True Crime Vault: Toxic Love

Speaker 1 Hi 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 2 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland, Ohio, into a crime scene.

Speaker 3 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 5 The first thing that hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 2 A new series from ABC Audio in 2020: The Hand in the Window.

Speaker 8 Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 11 Welcome to the True Crime Vault, home to 2020's most chilling stories.

Speaker 11 Why would you want your husband killed?

Speaker 13 I didn't wake up one day and just say, hey, I want to kill my ex-husband.

Speaker 16 Tonight, on 2020, the explosive court case that just wrapped was accused of wanting to hire a hitman to kill his ex, a prominent, successful veterinarian, and a single mom recording her most private thoughts.

Speaker 16 Her handsome boyfriend doctor, a ladies' man with a past.

Speaker 18 Without sounding pompous, I've always understood women really well and they've always liked me.

Speaker 16 Together, did this pair of doctors write a prescription for murder?

Speaker 17 Accused of hiring a hitman to kill their respective exes.

Speaker 18 I'm not some monster that wanted my ex-girlfriend killed and her ex-husband.

Speaker 15 Cooking up a plot at the Olive Garden.

Speaker 21 Police say the happy couple ordered something that was not on the menu.

Speaker 16 Tonight we're taking you inside the elaborate sting to trap them.

Speaker 4 Why are we being arrested?

Speaker 16 The actual body cam footage of their arrest, the gotcha moment.

Speaker 26 Let's go to the bathroom please.

Speaker 19 What was it like to see your best friend go from wearing doctor's scrubs to an orange jumpsuit?

Speaker 16 His jailhouse interview.

Speaker 5 I really wouldn't hurt a fly if I didn't have to.

Speaker 28 That's quite a qualifier.

Speaker 16 And the biggest shocker of all, those exes having to take part in staging their own fake deaths.

Speaker 30 I just can't believe I was there.

Speaker 27 What I'm trying to understand is: are you Dr. Jekyll or are you Mr.
Hyde?

Speaker 16 He thinks he's someone else.

Speaker 1 I want Riley Cooper to play me in the TV movie.

Speaker 5 Toxic Love.

Speaker 15 Hello, I'm Elizabeth Vargas, and this is 2020. Now, Matt Gutman.

Speaker 13 Hey, it's Valerie McDaniel. It's March 15th,

Speaker 13 2017.

Speaker 16 I'm sitting outside.

Speaker 31 I wanted to take

Speaker 32 time

Speaker 13 and tell my story from the beginning. Try not to judge me.
Judge me, judge me.

Speaker 34 It's been said that memory is the diary we carry with us.

Speaker 34 Well, 48-year-old Valerie McDaniel put her memories into an audio diary she recorded on her iPad.

Speaker 38 Thoughts about her daughter.

Speaker 14 She's the most precious thing to me.

Speaker 34 Her adventures as a new divorcee.

Speaker 40 48-year-old woman trying to start to date.

Speaker 41 Not a good thing.

Speaker 39 And also in that diary, it sounds as if she's harboring a bone-chilling secret.

Speaker 42 I never wanted to hurt anyone.

Speaker 24 I hate the idea that everybody thinks I'm a monster.

Speaker 43 A monster?

Speaker 34 That's not a word her friends would ever use to describe her.

Speaker 45 Valerie was an amazing human being.

Speaker 7 She had a light within her.

Speaker 46 I felt honored to have her as my friend. She was so successful and so beautiful and funny and intelligent.

Speaker 37 She seemed to have it all.

Speaker 22 A veterinarian with a practice so successful, she was able to live in River Oaks, the Beverly Hills of Houston, and spend her weekends in a $700,000 beach home where she often invited her friends for parties.

Speaker 30 We always karaoke.

Speaker 30 We can learn to love again.

Speaker 30 It was a lot of fun. We swam.
We just enjoyed each other's company.

Speaker 46 She would always prepare these amazing dinners for us.

Speaker 50 Now, when you guys had these dinners, there was one thing that was always missing, and that is Valerie's husband.

Speaker 23 What did she tell you about her marriage?

Speaker 30 She did not feel loved. Her husband was never around.

Speaker 20 Valerie complained to those friends that Mac, her husband and business partner at the pet clinic, was always out doing his own thing, like hunting.

Speaker 47 But Valerie later confided to them she thought he was really out hunting other women.

Speaker 28 She says a woman called the clinic one day, claiming to have proof of that.

Speaker 13 She gave me lists of women that he had slept with.

Speaker 45 She knew that there had been some adultery.

Speaker 30 I knew that because she talked to me about it.

Speaker 42 It's hard to watch someone in that much pain.

Speaker 39 So much pain, she filed for divorce after 17 years, citing conflict of personalities and adultery.

Speaker 53 It was a bitter split, but they did agree on the shared custody of their now nine-year-old daughter.

Speaker 56 She was just unhappy there was a void that wasn't being filled there.

