and she had had a little bit of trouble.
- [18:45]
C
To his credit, Pat's husband admitted as much. I mean, couples fight and go through highs and lows. In fact, he even admitted to police that he suspected that his wife had been having a relationship with another man, something that, if true, he thought might have ended just weeks before the night she was killed.
- [19:00]
B
And of course, with any news of a possible affair, police are going to be keen to do some digging. And in this case, investigators interviewed the man to verify his whereabouts on the night of the murder.
- [19:12]
C
But when they spoke to this guy, he insisted he had no ill will towards Pat or any motive to hurt her. More importantly, he had an alibi, and one investigators could verify.
- [19:23]
B
Unfortunately for Pat's husband, that wasn't the case. He claimed he was at home the entire night Pat was killed. But aside from the testimony of his own three kids, he just had no way to prove it.
- [19:37]
A
The advantages we have now in being able to look at license plate readers, look at cameras, look at all these things that we have to be able to give him an alibi, to give the husband an alibi could have been done very quickly. Where in 1988, those technologies that we now take for granted weren't available. You know, if he said he was at home, the first thing we're going to do is go look for ring cameras, license plate readers and stoplight readers, and all these different things for businesses to see if. If his vehicle was actually at home and eliminate that quickly where they didn't have that.
- [20:12]
C
With no other leads or pieces of evidence coming to the surface, investigators leaned into their interview with Pat's husband.
- [20:19]
A
They asked him all the right questions, trying to get his alibi down, trying to do all those things. And, you know, when it's a nighttime deal, and especially back in those days, unless you were with a bunch of people, it's difficult to alibi if you were just at home with your kids. When your wife goes missing and when she is recovered, you know, that is an alibi. But it's a tough alibi to prove up. And they lived in a rural area. They didn't live in a neighborhood. So it's not like neighbors would see or hear anything necessarily.
- [20:51]
B
When you begin your search for persons of interest, you don't start with a theory. You start with proximity. Who had access, who had trust, who could get close without a fight. That's where the work begins. Spouse, family, friends. Then you move out. And on paper, he, the husband, checks some boxes. There's a motive. With an affair, he knows the area. He could have gotten her somewhere without a struggle. And the numbers are real. When a woman is killed, more often than not, it's someone she knows, somebody closed. So those numbers don't close cases. Evidence, as you know, Anasega does. That's not a theory. That's how these cases are really worked every day.
- [21:31]
C
But, you know, I'm gonna take the other side of it. Cause when I look at this, I'm always like, mm, that would almost make it too convenient. Like, he talks very openly about their ups and downs, like many marriages have. But also, he was at home with three kids, and they're not babies who wouldn't even maybe notice if he was gone. You have two teens in that group. So he's taking a big risk if he's going to leave the house, find his wife, hope that no one sees him in town, then take her to an area that is far away. Again, that's keeping him out of the home, when kids could easily say, dad left and came back. So, again, I don't know. Of course, it could be him. And you're right, the numbers absolutely bear it out. But when I look at it, I Was like, this is really just purely to me asking, because you need to ask at least right then.
- [22:16]
B
What I see here is a husband who calls in, sits down and answers question and doesn't hide those problems. Anasega in the marriage and gives investigators something they can actually check with his own kids, as you mentioned, which is the alibi. So that's not how most guilty people behave. And you don't give something that you can test. You give something that sounds right and that goes nowhere. So now could he still be involved? Absolutely. But if you can't independently lock down that alibi, it stays in play.
- [22:46]
A
They have no evidence that it's him, but people are telling them that it's him. Detectives from that county are telling, hey, it's going to be the husband, it's going to be this, that and the other. Their focus of the investigation was on the husband. It wasn't on a stranger abduction.
- [23:02]
B
Then, approximately one month after Pat's disappearance, detectives got their first major break in the investigation. Pat's purse, containing her driver's license and other personal belongings were discovered under a bridge along Highway 327, which is located a short drive from the Silver Spur Tavern.
- [23:23]
A
This area, it's actually called, I believe, Village Creek, which is near the county seat in Hardin County. It would be fairly close to the bar. It would be, let's say a 10, 15 minute drive from the bar. But from where her purse was on this Village Creek to where her body was, we're talking about probably a 45 minute drive.
- [23:44]
C
It was one of the few leads investigators had in the case. So what did it mean? Was this where the attack had started or did the killer dump the purse after the murder? Figuring that out could be a clue to the movements of the killer and possibly his motives.
