True Crime Campfire - Out of the Picture: A Story of Murder for Hire

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

It takes a special kind of narcissism to feel entitled to murder somebody. Especially when the motive is just to get them out of your way, because they’re inconveniencing you. And it takes an even bigger ego to decide that you’re not gonna do your dirty work yourself—you’re gonna outsource it instead. We’ve seen plenty of murder for hire schemes before on this show, and as you’ve probably noticed, they don’t tend to go real well. And you usually find, at their center, a person so self-involved that they view the world as their own personal chessboard to manipulate as they choose. What’s unusual about this week’s story is that it involves not one of these narcissistic little gremlins—but two. It offers us a tantalizing peek at what happens when two people get together to bring out each other’s darkest desires. Join us for the bizarre story of Drs. Leon Jacob and Valerie McDaniel, who conspired together to murder their exes. Although the plan was to eliminate two people, only one life was ultimately lost, and it's probably not the one you're expecting. CWs: Suicide, domestic violenceSources:https://www.cbsnews.com/video/operation-murder-1/#xhttps://www.peacocktv.com/watch/playback/vod/GMO_00000000375791_01/e01627d5-a717-34b3-8a7e-f64ffb972d60?paused=truehttps://abcnews.go.com/US/happened-bizarre-murder-hire-plot-led-veterinarians-suicide/story?id=54092867https://www.chron.com/news/article/Failed-Houston-doctor-Leon-Jacob-sentenced-to-12781963.phphttps://www.fox26houston.com/news/leon-jacob-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-in-murder-for-hire-casehttps://abc13.com/murder-for-hire-trial-case-plot-leon-jacob/3263581/https://media.click2houston.com/document_dev/2017/03/21/Leon%20Jacob%20Youngstown%20Hospital%201_9189482_ver1.0.pdfhttps://media.click2houston.com/document_dev/2017/03/21/Leon%20Jacob%20Ohio%20Burglary%203_9189481_ver1.0.pdfhttps://media.click2houston.com/document_dev/2017/03/21/Leon%20Jacob%20Divorce%204_9189477_ver1.0.pdfhttps://media.click2houston.com/document_dev/2017/03/21/Leon%20Jacob%20Harris%20County%20Assault%20Case%207_9189478_ver1.0.pdfFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. It takes a special kind of narcissism to feel entitled to murder somebody. especially when the motive is just to get them out of your way because they're inconveniencing you. And it takes an even bigger ego to decide that you're not going to do your dirty work yourself. You're going to outsource it instead.

We've seen plenty of murder-for-hire schemes before on this show, and as you've probably noticed, they don't tend to go real well. And you usually find, at their center, a person so self-involved that they view the world as their own person. chessboard to manipulate as they choose. What's unusual about this week's story is that it involves not one of these narcissistic little gremlins, but two. It offers us a tantalizing peak at what happens when two people get together to bring out each other's darkest desires. This is out of the picture, a story of murder for hire. So campers, for this one, we're in Houston, Texas, specifically the Shishi River Oaks neighborhood, one of the wealthiest communities in the whole state.

At 3 a.m. on Friday, March 10, 2017, police arrived at a 7th floor condo with some bad news for Valerie McDaniel, a successful veterinarian with her own practice. Valerie, looking scared and nervous, and who wouldn't be with four cops knocking on your door, at O Dark 30, listened as the sergeant told her that her ex-husband, Mack McDaniel, was dead, murdered, shot to death in what looked like a robbery gone wrong. Valerie put her head in her hands, crying, and stumbled back to sit down. Her doctor-boyfriend, Leon Jacobs, said, oh my God, holy shit, and sat down behind Valerie to comfort her. We've been here all day with their daughter, Leon said.

We've been watching movies. We haven't been out of the house all day. No one had asked him about their whereabouts. He just offered this all by himself, and, in general, bringing up unprompted alibis is a pretty good way to get investigators to take a good close look at you. But in this case, they didn't need to be any more suspicious. Houston PD had come to play, and a few moments later, Valerie McDaniel and Leon Jacob were both arrested for solicitation of capital murder. So how did we get here? Two smart, accomplished people in one of the most enviable zip codes in the U.S. for hiring a hitman to kill an ex. Valerie Busick was born in Houston in 1969, the daughter of high-achieving parents. They were both psychologists, and Valerie looked set to follow their high-flying

ways, valedictorian of her high school, sailing through college, and graduating as a doctor of veterinary medicine from Texas A&M University in 1997. She hit the ground running as a vet, and in 2000 became the owner of the Montrose Veterinary Clinic, which really seems to be a nice and much beloved clinic, and Valerie was popular too. She was a good vet, and if you share your life with animals, finding one of those a vet you can trust and rely on is like striking gold. So Valerie's career was in full swing, and for a good while it seemed that her personal life was also going great. She had met Marion Mack McDaniel in college. He was a tall, charming, good-looking Texas dude with a great smile, and Valerie fell for him hard. Luckily, it was mutual, and the two of them

got married right after graduation. Wealth has its privileges, obviously, and Valerie's psychologist parents were loaded. They bought the newlywed couple a gorgeous house, and hey, if you have it, why not spend your money on your family or friends? I'm just saying, must be nice. I was super stoked when we got my granddaddy's old Oldsmobile, like never mind a whole damn house. That thing was a disaster, but we did end up putting like 200,000 miles on it before it finally grabbed out on us. Mack also worked at the Montrose Clinic as the office manager, and together they took the practice from strength to strength. But things were not quite so rosy in their marriage.