Speaker 53 Until, that is, she meets this man, Leon Jacob, a brash doctor eight years her junior.

Speaker 18 Valerie is one of the most amazing human beings that I've ever met.

Speaker 18 She was nice and kind and giving and educated and a great mother.

Speaker 20 They met by happenstance when Valerie, still miserable in her marriage, lived next door to Leon's mother.

Speaker 18 Without sounding like a pompous

Speaker 18 ass, I

Speaker 18 can only describe it as this. I've always understood women really well and they've always liked me.

Speaker 37 Just describe the moment you really noticed being attracted to her.

Speaker 18 I saw her in a bathing suit. If you want me to be very open about it, that's when I first noticed that she was a knockout and that I was attracted to her.

Speaker 61 It was a man raised with privilege.

Speaker 21 He attended the best private schools.

Speaker 62 Winter breaks were spent skiing in Vail, summers in Maine.

Speaker 18 I'm an avid golfer and skier and I work out a lot.

Speaker 48 After college, he went to medical school in the Caribbean.

Speaker 18 I'm a very driven type A alpha personality male, but I have a heart of gold.

Speaker 40 I was lonely and he kept me company.

Speaker 42 He listened to me.

Speaker 40 It was everything I needed.

Speaker 44 The now single mom finally finding love again.

Speaker 23 And it looked as if they're both finally free for one another after Leon and his girlfriend split up.

Speaker 18 One night, we were laying on our balcony, and she looked at me and she goes, do I have you? And I said, yes.

Speaker 34 Soon after, Leon officially moves in to that luxury condo.

Speaker 42 She was very much in love with him. She said it multiple multiple times.

Speaker 42 I'm completely in love with him.

Speaker 63 But Valerie's friend Maggie had some misgivings about Leon.

Speaker 50 What didn't you like about him?

Speaker 30 Very arrogant and full of himself. I've just never seen anything quite like that.
And I've got a pretty strong intuition about people and I did not feel good about it and I let her know that.

Speaker 44 But Valerie wouldn't hear it.

Speaker 48 The dashing doctors with seemingly so much in common.

Speaker 18 We talked science together. We both loved astronomy.
We had a telescope in our apartment. We We used to look at the, you know, the constellations.

Speaker 50 It sounds like 57 days of bliss, right?

Speaker 23 Isn't that the number you put on him? Yes.

Speaker 48 But you know what they say?

Speaker 34 If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Speaker 22 Prince Charming was not so charming. Turns out the good doctor's medical background was hardly professional.

Speaker 34 Fired from two different residency programs, one where supervisors found him a threat to patient safety.

Speaker 17 When I hear he has a medical degree, I immediately think, oh, well, where is he practicing medicine? Nowhere.

Speaker 20 And by the time he met Valerie, the only surgery he was doing was cutting himself off from creditors by filing for bankruptcy.

Speaker 36 And in the romance department, a checkered history as well.

Speaker 22 For example, his first wife, Annie.

Speaker 18 We would fight, fight, fight, and love, love, love, fight, fight, fight, love, love, love.

Speaker 18 It was one of those relationships that people were like, God, they're crazy, but they're crazy. And we love that.

Speaker 63 But after 11 years, Annie must have had enough crazy.

Speaker 39 She filed for divorce and would later press charges for aggravated stalking and intimidation.

Speaker 27 Court documents say he made calls, sent texts, and emails threatening to inflict bodily harm. And I'm gonna hurt you.
I'm gonna hurt your fing parents right in front of you.

Speaker 18 Do you understand me? Attempted cyber harassment is what I plead guilty to. Yes, she went a little overboard with her complaints about about me.

Speaker 37 Perhaps, but the complaints became a problematic pattern.

Speaker 34 He was about to start dating an attractive woman named Megan Vericus.

Speaker 67 And Leon had troubles with her, too.

Speaker 34 According to the police report, you busted her lip

Speaker 18 when you put your hand on her. I never put any hand on her.
We were fighting. I shouldn't have put my hand even near her face.
I didn't touch her in any way.

Speaker 18 I was simply trying to calm her, but she bit my hand. And at that time, she bit her own lip.
And subsequently, that charge has been dropped because there was no evidence.

Speaker 51 Charges dropped, yes, but Leon won't let Megan drop off his radar.

Speaker 23 But you kept on pursuing her, despite the fact that she told you not to.

Speaker 18 I kept on pursuing her for a little bit, yeah.

Speaker 39 But cops do charge Leon with stalking.

Speaker 17 Ex-girlfriend says that he hides in the bushes and waits outside her workplace.

Speaker 37 Again, you're charged with stalking and with, you know, they caught you in the bushes outside of the building.

Speaker 68 There are no bushes out there.

Speaker 18 There are no bushes outside.

Speaker 23 They caught you loitering outside her office.

Speaker 18 She says in the bushes. She says that.
People can claim a lot of things, right? You can say,

Speaker 18 you know, Superman came down and took me to Kryptonite, you know, Krypton for the weekend. It doesn't make it true.