- [23:58]
B
Unfortunately, investigators were not able to pull any fingerprints from the purse. However, its recovery still provided the next big clue in the case because one of the local detectives remembered that the Village Creek bridge was the very same spot where a similar crime had taken place.
- [24:18]
A
Lo and behold, the first person to come by is a police officer and there's a little standoff that takes place and he is arrested for that.
- [24:27]
C
Several years earlier, a young woman, her clothes torn, had come running up the riverbed, having narrowly escaped a vicious attack from a man with a knife. And that man, he had a glass eye.
- [24:39]
B
Her attacker was identified as a 29 year old man named Daniel McGinnis.
- [24:46]
A
This was a brutal, brutal rape and assault that he committed that he was arrested for. And this is before obviously Pat Jacobs crime.
- [24:59]
C
Almost just as shocking was the fact that McGinnis had a documented history of violence against women, including the 1984 abduction of a 19 year old woman from which he had been killed, convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. But somewhat mystifying, less than two years later, he was already a free man.
- [25:18]
B
And the assault of the other female victim by Village Creek Bridge that ended in McGinnis arrest, that didn't keep him off the streets either.
- [25:27]
A
He was never prosecuted for that crime and that was because he fled the state and he actually went to Idaho, Washington state, somewhere like that and wrote a letter or two, you know, I'm going into the mountains and you're never going to see me again. And indeed, he was off the charts for about two years.
- [25:46]
C
But incredibly, McGinnis did not stay in hiding for long. And eventually he was arrested again for sexually assaulting another woman in California, again by a body of water.
- [25:57]
B
So what you're describing is a serial sexual offender with a specific MO and someone who obviously showed no remorse, only a sick dedication to actually getting better at his crimes.
- [26:11]
A
Part of what I believe is that he committed crimes in those two years, but I think he became more sophisticated, committed crimes, he committed other rapes and possibly murders in that area in that two year time frame, but he became more sophisticated in that I believe that he had begun to frequent prostitutes and was able to potentially get away, away with those crimes. And I base that on what he was arrested for in California, which was the rape again by a body of water of a prostitute and was captured for that.
- [26:43]
C
So the timeline of McGinnis crimes can definitely get a little confusing here. But it's enough for us right now to say that he had been convicted in Texas of abducting one woman in 1984, but only served a short sentence. Then he's arrested again for assaulting the woman under the Village Creek Bridge, but he fled before facing trial. And then while on the run, he was captured and convicted again for an
- [27:05]
A
assault in California, thus him not being prosecuted for the case in Hardin county, where the young lady runs into the road he's captured was because he was sentenced to a lengthy sentence in California and was told that the district attorney there back in that day, it's my understanding, was told that he would never be getting out of California prison, which wasn't true.
- [27:33]
B
And we know it wasn't true because investigators later tracked down a witness who thinks she may have spotted a man matching McGinnis description back in Silsbee at the Silver Spur Tavern. On the night Pat Jacobs was killed,
- [27:50]
C
according to the witness, most everyone at the Silver Spur was a familiar face. But it seems at some point, she had spotted a stranger who looked like he had been watching Pat that very night.
- [28:00]
A
He had a very distinct face, and part of that was because he lost an eye as a child and he had a glass eye.
- [28:08]
B
And come to think of it, the witness remembered that McGinnis may have left the bar right around the same time that Pat did.
- [28:16]
C
But as it turned out, he wasn't a stranger to the Silver Spur.
- [28:20]
A
I think he had actually been kicked out of it before based on his actions and the way he treated people. Maybe he got into some fights. There were no reports documented of that. But that's our understanding that he had caused problems at this place before and been kicked out.
- [28:35]
C
Needless to say, Daniel McGinnis was now the prime suspect in Pat's murder. But when he was questioned by police, McGinnis denied knowing her or being anywhere near the bar on the night she was killed.
- [28:47]
A
They did identify him as a suspect. As a part of that, they did interview him, but again, there wasn't much you could do. And he was a hardened criminal at the time, so he wasn't talking.
- [28:57]
B
And let's just remember, there were no cell phones to ping, no security cameras to check, no GPS in his truck to trace. So there really was no way to prove that McGinnis was lying.
- [29:10]
C
And again, they're relying on what one person told them, which really no way to corroborate at that point. And beyond that, there was no physical evidence left at the crime scene that would have connected McGinnis to the murder. Pat's clothing had been collected and examined for blood and tissue, but DNA collection, Remember, it was at its very infancy. So if the killer had left his DNA behind, it was still impossible at that point to match it with a suspect.
