Shraman Mitra
When Meghan Verikas met Dr. Leon Jacob for the first time, she believed she had found her perfect partner. Although Leon showed certain violent tendencies from the beginning, Meghan ignored them if that meant the two of them could live together. However, once she decided to break up, the threats and stalking got quite out of hand. ‘Dateline: Twisted in Texas’ chronicles the ordeal Meghan had to go through and even portrays how Leon was caught after planning to end his ex’s life for good.
Who Is Leon Jacob?
Before the whole ordeal, Leon Jacob was a pretty well-known doctor who worked for several top Houston hospitals and specialized in organ transplants. While Leon’s skill as a doctor was unquestionable, reports mention that he used to fall victim to sudden bouts of rage from time to time. Moreover, it was said that when Leon lost his temper, he had no control over his actions and would often turn extremely violent.
Incidentally, Leon and Meghan met sometime in 2014 in Pittsburgh, and the two were together for about three years. Although Meghan was quick to notice her then-boyfriend’s occasional violent streak, she chose to ignore it and believed it would go away. On top of it, mentioning it made Leon even angrier, and all she wanted was for both of them to remain happy. However, the situation got too challenging with time. Eventually, Meghan decided to break off the relationship in January 2017.
Unfortunately, Leon did not share the same view, and once he realized his requests would not hold Meghan back, he began falling back on his own violent ways. Back then, Meghan found work as a general manager in the hospitality sector and was determined to keep her personal issues out of the workplace. However, since Leon was unable to accept that the relationship had ended, he began stalking her incessantly and even turned up her work several times. In fact, in one instance, Megan found Leon hiding inside a bush, and he ambushed her as soon as she walked by.
Initially, Meghan was quite polite in asking Leon not to stalk her, but once her ex-boyfriend refused to comply, she was forced to get a restraining order against him. Yet, that did nothing to dissuade Leon as the stalking got worse, and the general manager even ended up receiving threatening emails and letters. On top of it, since she and Leon shared the lease on their apartment, he made it pretty difficult for her to opt out of it, dragging Meghan back into the mess she wanted to move on from.
However, Leon eventually realized that excessive stalking would result in him going to jail so opted to find a different solution. Besides, at that time, he had gotten into a relationship with veterinary doctor Valerie McDaniel, who was also eager to get rid of her ex. Hence, the pair decided that hiring a hitman to kill their exes would be the best solution to their problems. Yet, as fate would have it, the initial hitman they contacted seemed to disappear with the advance payment, and Leon asked bail bondsman Michael Kubosh to track him down.
When Michael got wind of the plot, he was determined not to let it get out of hand and soon approached authorities with the information. Subsequently, law enforcement officials tracked down the original person Leon had approached for the murder and together with him, conducted an undercover operation wherein they sent in an officer in the guise of a hitman to meet Leon and Valerie. Subsequently, authorities even made the couple believe their exes were killed before arresting them for solicitation of murder.
Leon Jacob is Behind Bars Today
While Valerie McDaniel ended up taking her own life a little over two weeks after her arrest, Leon was produced in court, where he pled not guilty to the charges against him. However, the jury was allowed to listen to the conversation tapes where the Houston-based doctor asked the undercover officer to kill Meghan in the worst way possible. Hence, he was convicted on two counts of solicitation of capital murder and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in 2018.
Interestingly, in 2019, Leon’s lawyers claimed that the indictment against him used the wrong initials for the victims, which might give them a platform for appeal. They even put in a petition to get the conviction overturned, but the court is yet to pass judgment on that matter. Meanwhile, Leon Jacob remains behind bars at the A. M. “Mac” Stringfellow Unit in unincorporated Brazoria County, Texas, with a parole eligibility date of 2047.
Read More: Where is Meghan Verikas Now?