They both worked long hours, and Mac liked to go out and do his own thing. Valerie was lonely and unhappy. One of the vets at her clinic said more than once Valerie would get a text or a phone call from Mac and just burst into tears. So a couple in an increasingly unhappy marriage, what's the dumbest thing they could do? we've seen this movie before folks they decided to have a kid now Valerie couldn't conceive so in 2008 they adopted a newborn baby girl but not long after they put their nuclear family together it started to detonate at work one morning Valerie got a call from a stranger a woman who said she had been mac's lover and if that wasn't shocking and awful enough the stranger listed off some other women she said mac had slept with including one of Valerie's best friends And if any of you heard charming, good-looking husband who likes to go out and do his own thing, and he went, huh, give yourself a gold star. Yeah.

And by the way, this is our second recent episode with a husband cheating with his wife's friend. Like, come on, ladies, keeping your pants. Hose before bros. Uteruses before deuteruses. Friends before rear ends. Oh, dear. and obviously Mac needs to keep in his pants first everybody just keep it in your pants just keep them zipped keep your genitals to yourself for god's sakes

Valerie confronted Mac and he admitted it but he promised he'd never ever ever do it again and eventually she forgave him hands up if you believe him campers oh wow that's that's not a lot of hands no and as a matter of fact it wasn't too long before Valerie came home early one day and caught mac making out with another woman in their own house which seems like a rookie move to me don't don't cheat you guys but if you have to can't you do it in a sleazy motel like a normal person like god intended This was the first time in their relationship that Valerie used the word divorce. Well, she didn't just use it.

She yelled it at Mack in their driveway at the top of her lungs. Fun afternoon for the neighbors, right? Like, I bet a bunch of people were out vacuuming their lawns and dusting their driveways that day. I sure would have been. I love when our neighbors fight is like, ooh, what's in about this time? They're spilling the tea. You do have neighbors that go to their front yard to argue, though, which is weird. We have a couple of them, a couple of couples that like to fight on the front lawn.

It's great. Ultimately, though, she forgave him again. But she had to know, along with everybody else on the street, that this marriage was circling the drain. And it probably crossed her mind at some point that her neighbor, Golda Jacob, was a prominent divorce attorney. Golda had a son, Leon, and it was around this time that he introduced himself to Valerie, just walked up to her one afternoon with a big smile on his face and stuck out his hand. Valerie would later describe him as, quote, the cockiest motherfucker I've ever met in my life. She thought he was arrogant and obnoxious at first, but as she got to know him,

she thought she saw a kinder, sweeter person behind all the bravado. And the attention from the handsome young man, eight years younger than she was, filled a void in Valerie's lonely life. The two of them became fast friends. So, we've got a lonely woman in an unhappy marriage with an attractive, confident new friend. If you're saying to yourself, I know where this is going. Well, you're not wrong, but we're not quite there yet. first let's take a closer look at this guy leon jacob who is he well first and foremost he's a crusty stain like you'd find under the rim of a gas station bathroom but we'll get to that in a minute like valerie leon was born into a rich accomplished family his mother like we said earlier was a successful attorney his father was a surgeon who died when leon was just thirteen leon says that was what inspired him to get in a medicine. He wanted to honor his dad. When he got to college, Leon met and married Annie Morrison.

They had two little boys while Leon got started in his medical residency, and Annie went to work as a lawyer. Now, Leon would later describe this as a happy, loving family, and we'll circle back to the specifics of why that's a steaming pile of horseshit later on. For now, just know that 11 years into their marriage, Annie filed for divorce on the grounds of extreme mental cruelty, and a year later, after they were divorced, Leon was arrested for stalking her. It was a good time for Leon to get the hell out of Dodge, and in 2014, he moved to a new residency up in Pittsburgh. Wait.

Are you saying he became a Pittsburgher? Yinser. It's Yinser. Remember, people emailed us about this. I still like Pittsburgh. Okay. So this was Leon's seventh residency, by the way. Now, being a doctor was a huge part of Leon's self-image and sense of self-importance.

Oh, boy, here we go. Yeah. This is a guy whose favorite way to start a sentence is as a physician. And he loved to brag about all the surgeries and procedures he desisted with. He thought that doctor was pretty much that apogee of all human existence and that anybody not smart and driven and hardworking enough to be one was basically just a poor, dumb, lazy schmuck. but you know seven Residencies The great doctor

How can I put this, wasn't He really wasn't very good at medicine Like at all In fact, I think seven residencies Should have legally required him To introduce himself to people As Leon Jacob failed doctor As a failed physician