- [29:34]
B
But the fact that a convicted sexual predator had attacked one of his victims in the same location where Pat's purse was found. Investigators were convinced that this could not just be a mere coincidence. But without any proof, their suspicions were not enough to arrest McGinnis for Pat's murder. And sadly, this lack of evidence meant that Pat's murder case had stalled. And years went by without developing any new leads or any suspects.
- [30:04]
C
Pat's family. They were convinced they knew who killed her.
- [30:08]
B
And given his history, investigators had every reason to believe that it may be only a matter of time before he struck again.
- [30:33]
C
The murder of Patricia Jacobs in 1988 was not just a horrific crime. It may have been part of a terrifying pattern.
- [30:41]
B
But without evidence tying Daniel McGinnis to her murder, investigators in multiple jurisdictions in Texas could not bring charges and the case went cold for years.
- [30:52]
C
But as the saying goes, tragically in this case, a leopard doesn't change his spots. And by 2007, Daniel McGinnis was back in jail, this time in Woodville, Texas, after being convicted of an attempted aggravating kidnapping of a 39 year old woman.
- [31:08]
B
By this time, many of the detectives that were originally assigned to Pat's murder case had moved on or retired. But there were investigators that saw the chance to confront McGinnis about the night Pat was killed nearly 20 years before.
- [31:24]
C
And when they spoke with him, he acknowledged he'd been interviewed about the case years before. He admitted being familiar with the bars in Silsbee and even acknowledged familiarity with the Village Creek Bridge area where Pat's belongings had been recovered.
- [31:37]
B
McGuinness even stated that he had kept the name and phone number of a Texas Ranger who previously interviewed him, writing in his personal bible for years following that initial contact.
- [31:48]
A
And Captain Kelly even said that, hey, he almost confessed to me. He almost gave it up. I think I had him to where he wanted to tell, but I just didn't know what those key words were.
- [32:00]
C
Without any hard evidence, a confession or even an admission was the only hope police thought they had to close the case. But no matter how much he danced around it, in the end, McGinnis refused to admit any involvement in Pat's murder.
- [32:13]
B
The truth was that McGinnis was an unrepentant, hardened criminal. And he knew that no confession to any crime, especially that of a 20 year old murder, was going to earn him anything but more jail time or even worse.
- [32:29]
A
And probably because he knew this case was a death penalty eligible case. And that scares criminals. They know that it's over. They know that they may be sent to prison for the rest of their lives.
- [32:41]
C
Patricia's family had been forced to live with the painful, unanswered questions for decades. And their pain was even more acute. Knowing that her killer had been all but identified, investigators just didn't have the evidence to prove it.
- [32:54]
B
And then, in 2018, three decades after Pat's murder, the unimaginable happened. Pat's daughter was in line at the convenience store where she felt a cold feeling wash over her. A feeling that quickly turned to terror.
- [33:13]
A
So there's this man in front of her checking out, and when he turns around, it's him. It's a suspect in her mother's case that I don't think she even knew any of them knew was out of the penitentiary. And he wore a glass eye, a prosthetic eye, and one of the glass eyes that he had was an eight ball.
- [33:32]
C
It was Daniel McGinnis, once again out of prison, the man from her nightmares now standing just a few feet in front of her.
- [33:40]
A
You know, the poor thing almost passed out. She knew exactly who it was. And, you know, he looked at her and she felt like he knew who she was. So obviously she felt in danger immediately.
- [33:52]
B
Pat's daughter immediately contacted the Texas Rangers Unsolved Crimes Investigation Program with a passionate plea to reopen the investigation into her mother's case.
- [34:04]
A
The email was in all capital letters. And as you know, our kids say someone's yelling at you when it's in all capital letters. So it's this long email to me that's basically yelling. It's all capital letters, talking about the case, who she felt had committed the crime, and the lack of things that had occurred in that investigation and things that fell through the cracks.
- [34:28]
C
Enter Texas Ranger and longtime cold case investigator Brandon Bess, who was determined to reexamine every last detail of the case and look for anything he could to potentially, hopefully move the case forward.
- [34:41]
A
Of course, in an old case in a small east Texas town, you're often hindered by lack of reports, lack of documentation. Things get lost over the years, evidence gets lost over the years, those sorts of things. Well, fortunately, in this case, that was not the case.
- [35:00]
B
And remember, this was a multi jurisdictional case, some conducted by Hardin county, some by Port Arthur police, and by some by state troopers. But miraculously, the paperwork was all still there. The physical evidence, however, that was a different story.
