By Jerome Burdi, Sun Sentinel
January 23, 2010
Wellington
A man shot his wife and twin sons to death within hours of the boys' scheduled birthday party in a high-end gated community sometime Friday night or Saturday morning, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and neighbors said.
Investigators learned of the case through the perpetrator. About 7 a.m. Saturday, the man crashed his GMC Envoy SUV on the side of the road on U.S. 441 north of Atlantic Avenue, west of Delray Beach. When paramedics came to his rescue, he told them he killed his family.
The suspect was taken to Delray Medical Center. Deputies went to his home in on South Sea Court in The Isles at Wellington off Lake Worth Road and U.S. 441. In the home were the bodies of the elementary school-age boys and the woman.
Authorities have not identified the suspect or those dead. According to property records, the couple who owns the home is Neal and Franki Jacobson. Neal Jacobson, 49, was mortgage broker in New Jersey before moving to Florida.
Family friend Laurie Norton said Jacobson left a successful mortgage business to care for his sick father. But she said his Florida business attempts flopped and Jacobson became despondent.
"I told him last month 'You've got to get those guns out of the house,' but he never responded," Norton said. "I saw in his eyes that there was nothing left to him."
Despite adoring children and a good marriage, all Jacobson could see was an inferior life to the one his family had in New Jersey.
"He worked and worked and worked and nothing ever paid off," Norton said. "All he could say is, 'I just did so many stupid things.'"
Records as of November show him as president of HGH Organics Corp., a company that sells human growth hormone. He also is a board member of the Jewish Community Center in Wellington.
Franki Jacobson, 53, described herself as a writer and illustrator on a social networking website. Her children's book Green Bean's Birthday Party was published in December.
Neighbors gathered nearby the home in puzzlement Saturday morning, saying Jacobson was a talkative type. They saw him playing tag football with his boys several days ago. He had no criminal record and there were no domestic filings against him in the county, state records show.
The couple purchased their $765,798 home in March 2005 and owed $10,382 in taxes by March, records show.
Jamie McAnly, 31, was headed to work on U.S. 441 Saturday morning when she saw the GMC Envoy being driven strangely. The driver "looked drunk or drugged," McAnly said.
The suspect's SUV crossed onto the median, she said, then drove south in the northbound lanes before going off the road and crashing.
Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.
Jerome Burdi can be reached at jburdi@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6531.
Copyright © 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
I am so sorry for this family. I hope those left behind will suffer as little as possible as I know the pain of such grief is horrendously great. It is the most difficult thing to get past. May they all pass through the coming weeks, months, & years to come to an eventual peace of mind.
ReplyDeleteI the 'hungry monster' of the press; hankering to up their ratings; will leave them alone and let them heal.
Why can't these people just kill themselves and be over with it? They constantly want to take others with them. Apparently they are level headed enough to not kill themselves or bring company when the so-call snap and want to kill themselves. Cowards...SMH...SPK in MIA...
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