Speaker 29 What is surely true, though, is that apart from the stalking charge, Leon was also courting.

Speaker 38 And the newfound romance between Leon and Valerie would soon bloom into something very dark, very disturbing.

Speaker 50 Are you a person who's capable of murder?

Speaker 38 No.

Speaker 5 I really wouldn't hurt a fly if I didn't have to.

Speaker 28 That's quite a qualifier.

Speaker 47 Stay with us.

Speaker 25 Give it up for Chicago.

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Speaker 70 an all-new season of the secret lives of mormon wives is now streaming on hulu

Speaker 40 Mom talks started as a sisterhood and that's gone to flames.

Speaker 41 New secrets and lies are coming out.

Speaker 16 This is going to be catastrophic.

Speaker 71 We're fighting for our marriages and the girls are just putting us through hell.

Speaker 70 They make everything about themselves i can't hopefully this doesn't end in a bloodbath watch the hulu original the secret lives of mormon wives now streaming on hulu and hulu on disney plus for bundle subscribers terms apply

Speaker 60 houston texas affectionately nicknamed the big heart the perfect backdrop for leon jacob a wannabe surgeon whose linkedin page would have you believe he's transplanting hearts by day all capturing hearts by night you know how to talk to women.

Speaker 37 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 18 I respect them very much. And most men don't treat them that way.

Speaker 49 By now, he's in the loving arms of a new woman, successful single mom, Valerie McDaniel.

Speaker 27 But this couple has some obstacles before they can get to that happily ever after part.

Speaker 29 First of all, Leon's ex-girlfriend Megan may be gone, but her stalking charge still dogs him.

Speaker 18 I am not 100%

Speaker 18 sure

Speaker 18 to this day why she ran away like she did.

Speaker 34 And you can't get a medical license in Texas with a felony.

Speaker 36 Could there be a prescription to cure that problem?

Speaker 29 And according to prosecutors, the way that he's going to eliminate that problem is by eliminating her.

Speaker 51 That's right.

Speaker 61 The man who took an oath to do no harm is allegedly trying to do in his ex-girlfriend Megan.

Speaker 20 Investigators say that's what leads Leon to this guy. His name is Zach.

Speaker 20 A A former Army sergeant, he swears he can complete the mission in exchange for $5,000 in cash, two Cartier watches, and a laptop as a down payment.

Speaker 49 But here's the thing. The prosecutor said that Zach was much more of a con man than a hitman.

Speaker 48 According to investigators, Zach takes the money and runs without ever firing a single shot.

Speaker 8 That was Zach's story.

Speaker 20 He said that he was never going to go through with the murder.

Speaker 39 Feeling swindled, the cops say Leon tries to hunt down Zach and begins his search with a guy who has seen his share of shady characters.

Speaker 28 How does a nice fellow like you get involved in something like this?

Speaker 9 Well, I bonded somebody out of jail, and his name happened to be Leon Jacob.

Speaker 7 Meet bail bondsman Michael Kubash.

Speaker 29 His life is putting up cash to get people out of jail and then tracking them down if they don't pay him back.

Speaker 37 Kubash says when he bonded Leon out of the slammer for allegedly allegedly stalking Megan, Leon asked him if he could chase down Zach.

Speaker 12 And I said, well, well, why do you need Zach?

Speaker 12 He said,

Speaker 9 I've paid him a lot of money to take care of this matter.

Speaker 12 And I said, to take care of what? He said, I want her out of the picture.

Speaker 9 And the way he talked to me, I felt like I was talking to Satan himself.

Speaker 61 Kubash is rattled enough to call the cops and they contact Megan and get her to a safe house.

Speaker 35 And then they haul in the would-be hitman, Zach, and turn up the heat on him.

Speaker 34 He agrees to help investigators set a trap.

Speaker 74 They have Zach call

Speaker 74 Leon and say, hey, I got a guy. He's going to do the hit for us.

Speaker 44 But that new guy is actually an undercover cop named Javier.

Speaker 20 We've been asked not to show his face.

Speaker 25 Once I am involved in the murder plot, then we are able to control the situation.

Speaker 35 Javier says that as the call continues, everything is going according to plan until Leon poses a jaw-dropping question.

Speaker 1 We're taking care of both problems.

Speaker 7 Well, both problems.

Speaker 1 Both of the individuals that we're talking about.

Speaker 39 Did he just say both issues?

Speaker 74 So HPD is learning, oh, there's a second person they're trying to take care of.

Speaker 25 Upon hearing that, I was shocked that Leon wanted two people killed.

Speaker 20 And that second victim, none other than Valerie's ex-husband, Mac.

Speaker 29 Turns out the other obstacle in the budding, very dark romance was on Valerie's side.

Speaker 61 And she and Leon were both in on the scheme.

Speaker 25 Leon did tell me that he also wanted to have Valerie's ex-husband removed from the picture.