It reminds me of Dr. Amy Bishop Harvard trained, right? Ooh, can we refer to him as Dr. Failure for the rest of the episode? Definitely. please do. So why was he so bad at it? Well, for one thing, Leon was arrogant and apparently found it impossible to get along with either co-workers or patients, which is bad enough, but it got worse. He was also unprofessional, lazy, and wouldn't know the truth if it's shit in his hair. Like, one time, he just didn't bother attending to one of his post-surgery patients, and the poor guy had to be re-intubated without Leon there. And then he lied to his superiors about what happened, because of fucking course he did. Not long after that, when Leon was preparing to assist in carotid artery surgery, he made mistakes in describing the basic procedures. Not only did he not know these already, which he should have done, but he hadn't

bothered to study them beforehand either. You know, it's not like the carotid artery is important or anything, right? No. This hospital canned him as an immediate threat to patient safety. Shortly after this, Leon got arrested for burglary for breaking into the home of one of the hospital administrators. Now, we don't know what this was about. There's not a lot about. the incident out there other than just a boilerplate indictment that says he broke in, but given what we'll soon learn about Leon's penchant for vengeance, it's creepy as hell. Like, what was he planning to do in there? God only knows, but I'm sure it wasn't good.

Remember Anthony Garcia from several episodes back? I fully agree. He was up to some nefarious shit. For sure. But at any rate, he pled out on a criminal trespass charge, and then he got the hell out of town. Again, ideally, all this would be the kind of. a thing that means you don't get to be a doctor anymore. But as we've seen time and time again, hospitals are incredibly resistant to pull the trigger on ending a medical career,

even of a dangerous buffoon like Leon the peon Jacob, aka Dr. Failure. Despite his many humiliating failures, Leon sailed into Pittsburgh like he was God's gift to the scalpel, breezing into a downtown hotel and asking for their best suite, because, you know, he was a doctor. And as a physician, he was going to need their best room. One of the managers at this hotel was a pretty blonde 30-something named Megan Veracos, and her first impression of Leon was that he was a big-headed blow-hard, not somebody she wanted to know at all. But as would be the case with Valerie a few years later,

in time Megan came to think that all this bluster was just a front, laid over a more vulnerable and kinder true self, which it absolutely was not. Campers learned to trust those first instincts. The fact is, Megan had caught Leon's eye, and he was turning on the charm. He exaggerated his career, telling her he was a transplant surgeon, and the two of them connected over their romantic woes.

Megan's marriage had also recently fallen apart. And soon enough, cue up the saxophone music, things got romantic, and Leon and Megan were a newly minted couple. Yeah, a bit of relationship advice. I'm still single, by the way. Just, you know, keeping you updated. If somebody is only nice to people they want to fuck, they're not nice. And if you've been the, like, whatever, the friend of somebody that, you know, they don't need to impress anymore, their reaction to you is very telling.

But anyway, absolutely agree. Not long after Leon was headed back to Houston, he asked Megan to come with him. They had not been together long, and this was a big, scary step forward. for her, but she'd been in Pittsburgh, a yinzer, her whole life, and she was eager for a change. She said yes, and the two of them headed to Texas. Megan liked Houston a lot, and right away, she set about building a new life for herself. She got a job in hotel sales, got an apartment for herself in Leon, got a dog, and made a new friend at work, Ariel.

And she hit it off with Leon's millionaire family, too, who welcomed her with open arms. Leon opened a bank account for them under both their names, which is a red flag in a newish relationship, but when the guy comes from a wealthy family, I guess it's easy to shrug off. Like, why would he need my money? Of course, for abusers, access to a partner's finances is not just about dollars and cents. It's about control, something that was hugely important to Leon. But Megan didn't know that yet. She thought Leon putting their finances together was a sign he cared about her.

For now, the only real fly in their Chardonnay was that Leon, without a license to practice medicine in Texas, wasn't working. When Megan would say something like, okay, but couldn't you get a job as a surgical assistant, Leon would snap back. You don't understand what it's like to be a doctor. You can't just take any job. My dude, you have no job. And your girlfriend's bust in her ass to support you both. Maybe dial it back as coach on the sacred. holy doctor stick and do some actual work?

A doctor could never lower himself to the position of an assistant. Assistant is in the name. This was a relatively minor frustration, though, until one night when they were over at Leon's mom's house, and Megan wondered out loud why Leon wasn't working. Leon turned frosty cold in an instant and said, we're going to talk about this when we get home. Leon's version of talking about this when we get home was tearing through Megan's closet in a rage and throwing her clothes out onto the balcony. Megan was shocked. This was a totally new side of her boyfriend. She loved the guy. She'd been planning on building a life with him. And all

of a sudden, here he was acting like a furious lunatic. It was like he was a damn werewolf or something. Leon was a world-class shithel, but he wasn't stupid. He knew he was kind of a fuck up, although you could put thumb screws on the guy and he'd never admit it. And as we've seen any number of times on True Crime Campfire, if you have a guy with a massive ego and a lifetime of failure, that's a pressure cooker. Leon was just bubbling with anger and frustration, and anybody who drew attention to his failings could be in major trouble, especially if they did it in front of his high-achieving family like Megan had. For guys like Leon, shame and embarrassment transmute really easily into rage. Poor babies. Can't self-regulate or control themselves like toddlers.