- [35:18]
A
So in our very, very early stages of this, in collecting reports from Port Arthur pd, the originating agency, we couldn't find the evidence. We knew that her socks and her shoes and her undergarments and all her clothing had been collected. We saw photographs of that. We saw, you know, where it was packaged, how it was packaged and put away, we could not find that the lead detective for them could not locate.
- [35:44]
C
But this case, well, it was due some good luck, and soon enough they got it thanks to one of the longest serving employees of that police department.
- [35:53]
A
So in one of the meetings, probably the second or third, as we're sitting around talking about it, what we're going to do and how we're going to move forward, there was a secretary that came into the meeting to drop something off, to do something. When we were there, meeting with the detectives and the command staff and heard what we were talking about. And she said, hey, you know, I think I remember there being some boxes in so and so place. They're in a secure facility. They're at, you know, so and so, such and such. I think there may be some boxes from those days there. She being there for 20 something years is the only thing that saved this case. Because sure enough, she was exactly right. They went to a location that they never would have looked at for this old evidence and found the box. And it was all perfectly preserved and had been maintained the way it should have been. Just nobody knew that because most of those folks had only been at the agency for 10, 12, 14 years. They didn't know where all that evidence was.
- [36:52]
B
And here's why this was important. Because Pat's clothing had never been tested for DNA.
- [37:00]
C
That was about to change.
- [37:02]
A
I was not 100% convinced that it was McGinnis. From the initial investigation and reading, I was 100% convinced it wasn't her husband, but I wasn't sure it was McGinnis.
- [37:12]
B
McGinnis's DNA on Pat's clothing would prove that he had been lying all along, that he had been with Pat on the night she died. Although keep it in mind, it might not be definitive proof that he killed her.
- [37:26]
A
These cases are more. Never lay down cases, DNA or not. There's ways that DNA can get on things. Let's say he had said, hey, I had sex with her. Yeah, well, that's kind of a deal killer. On this case, that would be a difficult hurdle to jump over.
- [37:42]
C
The DNA collection and analysis would take time. And all Texas law enforcement could do was wait and keep their eye on the man they believed was not just a killer, but a serial sexual predator and a very real threat to any woman he came in contact with.
- [37:57]
B
And true to his nature, it was only a matter of time before McGinnis struck again. Only this time, police were there to stop him. In 2020, McGinnis was arrested in Tyler County, Texas. In his car, police did find methamphetamines, a loaded handgun, and a young woman that was quite possibly his next intended victim.
- [38:22]
A
I'm going to say he's an old man at the time, but he was 61ish, who looked like he was 80, who was arrested with this person, had a gun, had methamphetamines, and was facing trial in that county, which is Tyler County, a county that's adjacent to Hardin County. He was out on bond, so I was able to, with my Ranger Partner up in that East Texas town actually go conduct a long interview with him on the courthouse square in Woodville, Texas,
- [38:50]
C
as a matter of fact, investigators were still waiting for DNA results. But in anticipation of evidence that would hopefully prove McGinnis was with Pat on the night she was killed, Brandon and his partner aimed to lock McGinnis into some details.
- [39:05]
A
We walked around the courthouse square talking, just visiting, sitting on a. Sitting on a park bench, that sort of thing. And getting what we're always looking for are explicit denials. Hey, was Pat Jacobs ever in your truck? Did you ever go out with Pat Jacobs? Did you ever date Pat Jacobs? Did you ever kiss Pat Jacobs? Did. Did you go to the bar with her? Were you at the bar that night? All those things that. What we're looking for are negative answers. No, I didn't know her. Yeah, I know the case you're talking about because they talked to me about it for. I've already told them that I didn't do this. I didn't know her. If memory serves me, we talked to him about an hour out there walking around, and got all those denials that never had sex with her, never kissed her, never hugged her.
- [39:48]
B
The truth was that even without DNA, Brandon had a gut feeling that McGinnis was his man.
- [39:56]
A
After the interview of him in the courtyard of the courthouse, I was convinced that he was our guy. Body motions, his signs, everything that felons do when you talk to him, he had obviously studied the case more. He was more familiar with it from the old media reports. He ran from Texas for this case. That's the reason he left Texas, was because of this case. I have no doubt about that. So I was convinced, with all the evidence we had, without the DNA, with his answers, with the prior police investigation that the captain, the Ranger did, I was convinced he was. Was our guy. All I needed was the DNA to shore it up.