Speaker 74 At that point, they decided to meet at the Olive Garden.

Speaker 25 The Olive Garden, with its family-friendly ambiance, not really the kind of place you'd expect a murder-for-hire hire strategy session to go down with an otherwise normal-looking amorous couple it was very obvious to me during that first meeting that leon was serious about uh killing megan and and mac so they were sitting at this table yes at this very table somewhere between the breadsticks and the bolognese sits one strange quartet the vet valerie bow leon jacob zach and undercover officer javier posing as a contract killer.

Speaker 50 What did they look like when they came in here?

Speaker 41 So Valerie had actually come from work, so she was literally wearing scrubs from the vet clinic along with Dr.

Speaker 38 McDaniel monograms on the scrub jacket. Wow.

Speaker 47 So again, not trying to hide her identity.

Speaker 41 No, not trying to hide her identity at all.

Speaker 63 Cops say Leon has made his target clear.

Speaker 34 The good doctor even suggests a method, injecting Megan with potassium chloride to stop her heart.

Speaker 25 He told me on more than one occasion that his survival is more important than hers,

Speaker 25 that he was a lot more important than her.

Speaker 59 As Leon and Zach take a cigarette break, Cobbs say the undercover, Javier, and Valerie are left alone to discuss intended target number two, Valerie's ex, Mac.

Speaker 25 And I asked her, are you sure you want to do this? And she said, I have no other choice. He's going to take my baby from me.
She was worried about him taking full custody of the girl.

Speaker 41 And he finally gets her to say that she does in fact want him to be killed.

Speaker 74 And that's when he said, well, if you want that done, it's gonna be another $10,000. And Valerie said, okay, I have to pay you out in installments of it, but I'll pay you $10,000.

Speaker 52 Money is tight for Valerie thanks to that divorce settlement.

Speaker 5 She agreed to pay her ex over a million dollars for his share of the vet clinic.

Speaker 74 She had just gotten divorced and taken a loan out of $1.2 million to pay Mac McDaniel as part of that divorce. So liquidity may have been an issue for them.

Speaker 50 So, she had to pay $1.25 in the divorce? She had to take a loan out.

Speaker 66 It may not have been on the menu, but the cops say two murderers were ordered here.

Speaker 21 Coming up, cops make a house call as cameras roll.

Speaker 53 The elaborate charade by police to smoke out the alleged conspirators is caught on tape.

Speaker 4 Why are we being arrested?

Speaker 38 Next,

Speaker 20 time for the check at this Olive Garden restaurant and picking up the tab for that delicious, affordable and conspiratorial lunch is Dr.

Speaker 61 Leon Jacob and his girlfriend, Dr.

Speaker 49 Valerie McDaniel.

Speaker 74 I believe Leon and Valerie paid for the bill.

Speaker 63 That was very nice of them.

Speaker 44 Now, remember, the cops say Leon and Val thought they'd been dining with a hitman, but Javier was really an undercover cop.

Speaker 5 So police spring into action, immediately reaching out to Valerie's ex-husband Mac to tip him off.

Speaker 36 And what they get Mac to do next is right out of a John Grisham novel.

Speaker 74 They do a series of pictures of him dead.

Speaker 36 He agrees to pose for these photos staging his own death, complete with a bullet wound to the head.

Speaker 10 We wanted to make it look like he had been killed in a robbery.

Speaker 10 We took a series of them, one slumped over the steering wheel and shot in the head, and the other one laying on the ground, shot in the head.

Speaker 20 Cops have also gotten to Leon's other target, his ex Megan.

Speaker 23 Does she express any surprise that Leon Jacob, the man who loved her so much and then stalked her allegedly, would want this to happen to her?

Speaker 74 She is in no way surprised that this happened. She knew that he had a temper, he would explode, and now that she was denying him access to herself, like he became obsessed with her.

Speaker 5 Megan also agrees, staging her own set of pictures to make it look like she's been kidnapped.

Speaker 25 Leon kept using the word disappear, or he would say, I want her gone. I want her to go away forever.
And I took that to understand that he wanted her dead.

Speaker 5 But Javier says in the middle of depicting the harrowing scene, it's suddenly all a little too real for Megan.

Speaker 48 She breaks down.

Speaker 25 Megan

Speaker 25 became

Speaker 25 hysterical. She was very scared for her life and she actually began to cry

Speaker 25 and she began to tremble.

Speaker 51 The doomsday photo shoots are done, and the cops are ready to take their next step in their elaborate sting operation, informing Leon and Valerie that Mac has been killed.

Speaker 53 Still posing as that hitman, Javier says he breaks the news in person at the condo.

Speaker 25 I began to tell Valerie and Leon

Speaker 25 that Mac

Speaker 25 was gone,

Speaker 25 that it was done. I then asked Leon if he wanted to see

Speaker 25 a picture,

Speaker 25 and he told me that he did not want to see anything.