After that night, the relationship between Leon and Megan deteriorated fast. Pretty much every day, Leon would find a new reason to be angry with Megan. He'd verbally abuse her, calling her stupid and low class, like a fucking villain in an 80s movie. And he liked to throw things at her. one time he threw the spittoon he'd used for his chewing tobacco which just ugh god can you imagine that nasty shit all over you that right there's enough to get him a spot in line for the wood chipper but like clockwork right after these dramatic ragey scenes would come the other side of the crappy relationship coin he would beg for forgiveness tell her how much he loved her

say that she was the only good thing in his life and he swore he'd changed this time he really really would. Now, it's easy to say that Megan should have gotten the hell out of there, but it's not so easy to free yourself from a toxic relationship. She loved him. She wanted to believe him, and his teary remorse just broke her heart every time. But the straw that broke the camel's back came one night in January 2017, when Megan got home late from work. Leon was already raging, God knows why, and started shouting that he was tired of her attitude and her pissy face, and that he was not putting up with her shit. She left, but when Liam was, Leon called and apologized, she went back.

And almost right away, when he was unloading the dishwasher, he started throwing the dishes around. Crash, crash, crash, crash. And then he threw a full glass of wine right at her. Megan ran into the bathroom, and he chased after her and started throwing stuff around in there, too, yelling that his family was going to ruin her. Again, 80s movie villain shit.

Megan started screaming, because of course she did. This is terrifying. And Leon grabbed her face in his hands and squeezed, shouting, shut up, you dumb cunt, as he busted her. her upper lip. Megan did the smart thing. She bit his damn hand to make him let her go and then she got out of there, grabbed the dog, and ran for the car. Leon followed her, yanking on the car door and saying he'd punch in the window if she didn't give him the dog. He took the dog and Megan just fled. The next day at work, her friend Ariel knew right away that something was wrong. Megan was wound up

tighter than a bowstring and her face had blotchy marks from where Leon had grabbed her. When they were alone in an office, Megan finally spilled the truth about how bad things had gotten with Leon, something Ariel had no idea about until this moment. Which sadly isn't unusual. A lot of people in abusive relationships keep the truth hidden from their friends and family just for all kinds of reasons. They might be embarrassed, they might be scared to involve anybody else, whatever. All through this conversation, Megan's phone was blowing up with a stream of calls, emails, and texts from Leon. His messages were erratic and weird. In one, he'd be proclaiming his love for her and sending a picture of the wedding ring he was going to buy for her, and when that didn't get a response, the next message he'd be calling her dumb and saying he wanted nothing to do with her.

Megan texted him to leave her alone. And then, she got a hunch and checked their bank account, the joint account Leon had opened when they first arrived in Houston, and found he'd taken almost all the money. When she went to the apartment to pick up her things, all her furniture was gone. We don't know whether Leon sold this stuff or just chucked it out of spite, but I suspect the former. Leon's family might have had buckets of money, but it was humiliating for him to go to mommy and ask for help. And apparently, he didn't need to. Our boy had a talent for finding women who were able and willing to pay his bills. Megan applied for a protective order against Leon and filed a police complaint for assault.

A couple days later, before the protective order had gone into effect, she pulled out after work and saw Leon in his car right behind her. She sped through downtown Houston, but Leon stayed right behind her. And then he cut her off, forcing her to stop. He jumped out and stood in front of her car, saying she'd made a huge mistake and that he loved her, because nothing says true love quite like a high-speed chase, right? Be still my heart. Megan managed to scoot by him and get out of there, but Leon still wouldn't let go.

He kept showing up at the hotel where she worked, calmly and persistently asking to see her and creep in everybody the fuck out. when the hotel banned him from their property he'd hang around outside the parking lot across the street had this low hedge between it and the road and leon would just kind of lurk behind there dude apparently thought crouching behind shrubbery could make him invisible despite his ninja stealth skills when megan's friend ariel came out of work she saw him immediately she yelled do you know we can see you and charged across the street shouting go away leave her alone bad ass bitch, our girl Ariel. Good for her. Leon was arrested for assault, but bailed out almost immediately. Two weeks later, Leon and Megan were both in court as the judge considered her application for a protective order. The judge granted the order. Then right away had Leon arrested for stalking. And it was while watching Leon being read his rights, which must have been so

satisfying, that Megan spotted somebody she knew in the gallery. Valerie McDaniel. Valerie and Leon had already been friends when Leon and Megan first met. Valerie would often visit, bringing her daughter along. She and Megan weren't close, but they were friendly. Megan thought she was nice, and she never caught a whiff of anything other than friendship between Leon and Valerie. But now, in court, the two of them were acting very much like a couple. Megan would later find out that Valerie even posted Leon's veil.

campers is it a bad sign when you have to bail out your new boyfriend for stalking the woman he was dating three weeks ago i feel like it is yeah well not for Valerie apparently she was wearing her rose tinted glasses so that those red flags just looked like flags she'd finally filed for divorce from mac in 2014 citing his infidelities and this divorce had been finalized in 2016 after which Valerie moved into a swanky seventh-floor condo in River Oaks. And it looks like Leon made his move to change his and Valerie's friendship into something romantic pretty much right after Megan walked out on him. I mean, the NARCs got a monkey branch into the new relationship to get the bills paid. That's right. Now, Valerie would later remember this as a great lovey-dovey moment.

