May 15


TEXAS:

Convicted killer of Dallas teen executed


Convicted killer Bruce Charles Jacobs was executed tonight for using a
butcher knife to fatally hack a Dallas boy on the victim's 16th birthday
almost 17 years ago.

Jacobs recited by memory as his last statement the 23rd Psalm that begins
"The Lord is my shepherd" and ends with "I will dwell in the house of the
Lord forever."

Raising his head off the gurney and turning to four friends watching from
an adjacent room, Jacobs thanked them for "being there with me all these
years and supporting me." He also thanked the media for "being nice to
me," then urged his friends to "take care of yourself and y'all stay
strong."

At 6:17 p.m., 6 minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing, he was
pronounced dead.

Jacobs, 56, was condemned for the slaying of Conrad Harris at the
teenager's home near Southern Methodist University July 22, 1986.

A medical examiner testified Harris had been stabbed at least 24 times in
an "overkill" and lost half of his blood supply in the attack. Part of the
knife blade was broken in the frenzy and was imbedded in the boy's body.

"This is one of those cases, if there was ever a death penalty case, in my
mind this is one," Day Haygood, one of the prosecutors at Jacobs' trial,
recalled this week. "The most horrific part was his father heard the boy
screaming and found Jacobs cutting him."

With Hugh Harris providing the eyewitness identification of Jacobs as his
son's killer, a Dallas County jury convicted Jacobs of capital murder and
decided he should be put to death.

"He's a brutal murderer without a conscience," Harris told The Dallas
Morning News in a story published Thursday. "I'll be satisfied to see the
circle closed."

Jacobs, who worked mostly as a dishwasher and had a criminal history of
violence with knives and razor blades, acknowledged he was in the Harris
house at 6:30 that morning but said another intruder in the house at the
same time was to blame for the killing.

"I'm going to get executed for something I didn't do," he said recently
from death row. "Somebody jumped me from behind... I left and went home. I
didn't know there was a murder until 3 days later."

The victim's stepmother, Holly Kuper, told authorities a man matching
Jacobs' description tried to push his way into her house the morning
before the murder but she managed to get the door locked and called
police.

"Our theory was Bruce came back the next night and meant to assault her
but the father was home and he just turned his attention to killing the
boy," Haygood said.

Harris and his wife gave police information for a sketch of the suspect
and a taxi driver told authorities the drawing looked like a customer he
had the morning of the killing. Jacobs was remembered for his beard and a
Panama hat that he wore.

Jacobs, still wearing the hat but recently shaven, was arrested inside a
convenience store.

At his Dallas apartment, police found a $100 bill identified as missing
from Kuper's purse. Jacobs' fingerprints were found on other knives at the
Harris home.

No late appeals to the courts were filed. Jacobs' lawyer said his client
was mentally ill but couldn't prove he was mentally retarded, which would
make him ineligible for execution under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last
year.

"He has this fantasy that somehow he had this relationship with the
victim's mother, which is simply not true," James Volberding said. "We
have never been able to get at the bottom of how his mind works or fails
to work. Although I'm convinced he's mentally ill, there's nothing I can
do to prove that that's sufficient to stop his execution."

When he was 14, an intelligence test put Jacobs' IQ at 77 while subsequent
testing over the years put his IQ somewhat higher. Someone with an IQ less
than 70 generally is considered retarded.

"People tell me I'm slow," Jacobs, a 10th-grade dropout, said from death
row.

At his trial, jurors heard from witnesses who told of Jacobs at age 16
stabbing a 12-year-old girl with a steak knife during an assault. While in
a juvenile lockup, he beat another person with an ax handle. In 1967, he
was taken into custody after holding a razor blade to a girl's neck during
a robbery. In the early 1970s, he served time in Oregon for assault and
was caught with a razor-tipped broom in his cell.


Jacobs becomes the 15th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas, and the 304th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982. At least 10 more condemned men have serious execution
dates between June 11 and August 7.

Jacobs becomes the 65th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since
Rick Perry Perry became governor in 2001.

Jacobs becomes the 33rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 853rd overall since America resumed executions on January
17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press)

GOD REST YOUR SOUL MR. JACOBS

Amen.... He IS in God's hands now.

:( :(

:( :(

May you rest in peace Mr Jacobs
Phil

:(

R.I.P., Mr. Jacobs. You're home now.

May God rest your soul

I received this via e-mail.... just thought I'd share
Joy


MICHAEL TONEY JOURNAL

May 12, 2003

Today, I had a brief face-to-face conversation with
Bruce Jacobs, a mentally ill man, who will probably be
executed on May 15th at 6 PM. I say "probably,"
because the only thing that can save him is a miracle
or an act of MERCY by our merciless governor. I
believe an act of mercy would be a miracle.

I hadn't seen Bruce in about a month, so I was shocked
by his haggard appearance. He's fifty-six years old,
but has aged twenty years in the last cruel and
incredibly short thirty days. Nothing prepared me for
his words that are likely to haunt me for the rest of
my life. He said, "Mike, I don't want to be
EVAPORATED. I'm scared." I was confused by his use of
the word "evaporated," so I asked him if he meant
"executed" to which he responded, "You told me it's
the same thing, that nothing cannot become something
and something cannot become nothing." When he said
that I realized what he was referring to and that I
had made a terrible mistake and am at least partially
responsible for this mentally retarded man's anguish.
In a previous conversation with him that had nothing
to do with execution, I failed to consider his mental
deficit and inability to understand what I was saying.
I had said something about it being physically
impossible for nothing to become something or for
something to become nothing. Bruce couldn't understand
what I was saying. So to explain in a way that I
thought he may understand, I said, "things only change
their form, but never cease to exist. I went on to
tell him to think about water and how it evaporates to
form clouds and eventually comes back as rain. Because
of my simple explanation, he concluded that he will be
EVAPORATED on May 15th and will go up into the clouds,
to Heaven, and will sometime in the future come back
to earth in another form. He couldn't comprehend that
I was referring to science not philosophy. Bruce said,
"If I won't be evaporated, but I won't be here anymore
where will I go, where will I be? You told me I
couldn't become nothing." I thought, how do I explain
death to a mentally retarded man? All I could say is,
"I don't know." I turned around to see the guards
coming to take me back to my cell. For the first time
in my life, I was glad to see prison guards.

I realize that nobody can truly have the answers to
Bruce's questions. We cannot understand or explain
death, especially to a mentally retarded person that
only has hours to live, but what impact does all of
this have on justice and society itself? If a man is
incapable of understanding that he is going to be
executed and that means, "put to death," how is he
capable of understanding the consequences of his
alleged actions?