- [40:54]
C
So Patricia Jacobs, suspected killer, was in custody again after being arrested in a truck with narcotics, a gun, and possibly his next victim.
- [41:04]
A
He was prosecuted in that county for those crimes and myself and Ranger Joe Harrelson, as well as one of the family members. I want to say it was Kim testified at his sentencing.
- [41:18]
B
At trial, McGinnis was found guilty of possession of a controlled substance and the unlawful possession of. Of a firearm by a felon, both felonies that generally carry light prison sentences.
- [41:32]
A
It was a small amount of methamphetamine, and it was a broken down.22 pistol that he was found with. More than likely, a case like that would not garner A large amount of time for the person being prosecuted, no matter what they were doing at the time. They probably are looking at going to the penitentiary for some period of time and getting back out again.
- [41:53]
C
But for a career criminal like McGinnis with multiple felony convictions, the judge had discretion to enhance sentencing based on his long history of violence and disregard for the law.
- [42:05]
A
He had a good defense attorney working for him. But when they found him guilty of those two crimes, and we testified at his sentencing about all his previous crimes that he had committed, as well as the crime that was that we were looking at him for, now, the jury just swung the hammer on him. He was actually sentenced to 99 years for the methamphetamines and life in prison for the pistol.
- [42:30]
B
It was a guarantee that McGinnis would finally be off the streets for good and no longer a threat to the general public.
- [42:37]
C
But for Pat's kids, their own journey would not be over until McGinnis faced justice for their mother's murder.
- [42:44]
A
After that prosecution in Tyler county, then the next thing was getting that deal DNA back.
- [42:49]
B
It was not a guarantee that viable DNA would be retrieved from the crime scene. After all, Pat's body was found in the water, and there was a high likelihood that any foreign DNA would have been washed away or degraded over time.
- [43:05]
C
But with the dramatic advancements in DNA tech, analysts were able to recover samples that would have been impossible to find years earlier.
- [43:13]
A
It was Ms. Jacobs clothing, it was Pat's shirt and pants. I think that his seminal fluids were found on both those things, which again, is a miracle. She was in the water, that that stuff maintained, that stuff was still there.
- [43:26]
B
A DNA profile was created and it was entered into codis. And as expected, there was an immediate hit with the man with a long history as a registered sex offender, Daniel McGinnis.
- [43:39]
C
Brandon had the privilege of notifying Pat's family that they were finally ready to make an arrest.
- [43:46]
A
That very night we were going to arrest him. We had a little conference call. The four of us just bawled our eyes out that it was finally going to happen after all these years. Just a very emotional moment between all of us.
- [44:00]
B
On August 27, 2019, Daniel Andrew McGinnis was arrested at his home in Tyler County.
- [44:08]
A
Texas Ranger Arielson went to his house there in Tyler county, where he was living in squalor in an old, probably 15 foot camper with garbage everywhere. It was just a horrible living situation that he had exactly the stuff movies are made of, where the bad guy lives. This is that we made the arrest. He Was not surprised at all that we were there. He knew what when he saw us, he knew what we were there for.
- [44:36]
C
McGinnis was charged with first degree felony murder and held on $1 million bond.
- [44:42]
A
We charged him with murder. We didn't think that we could get to capital murder in that he sexually assaulted her because the autopsy didn't reveal the things that you would have to reveal to show that she was sexually assaulted. Not to say she wasn't, but the autopsy didn't reveal that. And, of course, there's no way to go back and do that again.
- [45:01]
B
It's.
- [45:02]
A
Once that's over, it's over. You know, we feel certain he abducted her. I feel certain he beat her. I feel certain he sexually assaulted her. This was not of her own free will, and that he strangled her or beat her, that he somehow incapacitated her when he put her in the water and she drowned.
- [45:20]
B
Pat Jacobs adult children publicly responded to the arrest, stating, in the blink of an eye, this monster took their mother away, and they were left to pick up the pieces.
- [45:32]
C
The trial against their mother's killer began in September 2022, more than 30 years after she'd been taken from them, which was, as it is for any victim's family, yet another traumatic experience.
- [45:44]
A
They obviously had never seen crime scene photos. They. They did not know all the details of our investigation. So having to hear those things was tough. You know, it's tough for cops to listen to and to rehash and to go through all those things, but to hear what happened to their mom or what we believe happened to their mom,
- [46:02]
B
and let's just say McGinnis. Clear lack of remorse did not make it any easier.