But to me, it seems like Leon made a calculated move to pursue, someone lonely, vulnerable, and wealthy. He moved into Valerie's condo almost immediately. And while Valerie was happy with her new relationship, her friends weren't so sure about Leon. For one thing, they hardly saw her once she got together with this guy.

It was all Leon all the time. He even started answering her phone for her. So right away, he's isolating her from her support system. Welcome to Red Flagapalooza. And it wasn't only in the romance department that Leon was moving fast. Right after the initial arrest, a mutual acquaintance introduced him to a guy named Taz Azza.

Taz was a former U.S. Army soldier and a private investigator who'd had some low-key run-ins with the law. And Leon, like many, many other rich pricks we've seen, conflated working class with misdemeanor theft on his record with willing to kill for money. Right. See, his arrest and likely conviction was going to be a big problem for Leon. Specifically, it was going to be a big problem for his ongoing fantasy of being a successful and respected surgeon. Leon, you ridiculous foam-headed Muppet, that ship has already sailed, sunk, and been taken over by creepy eels. You were never going to be a great surgeon because you are an inept fool who's been fired from six different residences. But when did a narcissist ever let reality get in his way?

Leon thought that if Megan were unable to testify against him, all his problems would vanish. So with very little prompting, he made Taz a little proposition. Taz would kidnap Megan, and once he had her, there were two options to try. Option one was, I should you not, talk her into taking Leon back. Yeah, let that sink in, campers. Leon's brain was so fried with anger and ego that he thought Megan would listen to relationship advice from her kidnapper. Tude, she's going to know you put the guy up to it. Like, what future are you imagining for the two of you here?

You're both in your 60s, like sitting in a swing chair, watching the grandkids play on the beach, and she turns to you and tenderly says, honey, the day you had me violently abducted and terrorized into coming back to you was the happiest day of my life. for god's sake yeah despite the fact that there's an entire genre of romance novels about this very thing it's an incredibly unromantic thing to do okay we're gonna have to circle back to that at some point because what yeah yeah mafia romance mafia romance okay we'll circle back uh huh option two was a little less batshit crazy although i admit it's a low bar Kaz would abduct Megan and scare her into running running back to Pittsburgh and not having anything to do with any legal proceedings against Leon. Okay. So then, Taz asked about an option three. Well, what if he abducted her and she refused

to either run back into Leon's arms or go back to Pittsburgh? Well, then, Leon said Taz would have to kill her. Now, it's clear that Taz Aza never had any intention of hurting or abducting Megan, but he did realize that standing in front of him was a big, rich sucker, and that he could make some easy money here. So he told Leon he would do the job. Leon paid him with $9,000 in cash and two Cartier watches, which is just the boosiest thing I've ever heard in my life. Jesus Christ. For his part, Taz took the money and vanished. He stopped taking Leon's calls. I mean, what's Leon going to do? Go to the cops and say his hitman defrauded him? Not so much. Of course, what Taz could have done is go straight to the cops and say, this guy just tried to hire me to kill his ex-girlfriend, but he didn't

do that. So I don't think we can give the guy too much. credit. You don't get many points for just not kidnapping and murdering somebody. Not exactly the hero Gotham needs here, are you, Taz? So as his court date approached and with his purported hitman going dark on him, Leon was getting Nancy. He needed to find Taz, and he had an idea about who could help him. This was Michael Kubosh, a bail bondsman that Leon had become acquainted with following his own arrest. So one day, Leon marched into Kubosh's office, didn't say hi or shake his hand or anything and said he needed help finding Taz. He told Kubosh he'd paid Taz a lot of money to take care of something. And when Kubosh, who was not born yesterday, smelled shenanigans all over

that sentence and said, take care of what? Leon showing all the common sense of a cobra moving into a new house on Mungoose Lane told him, well, you know, I really need Megan either scared back to Pittsburgh or otherwise put out of the picture. I mean, I'm a doctor. I can't have her testifying against me. My dude. Holy shit on a dumpling. Now, why Leon felt he could spill this to Kubosh is a complete mystery to me.

I mean, a bail bondsman certainly knows a lot of criminals, true, but he's not a criminal. So, I don't know. Like, maybe the stress Leon was under was just way, way, like, exacerbating his natural tendency to run his mouth and play the big man, or maybe he just thought every man would understand and sympathize with this plight, because, you know, bitches, man, am I right?

I mean, you can't scream at them, throw glass at them, humiliate them, physically hurt them without them going crazy and trying to leave you or tell people about all the ways you abuse them. What the hell? Sure Shale FM. So whatever his reasons, though, he'd most definitely chosen the wrong guy to confide in. Michael Kubosh was a city councilman and good friends with the chief of police and Leon's tirade made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He realized right away that this was not a job. joke. Leon genuinely meant Megan harm, and as soon as a city it was out of his office, Kubosh called up his buddy the chief. So Megan, bless her heart, who had just gotten the protective order that she was hoping might bring some degree of normalcy back to her life, got a call from police saying there was a credible threat against her. When they met up with her the next day, they told her what Leon was up to. And although she was scared, she wasn't really surprised. When the investigators suggested she had back to Pittsburgh for a little while, she didn't hesitate. She was like, oh, yeah, I'm on my way.