Speaker 39 If this was a mistake, if they weren't supposed to go kill the person, kidnap the person, the response would be, oh my goodness, what have you done?

Speaker 20 Instead, cops say Leon produces the blood money.

Speaker 25 Leon gives me the cash and I count out $1,800.

Speaker 63 According to the cops and Leon and Valerie's minds with Mac dead, Megan is next.

Speaker 53 And later that same day, Javier says he informs Leon that job too is done.

Speaker 33 Megan is now a memory.

Speaker 25 She's dead.

Speaker 70 She's gone.

Speaker 25 Yeah. I know you have concerns about the body and everything.
We'll take care of the body.

Speaker 74 So at that point, we've closed both cases, but we decided we wanted to go an extra step. And so that extra step was the death notice.

Speaker 44 A death notice.

Speaker 58 Now that's what cops call it when they have to notify a family member or next of kin that a loved one has passed.

Speaker 39 So now it's these police officers who have to give a performance.

Speaker 5 Just days after that Olive Garden meeting, Sergeant Frank Quinn and other officers show up at that apartment to break what should be shocking, tragic news for Valerie.

Speaker 75 can capture it earthquake.

Speaker 26 Yeah, come in.

Speaker 65 What's going on?

Speaker 20 Now, remember, it's all a ruse to get Valerie's reaction, and it's all being recorded as potential evidence on police body cameras.

Speaker 76 I'm afraid we have some bad news since

Speaker 76 your ex husband's been found that looks like it

Speaker 76 turns out to be a fatality.

Speaker 76 Looks like money done robbery down the road.

Speaker 76 Sorry to have to tell you,

Speaker 26 who you heard from him recently?

Speaker 26 I wasn't there last night.

Speaker 36 Valerie's response doesn't seem particularly appropriate, according to Sergeant Quinn.

Speaker 10 It was not what you would expect in reality. And you want to know, are you sure it's my ex-husband? How do you know this? You definitely have a lot of questions and a lot of grief.

Speaker 5 In the video, Valerie sits quietly, putting her head in her hands.

Speaker 18 And now your boyfriend can see you.

Speaker 76 You're right. We'll let him know what's going on, and I'm sorry.

Speaker 34 Soon enough, Leon emerges from the bedroom.

Speaker 6 Our ex-husband's been found today.

Speaker 76 Oh my god.

Speaker 76 It looks like

Speaker 76 might have been a robbery going on.

Speaker 76 If anybody knows anything or

Speaker 76 not be able to help us.

Speaker 48 Now, listen carefully to what Leon says next, because cops say it's sounding like he's establishing his whereabouts.

Speaker 26 Are you okay, baby?

Speaker 57 You've been here all night.

Speaker 4 We're here all day with

Speaker 46 their daughter. We were watching movies.

Speaker 10 What he wants to do is establish an alibi that you know right away it's not him.

Speaker 10 You know, and then feigning that surprise, it was all rehearsed, in my opinion.

Speaker 22 Is it strange for a man who hasn't been yet accused of anything to immediately offer an alibi unsolicited?

Speaker 41 Absolutely. I think right there, that's great evidence for us.

Speaker 52 More than enough, police now believe, to end the masquerade.

Speaker 75 All right, well, I'll tell you, we'll need you to come with us.

Speaker 76 And

Speaker 25 I guess I'll say, hey,

Speaker 75 right now we're going to read you your rights. Meanwhile, both of you have been arrested.
Solicitation Captain Murder. Why? Solicitation murder.

Speaker 4 Why are we being arrested?

Speaker 25 He just spoke to me. We'll tell you.

Speaker 77 Listen. Just put your palms together.

Speaker 27 Oh, and there's yet another surprise in store for Valerie.

Speaker 47 As she's being hauled off to jail, someone's waiting outside her front door.

Speaker 49 It's her ex-husband, Mac, back from the dead, waiting to take custody of their young daughter.

Speaker 74 He stands at the threshold of the apartment.

Speaker 18 They allow her to go get her daughter.

Speaker 74 She brings the daughter to the threshold and then hands the daughter off to Mac.

Speaker 19 And that was the last time that she saw her daughter.

Speaker 64 It was.

Speaker 17 I wonder what was going through her mind at that moment that she handed her over to the man she she tried to murder,

Speaker 17 knowing that

Speaker 38 it was all over.

Speaker 20 Her child, her career, her freedom, but Valerie's love for Leon endures for one final kiss.

Speaker 38 They were both on their way to face justice, but only one of them will make it to the trial.

Speaker 34 Stay with us.

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Speaker 58 Ordinarily, doctors wear scrubs, but not these two.

Speaker 5 At least, not today.

Speaker 24 Led into court wearing orange jumpsuits, charged with allegedly hiring a hitman to kill both of their exes.

Speaker 74 Enough for the state, Your Honor.

Speaker 75 No, Judge, thank you.

Speaker 21 Four days after the arrest, Valerie was released on a $50,000 bond.