- [46:08]
A
McGinnis is just a bad person. That's all there is to it. I don't know how else to describe it without using bad words, but he was a bad guy. He was not referring to remorseful. He looked, you know, mean the whole trial, and he was mean. You know, he's a mean guy. For them to have to sit there and look at them, to be that close to the person that did these things to the mother and then hear it. Emotionally straining for them. Extremely emotionally straining for them. Tough deal.
- [46:37]
C
Brandon was getting ready to take the stand and present the decades worth of investigative work that went into proving McInnis was the man responsible, responsible for Pat's murder. But in the end, he never got the chance.
- [46:49]
A
He chose to plead guilty right before I got on the stand. He chose to plead guilty right at the very end.
- [46:56]
B
The Texas court accepted the guilty plea and sentenced McGinnis to 20 years in prison for Pat's murder. The sentence was ordered to run concurrently with the other lengthy sentences he was already serving for his other convictions.
- [47:11]
A
He was facing the minimum of 15 years. And of course, the court was aware, was made aware of what sentence he was already serving in the prison system. But he had to be given a sentence that would feel appropriate and that both defense and the prosecutor agreed to, though both knew that he was never going to get out of the penitentiary. So he was sentenced to 20 years.
- [47:33]
C
One of Pat's daughters delivered a power victim impact statement, telling McGinnis that the family could not forgive him for what he had done and for what he had taken from them, that he was the reason they had taught their children to not walk alone at night, to be afraid of strangers being close friends with him.
- [47:50]
A
Now, being close friends with them then and hearing what they were having to say was difficult.
- [47:57]
B
Let's face it, this case took a long time to close, maybe much longer than it should have. But it is still a testament to the dedication of cold case investigators to rectify a wrong, no matter the odds.
- [48:12]
A
You know, a lot of people talk about closure in cases. There's never closure in these cases. There's only answers. Closure is an overused word. But what you can do is, you know, with Tina in that angry email, you can say, you were right. And because of you, and because of, you know, you're her daughter, you brought us in on this deal. You're the reason that her killer went to the penitentiary and ultimately died in prison.
- [48:39]
B
What this case really comes down to is time. Time that worked against investigators in 1988. No cameras, no DNA, no way to prove what they felt, and time that years later worked for them. Because the one thing that didn't change was him. That pattern didn't change the risk didn't change the way he targeted women didn't change. And eventually, the evidence caught up to what the work had been pointing to all along. But here's the part that sticks with me. For Pat's family, this wasn't about closure. It was about answers. Answers to what happened, to who did it and why their lives changed in a single night. And those answers didn't come from one break. They came from years of people not letting the case go. From a daughter who kept pushing, and from investigators who went back and did the work again. Because sometimes justice isn't fast. It's patient. And this case, it was 30 years in the making.
- [49:45]
C
Pat Jacobs was abducted and murdered. She was taken from her three kids that needed to navigate the rest of their childhoods, their teens and young adulthoods, the rest of their lives without their mom's love and support. She was taken from her husband, who was initially accused of the crime. A murder is excruciating for anyone to go through, to grieve through, to pick up the pieces from. But I've always thought that for children of the dead, it's especially cruel and to be accused of your spouse's murder, even though why detectives often need to look so closely and that is obviously something that makes sense.
- [50:19]
B
Sense.
- [50:19]
C
But having that happen to you makes the pain all the more brutal. It was an all caps email from one of Patricia Jacobs children that got this case moving again and in the end helped bring her justice and helped her family get answers they'd waited for too long to receive. At the sentencing, one of Patricia's daughters spoke and in her statement she said, your reign of terror is over. No one else in this world should have to suffer the way we did. Cold casework is hugely important. No matter how many years go by, offenders should be held accountable however long it takes. We can see by Pat's daughter's words how meaningful getting those answers and seeing justice served in a courtroom, how important that is for their healing process as well. I couldn't help but think of the strength of that family to stay strong for each other and for their mother and wife for all those decades they'd lived without her, and how they would not give up until there was justice for their mom, Patricia Jacobs, or Pat as she was known by those who loved her. The strength of your family is part of your never dying legacy. And their love for you is clearly there forever as well. Tune in next week for another new episode of Homicide 360.
- [51:40]
B
Homicide 360 is created and produced by Forsetti Media and Weinberger Media.
- [51:47]
C
Supervising producer is Walker Lamond. Managing editor is Kate Mack. Sabrina Sarai is production manager. Edited by Ali Sierra and Phil Jean Grande Original theme music by Trey Anderson.