So with Megan safe for the moment, investigators quickly turned their attention to locating Taz. After a few days, they brought him in and quickly realized that he'd just been playing Leon for money. But Taz told them he thought Leon was serious about getting Megan out of the way. And when the officers suggested he helped them nab the guy, he agreed. Taz called Leon and set up a meeting for the next day, saying he was going to bring along the guy he would actually do the dirty work. This, of course, would be an undercover police officer. As we have said, many, many, many times before,

it's almost always an undercover police officer. Unless, of course, it's Jeff. But his waiting list is like 10 years long at this point. So, yeah, undercover cop. But just as the call was wrapping up, Leon dropped a bombshell. All right. I'll be Taz with you be Leon. Okay. We're taking care of both problems?

What problems? Both of the individuals we're talking about. Valerie wants to talk to you about what she wants done with her ex-husband. That's right, campers. Leon's new girlfriend, mild-mannered and beloved veterinarian, Valerie McDaniel, wanted her ex-husband Mac rubbed out. And before we get into the whys and wherefores of that, I just want to point out what a flaming, fucking dumbass Leon is. He clearly thought he was being

super smart in circumspect by avoiding talking about specific details, talking about problems, and individuals like he's building up some kind of plausible deniability. And then he goes in and throws, Valerie wants to talk to you about what she once done with her

ex-husband. Dude, you're a fucking moron. So there were several reasons why both Valerie and Leon might want Mack McDaniel out of the picture. One, of course, was simple revenge. Mack had cheated on Valerie, broken her heart, and tore up their marriage. Also, during their divorce, a court had ordered her to buy out Mack's stake in the vet

clinic for over a million dollars, which must have just chapped her ass. Plus, with Mac gone, Valerie would have full custody of their daughter, and that was about to become an urgent issue. To understate things considerably, Mack was not very happy to learn that Valerie's new live-in boyfriend, who was also living with Mack's young daughter, had just been arrested for assault in stalking. An understandable reaction. Leon was bad news.

So Mac told Valerie she could either kick Leon out or Mac would bring this up at their next custody hearing. Valerie agreed that Leon would move out, but then just completely ignored this agreement. And Mack had just found out that Leon was still living there. So to Valerie, Mack was threatening to take their daughter away. And Leon could easily foresee a future where a court told Valerie to choose between him and her kid. He was going to lose that one and lose his new meal ticket. The next day, Taz and the undercover officer met Leon and Valerie at Olive Garden.

Making this the second time that fine establishment has come up on. our show. When you're there, you're family. And hopefully not planning a murder for hire. Yeah, you know, it's weird to me picking Olive Garden for like a murder plotting session. I really feel like that's more of a Texas roadhouse type conversation or at the very least of Chili's. Yeah. I mean, supposedly Jeff really likes to use Ruby Tuesdays. Like, he loves the loaded cheese fries. Oh, he doesn't. Now, the undercover posing as the hitman still does undercover work, so we can't its real name. Forty-eight hours called him Detective Javier, so we're just going to do the same thing. The whole meeting, of course, was recorded. Detective Javier was hoping to get audio evidence that

these two dipsets really did intend for both their exes to die, and to arrange payment for the hits. At the start of the meeting, Leon was kind of soft-pedaling it, saying he didn't want Megan to get hurt, but that she had to go back to Pittsburgh and skip any Houston court dates. But as the meal went on and the four of them tested just how endless those endless breadsticks can be, Leon started to push a little harder. Javier was to make it clear to Megan that if she didn't listen, there would be severe consequences. Javier could plant cocaine in her car, Leon suggested, an anonymous tip to the cops, and suddenly Megan was no longer a credible witness against him. Or Javier could inject her with potassium chloride. It would stop her heart, Leon said.

When Javier asked whether Leon could provide the potassium chloride, he said Valerie could get it from the pharmacy at the vet clinic. And Valerie didn't protest. Apparently, she was all in. Leon told Javier he'd prefer not to go the lethal injection route. What a champ. But he left that door swinging wide open, just in case it was necessary. My survival is more important, he told Javier.

So he'd prefer it if Megan didn't get murdered. But, you know, if Javier had to kill her, here were detailed instructions on how to do it. And also, Leon and Valerie were willing to supply the necessary poison. Again, you've got Leon thinking he's so damn. But, Your Honor, I specifically said I'd prefer she not be murdered, while simultaneously, giving the cops everything they could possibly need to convict him. Ugh, don't fake hitman take preferences into account anymore?

What is this town coming to? I don't know what it is about this guy, but I just want to hold him by his ankles and shake all the loose change out of his pockets. I would love to see that. Later into the dinner, when Leon and Taz went out to smoke, Valerie spoke to Javier about what might happen to her ex-husband Mac, and it was clear she was fully committed to his murder. She suggested he might have a boating accident or a car wreck. Javier suggested they keep things simple.