Speaker 19 After a couple of days in the cooler, she says she gets to chill out and goes to see her friends.

Speaker 82 Why would you want your husband killed?

Speaker 30 She really did not talk about it

Speaker 38 at all.

Speaker 30 I think she knew that it was an uncomfortable situation for everyone.

Speaker 3 We were all trying to be upbeat and positive and like, it's going to be fine. We can work through this.
You know, we'll help you out.

Speaker 3 But she seemed a little

Speaker 3 maybe a little defeated.

Speaker 3 There was a look in her eyes that I hadn't quite ever seen before.

Speaker 35 A haunting look that becomes a final moment between friends.

Speaker 56 And then in hindsight, I immediately realized she came there to say goodbye.

Speaker 34 Just two days later, in a move that stuns those friends and the community, Valerie leaps to her death from her seventh floor balcony.

Speaker 27 The death of a murder for hire suspect who jumped from her own condo balcony today.

Speaker 42 People fell to their knees crying. I was completely, just completely shocking.

Speaker 38 I don't know what to say.

Speaker 12 I got a call

Speaker 38 and I didn't want to believe it.

Speaker 59 And in one final loving gesture to her friend Maggie, she pens this letter just before jumping to her death.

Speaker 49 Can you read it?

Speaker 64 Dear Maggie,

Speaker 64 I'm so very sorry for what I have done, but I'm just not strong enough to fight all the battles ahead. I'm tired and so scared and so weak.

Speaker 64 Be well and stay safe.

Speaker 49 All my love, Valerie.

Speaker 3 Losing her career and

Speaker 3 her reputation,

Speaker 3 I just think she just didn't want to live like that anymore. And mostly losing her daughter

Speaker 3 was the biggest thing.

Speaker 18 It was just as much a shock to me as it was to everybody else around her.

Speaker 20 Did you hold yourself responsible for her suicide?

Speaker 18 No.

Speaker 18 That was a decision she made on her own.

Speaker 37 So you never thought for a minute that maybe you'd put her in a position that she just couldn't handle and that it drove her to commit suicide?

Speaker 35 No.

Speaker 68 She

Speaker 18 had so much pressure on her and I wasn't there to help support her.

Speaker 34 Leon, who was never released on bond, asked the judge to allow him to attend Valerie's funeral, but his request was denied.

Speaker 82 Valerie McDaniel left a note detailing her final wishes before apparently jumping to her death from that condo.

Speaker 48 She also left behind that audio diary she recorded, a suicide note in her own voice from beyond the grave.

Speaker 13 I didn't wake up one day and just say,

Speaker 14 hey, I want to kill my ex-husband.

Speaker 13 Things just gradually happened.

Speaker 20 However it happened, prosecutors say there's no question Valerie wanted her ex-husband dead and actually confessed to it after her arrest on that video outside her apartment.

Speaker 74 They keep having her tell her to speak up and she says things like, you know, so you wanted your husband killed. You know, you can't nod.
You have to say yes. Be like, yes, that's what I wanted.

Speaker 17 No matter how educated she was, no matter how brilliant or loving she was, seemingly fell under the spell of Leon Jacob.

Speaker 28 Val's friends blame Leon.

Speaker 50 Do you think he's responsible for her death?

Speaker 46 She wouldn't be where she is now if it wasn't for him.

Speaker 74 How does Valerie get from well-respected vet to

Speaker 74 hiring a hitman to suicide?

Speaker 74 I think that you're going to find this linchpin of that as Leon Jacob.

Speaker 64 I do want people to understand that this was not something that she wanted to happen. It's something that happened to her.

Speaker 45 I truly believe that.

Speaker 30 This was not something

Speaker 30 that she would have ever done.

Speaker 39 Maggie points out in the short eight-week period Leon and Valerie were together, she saw her friend only once.

Speaker 74 She wouldn't hang out with her friends anymore, which is all classic stalker method of operation. You cut them off from their friends, you seclude them.

Speaker 52 Leon denies keeping Valerie from her friends.

Speaker 18 You know, when you're first in a new relationship, you kind of isolate yourselves

Speaker 18 with yourself, you know, with each other.

Speaker 48 But despite everything that's happened in her recorded suicide note, Valerie never turns on Leon.

Speaker 14 You know, it's going to upset all my people.

Speaker 37 She may have loved him, but she also left him to stand trial alone.

Speaker 34 But Leon says prosecutors got him all wrong.

Speaker 18 I am innocent of these charges. I still maintain that throughout.
I find them to be atrocious in manner because I'm not some monster that wanted my ex-girlfriend killed and her ex-husband.

Speaker 18 I'm a healer by nature.

Speaker 47 When we come back, prosecutors tell a jury Leon's not a healer.

Speaker 67 He's a hirer of hitmen.

Speaker 77 Leon Jacob does not stop until he gets what he wants.