He would carjack Mack and shoot him twice in the head. They'll think it was a robbery, he told her. Detective Javier wanted to make sure he had Valerie committing to the murder on record. He gave her a chance to back out. You need to give me the go-ahead, he said. There's no going back on this, okay? Valerie plunged right in. What other option do I have?

she said, he's going to take my daughter. So, not only going all in with the murder for hire, but neatly wrapping up her motive, too. These recordings are chilling, by the way. Leon was all bluster and bullshit, just like he always was, but Valerie was just ice cold. And remember, she was not only signing up to kill Mack,

against whom she had a boatload of grudges, but Megan, too. And this was somebody she knew and had been friendly with, a young woman who'd never done her the slightest wrong. But Leon wanted her dead, so Valerie just kind of placidly went along. Doesn't seem like she even gave it much thought, honestly. Now, investigators already had enough to put the old habeas gravis on this pair of chuckleheads, but they really wanted to make

their case as tight as possible. For that, they needed the post-hit payment to be made, and came up with an elaborate plan to convince Leon and Valerie that their exes were dead. Police always love their amateur dramatics in these attempted murders for hire, and I mean, who can blame them, really? They get to save two lives, put a couple of massive flaming assholes in jail plus, practice their acting skills. What's not to live? So they called Megan Beck from Pittsburgh and took her to a junkyard. And there she saw a familiar face, Mack McDaniel, Valerie's ex-husband. The plan was this.

They would stage two crimes, a murder for Mack and an abduction for Megan, and get pictures. With these, they would convince Leon and Valerie that the assassinations had been carried out and record both the reactions and their payments for services rendered. Mack was gung-ho about the whole thing from the start. They got some gnarly-looking shots of him slumped over his steering wheel with pig's blood all over the back of his head and shoulders. They figured that since Leon was technically a doctor, sort of, they needed to make the picks as convincing as possible. Although, I'm of the opinion that he would have noticed, so whatever. The plan with Megan was to get pictures of her tied to a chair with duct tape over her mouth.

Leon wanted Javier to abduct her and scare her into leaving town first and kill her if that didn't work. The pictures would show the first stage of that. Megan did not enjoy this experience at all, which I guess is understandable. If you've spent the last few weeks terrified that your psycho ex is going to kill you, like she was crying as the investigators tied her to the chair and wrapped duct tape around her mouth. And while I'm sure that sucked horribly for her, it did make for really convincing photos. Yeah, this poor girl, she was so upset on that episode of 48 hours. You could really feel how raw the whole thing still was for her,

that she had really loved this asshole at one point, and then this shit happened. And when they were staging her fake abduction, I think it just all hit her, like a wrecking ball. This could have been real. Like, this man that she'd wanted to build a life with could have actually had her murdered. It's just horrible, but Megan was incredibly brave through the whole thing, and we have mad respect for her for that. Absolutely.

Okay. So while all this was being set up, Leon kept badgering Javier over the phone to hurry things up, still playing the game of really obvious euphemisms. He'd say, like, we just want these two situations taken care of immediately. Settle man. Well played. And he got his wish. Later that day, Javier went over to Valerie's condo to tell her and Leon that Mac was dead.

Campers, is it smart to invite her for professional killers into your home? I'm not sure that's smart. Maybe stick to Olive Garden after all. Yeah. And of course, Detective Hitman Javier got the whole thing on audio. He's gone. He's done, he told him.

He offered to show them pictures of Max's dead body, but neither Leon nor Valerie wanted to look, which has got to be kind of a bummer for whoever at the Houston PD spent so long getting that bloody head wound looking just right, Like, oh, man, worked really hard on that. Right. In fact, Leon seemed completely indifferent to Max Death.

He just wanted to bitch some more about Megan. She grew up sort of middle, lower middle class, he told Javier. This girl, she doesn't understand my world. And there y'all were thinking you couldn't hate this guy anymore and you already did. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, your world of never being told no and getting. everything you ever wanted handed to you. What a fucking difficult to understand position to be in. Fuck. Jesus Christ. God.

Javier told Leon he planned to kidnap Megan the following day, and if she refused to leave town, he would kill her. He made it crystal clear that he thought the most likely outcome was that Megan would die. If Leon wanted to back out, now was the time. But no. He gave Javier $1,800 in partial payment with another $8,000 to come when the business with Megan was resolved. In fact, Leon offered to show up once Megan had been abducted if Javier needed him. Oh my God, that's creepy. What could Javier possibly need Leon for in that situation? Like nothing whatsoever, right? This was Leon wanting to be directly involved, I think. Just wanting to be there when Megan was terrified and about to die. This dude is scary. The next day, Javier texted Leon

a picture of Megan, weeping, tied and duct tape to a chair. Leon didn't respond, so a little later, Javier called him and said she was becoming uncontrollable and refusing to leave down. Leon said he didn't want her hurt, but, you know, if she was going to go to the cops. 20 minutes later, Javier called back. She's dead, he said. Oh, you already took care of it? Leon said, yep. Just a few hours after this, we catch up to where we were at the start of the story, with investigators showing up at Valerie's condo at 3am to tell her the sad news of her ex-husband's murder, and then, after some pretty shitty, oh, calamity-style acting from Leon and Valerie, arresting them both for a solicitation of capital murder.