Speaker 27 What I'm trying to understand is, are you Dr. Jekyll or are you Mr.
Hyde?

Speaker 38 And for the first time, meet the would-be victims, the people behind those gruesome and fake photos.

Speaker 32 They've tied my hands and my feet and put duct tape around my mouth to make me look as if I had been kidnapped.

Speaker 47 Stay with us.

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Speaker 61 Last week, Leon Jacob walked into a packed Houston courtroom, ready to face down charges that he masterminded the planning of a double murder.

Speaker 17 Jaw-dropping testimony and riveting photos.

Speaker 72 How they wanted their exes to be, quote, taken care of.

Speaker 85 Jacob's attorney says it would be a, quote, quantum leap to believe that Jacob wanted dead the ex-girlfriend he once so loved.

Speaker 36 Our ABC station, KTRK, they're every step of the way.

Speaker 18 All right, good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Speaker 86 We're ready to proceed with that as the state ready.

Speaker 77 One of the things you'll learn about Leon Jacobs is he has to be in control. Leon Jacob does not stop until he gets what he wants.

Speaker 33 Prosecutors tell jurors that what Leon wanted was a new life with a new wife, Valerie.

Speaker 73 There was two obstacles to the defendant's new life with Valerie McDane.

Speaker 35 It was Mac

Speaker 73 and it was Meg. Like many of us here today, Leon's made some mistakes in life.

Speaker 37 Leon's defense starts with that classic refrain.

Speaker 38 There's no perfect man, but...

Speaker 73 Does not make him guilty of solicitation of capital murder.

Speaker 49 Instead, they point the finger squarely at the police.

Speaker 34 saying their undercover hitman entrapped Leon for their own purposes.

Speaker 73 They realized this could be the case that makes their career. They would try to force these people into making the decisions that they did not want to make.

Speaker 34 Prosecutors waste no time in calling the two people who were never supposed to testify because they weren't supposed to be alive.

Speaker 19 All right, we're ready to continue.

Speaker 74 And with that, will the state call your first witness?

Speaker 38 Thank you.

Speaker 41 Well, the state of Texas calls Megan Varikis.

Speaker 34 First up, Leon's ex-girlfriend, Megan Varikas, who tells jurors about the abuse she suffered that ended their relationship.

Speaker 41 And ultimately, did the police police file charges in that case?

Speaker 32 Yes, assault against a family member.

Speaker 8 She then characterized his continuing efforts to contact her as a man who was desperate. And she said certainly she was beyond frightened.

Speaker 32 He was calling, texting, emailing. He actually

Speaker 32 showed up at my place of work.

Speaker 41 Did you seek further protection from the defendant?

Speaker 32 I did everything I could to stay away from him.

Speaker 61 Prosecutors say Leon didn't just want to see Megan, he wanted to see her dead.

Speaker 34 And that's where those staged pictures come in.

Speaker 41 Do you know why they wanted to take photos of you?

Speaker 32 Because somebody had been paid to kill me.

Speaker 34 Valerie's ex-husband, Mac McDaniel, also tells jurors about his gruesome headshots.

Speaker 41 Did the officers ask you to do something for them?

Speaker 6 Staged my own death.

Speaker 41 And is that you laying face down in the grass with that pig's blood all over you?

Speaker 8 Yes, ma'am. He said the entire time in the back of his mind were thoughts of his young daughter.

Speaker 6 If they would have been successful, Natalie would have not had any parents.

Speaker 41 And that thought upset you.

Speaker 38 Unimaginable.

Speaker 37 But the centerpiece of the prosecution's case will be the audio secretly recorded by that undercover hitman.

Speaker 8 Clearly, the strongest evidence against Leon Jacob were his own words.

Speaker 49 But even his own damning words can't dissuade a guy like Leon Jacob from doing what we rarely see.

Speaker 25 The whole truth and nothing but the guy

Speaker 34 take the stand in his own defense.

Speaker 25 States your name for the latest gentleman of this jury.

Speaker 18 Leon Leon Jacob. I never asked to have anybody hurt, killed, harmed,

Speaker 18 kidnapped.

Speaker 72 But what about his words on those recordings?

Speaker 61 Jacob says he was just following the lead of the people he was talking to.

Speaker 18 I felt a lot of pressure from them to sort of commit to this idea of killing people,

Speaker 25 and

Speaker 18 that was never my intent

Speaker 18 and so I think that I took a much more aggressive tone with them.

Speaker 1 I think we're taking care of both problems.

Speaker 38 Well, both problems.

Speaker 1 Her and him.

Speaker 34 But when prosecutors get their shot at Jacob, it doesn't take long to ruffle his feathers when they bring up how quickly he moved on from Megan to Valerie.

Speaker 41 That would have put you sleeping with Valerie McDaniel just seven days after you and Megan broke up, correct?

Speaker 18 If the math is correct, yes. Okay.

Speaker 41 So when you tell the members of this jury that you're heart sick over Megan, that's not really true, is it?