I wish I could have seen the looks on their faces when the detectives told our dynamic duo that their exes were still alive and well, that, in fact, Mac was waiting just down the hall, ready to take his daughter home once the police took Valerie away. Leon, of course, already had pending charges related to Megan, so there was no chance in hell of him making bail. But Valerie did make hers, and she went home to wait things out. She couldn't work because her veterinary license was suspended due to the charges against her. Her friends and family all rallied around with lots of supportive calls and messages.

And given that Valerie was accused of arranging to have two people brutally murdered, that might seem kind of odd, but think about it. If it was a good friend of yours, somebody that you couldn't imagine get involved in something like this, wouldn't you support them? Wouldn't you think there must be more to the story? I think I would, at least until I saw some kind of hard evidence to the contrary. And Valerie needed her friends. She was clearly depressed. Co-workers at her clinic came around to try and cheer her up. As they left, one of the vets hugged Valerie goodbye. Later, she said that her friend's eyes seemed empty of life. Valerie started recording an audio diary on her iPad, over the

course of a few days, basically summing up her entire adult life, up to and including her arrest. It really sounds like sort of a wrap-up, an attempt to put everything neatly in order, and if that's got you thinking, uh-oh, then yeah, you're right. Two days after she finished this recording, Valerie McDaniel climbed onto the railing of the balcony in her seventh-floor condo and threw herself off, dying instantly as she hit the ground. And even given the severity of her crime, it's hard not to have a little sympathy for Valerie here. Her life had become painful and lonely, and then in swoops this handsome young charmer, love bombing her into the stratosphere, moving in right away, filling every little corner of her life.

For most of us, it's hard to imagine, but we've seen it plenty of times on TCC that someone in that situation can be pushed and pushed pretty quickly into doing things they never would have imagined themselves doing before. I mean, remember Dyson Koft and Linda Henning? How Linda had only known the guy for four weeks before she helped him kill his ex-wife? It's wild. but it happens. For his part, Leon played the grieving lover, but not very convincingly. In one recorded jailhouse phone call with his mom,

he told her why he'd agreed to do a post-arrest interview with a local reporter. Look her up, he said, she's cute. She looks like Valerie did when she was younger. She's really hot, actually. I know my wife's dead and I have to mourn her, but this one is cute. How, wow, wow.

Calling this guy a shit stain is an insult to shit stains. And by the way, she wasn't your wife. You fucking swamp fungus. She was a woman you dated for like two months in which time you managed to absolutely break and ruin her. Use the rage, campers, channel into something productive. Use the rage.

For Leon, Valerie's death was also an opportunity. Now that she wasn't around to defend herself, he and his defense team could run with the idea that the whole messy murder-for-hire business had been her idea all along. she was the one supplying the money after all, you know, because she had money and Dr. Failure was a big mooching waste of skin cells.

Leon also wanted the jury to know just how cleverly he'd avoided saying the words, I want you to kill Megan Vericus. After all, he had only been recorded talking about individuals and business and whatnot because Because he saw half of Goodfellas and thought that would work. Would it work? Would the jury buy this? No. No, they would not.

In fact, it took them just an hour in 15 minutes to find Leon Jacob guilty on two counts of solicitation of capital murder. That's like lightning fast. Oh, yeah. The same jury that convicted Leon would decide his sentencing. And to make sure they knew exactly who they were dealing with, the prosecution, the prosecutor brought in Annie Morrison to testify. Annie, remember, was Leon's ex-wife. This was the 11-year marriage that Leon described as a happy, loving family.

None of the other women in this story had spent as much time with Leon as Annie had, and she had some stories to tell. Annie described a harrowing catalog of abuse and assault. One time, when they were fighting, he pulled a razor on her, threatened to kill her. in front of their three-year-old child. Another time, he pushed her head down onto the countertop, giving her a black eye. When she was seven months pregnant, he tried to kick her in the stomach, hitting her legs instead when she drew them up to protect herself. If she left him, Leon said he would kill her, and that nobody would find her body

because he would dissolve it in chemicals. Charming. When she did leave, moving to her parents' place in Chicago, he bombarded her with threatening calls. Threatened her parents, too. Annie recorded one of these calls, which the jury heard, and it was a doozy. I will torture them in front of you. Leone said, do you understand me, you fucking bitch? I will cut your fucking father's balls off and your mother's fucking head off. Damn, he's a peach this guy. Good gravy. Oh, scary. Mm-hmm. The jury made even quicker work of Leon's sentencing than they did with his

conviction. It took them only an hour to sentence him to life in prison. He'll be eligible for parole in 2047, by which time he'll be 69 years old. And I'm guessing the parole board will also hear that terrifying phone call, and others. So I don't think much of his chances. During her victim impact statement, Megan Veracos told Leon the peon, while you sit in jail, I hope you think of me, the girl you called poor and uneducated, because it's because of me. that you will be in prison for life. Or in the immortal and profound words of Nelson months from the Simpsons, ha ha!

So that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Sir Liseiracha, awesome name, Kaylee, Kate, Colette, Angel, Brian, Meg, Tanya, Megan, and Abby. We appreciate you to the moon and back.

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