Speaker 18 I have no problem sitting here and saying that I slept with Valerie seven days after Megan and I broke up, but I'm not on trial for being a womanizer. I'm on trial for solicitation of capital murder.

Speaker 18 So you can assassinate my character all you want up here. It doesn't make me guilty of what you've charged me with.

Speaker 20 Prosecutors say what does make him guilty of that are those recorded conversations they have.

Speaker 1 Megan, are we taking care of too this week?

Speaker 25 Yeah.

Speaker 18 That was just having a conversation about

Speaker 18 possible scenarios. I wasn't giving him any directions.

Speaker 41 Did you not want anybody hurt when you said inject her with potassium chloride, stop her heart, untraceable?

Speaker 18 I said that was something you could do. I didn't say that for him to do that.

Speaker 41 I'm going to show you what's been entered into evidence of state's exit number 22.

Speaker 37 And when confronted with that picture of Megan, tied up and terrified, Leon acknowledges he saw it and thought it was real.

Speaker 41 And in seeing this picture, you'd agree with me at no time did you tell Officer Duran, whoop, time out, stop, this has gone too far. I don't want any part of this.
You never said that, did you?

Speaker 18 Not those exact words. I did not.

Speaker 86 Remember, you're admonishments not to discuss the case, and we'll see you back at 9.30 in the morning.

Speaker 37 With Leon Jacobs' testimony wrapped up, both sides rest their cases.

Speaker 34 And now the only words anyone is waiting to hear are from the jury.

Speaker 87 What will they decide?

Speaker 33 And even from jail, Leon has big plans to cash in on the crime.

Speaker 1 I want Bradley Cooper to play me in the TV movie.

Speaker 47 Stay with us.

Speaker 47 Even before the verdict is in, Leon, ever the optimist, ever the planner, seems eager in this jailhouse call

Speaker 37 to capitalize on his newfound notoriety.

Speaker 37 Something you want to read a book about.

Speaker 1 I want Bradley Cooper to play me in the TV movie.

Speaker 25 Oh, that's not me, no.

Speaker 36 Back in this downtown Houston courtroom, it takes the jury barely an hour to come to a decision.

Speaker 8 I think that spoke volumes in this case.

Speaker 86 I'll rise to the jury. We, the jury, find the defendant Leon Philip Jacob guilty of solicitation of capital murder as charged in the indictment.

Speaker 8 You did not see a physical outward change in emotion

Speaker 8 on his face or in body.

Speaker 20 And now the jury will determine if he should go to prison and for how long.

Speaker 43 To help them do that, prosecutors call a bombshell witness.

Speaker 41 Annie Morrison, do you know an individual by the name of Leon Jacob?

Speaker 57 Yes.

Speaker 41 How do you know him?

Speaker 42 He's my ex-husband.

Speaker 38 If there was any doubt for jurors about what Leon Jacob is capable of, his ex-wife and the mother of his two children puts all that to rest.

Speaker 40 There was a time that we we got into a fight and he pulled a knife on me. He would push me, grab my arms or my shoulders, kick me, push me against the wall.

Speaker 44 He threatened that if I ever left, that he would kill me.

Speaker 27 He said that nobody would ever find my body because he was a doctor and he had access to chemicals that would

Speaker 44 dissolve my body.

Speaker 41 This defendant cannot be trusted to live among us. He's terrorized too many people for too long.

Speaker 42 The only appropriate punishment in this case is life.

Speaker 37 And the prosecutors get their wish.

Speaker 34 Sentenced to life in prison.

Speaker 49 The man of so many words suddenly at a loss for them.

Speaker 35 Do you have anything to say?

Speaker 67 No, sir.

Speaker 20 And it's Megan Varicus, the woman he wanted dead, who gets the last word, addressing Leon directly.

Speaker 88 I believe everything happens for a reason.

Speaker 88 You took away my sense of security, but you can get that no more.

Speaker 50 You're a guy with some of the best pedigree around.

Speaker 23 How does a guy like you end up in a place like this?

Speaker 18 That's a really good question.

Speaker 18 I don't necessarily have an answer for you. You know, I've been knocked down a bunch of my life and I always got back up.

Speaker 37 But it seems that this time, it'll be tougher to do that.

Speaker 88 While you sit in jail, I hope you think of me.

Speaker 88 Because it's because of me, you will be in prison for life.

Speaker 88 Enjoy life in prison.

Speaker 15 Leon Jacobs' defense team is appealing his conviction.

Speaker 49 He'll be eligible for parole in 30 years.

Speaker 15 In the meantime, our question for you tonight: how much of a role do you think Valerie played in the plot? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter. In the meantime, that's our show for tonight.

Speaker 15 Thanks so much for watching for David and all of us at ABC News and 2020. Have a good night and a great weekend.

Speaker 11 You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault.

Speaker 15 You can find all new broadcast episodes of 2020 Friday Nights at 9 on ABC.

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