Brutal 1991 Sacramento killings remain unsolved, but details are still emerging

Lynette Schroedle thought she might still have a Scholastic book order her student Jennifer Jacobs never received.

Schroedle, 82, was a fourth-grade teacher at Crocker/Riverside Elementary School in Land Park in January 1991 when Jennifer, 9, her mother Marcy Jacobs, 31, and her adoptive father Michael Jacobs, 33, were found dead at their home at 522 Robertson Way, one street from the school.

Schroedle has kept a number of mementos from her teaching career in the garage of her Roseville home, such as Freeport Bakery gift certificates her students had given her. And two or three times over the years she said she had run across Jennifer’s book order and the check Marcy Jacobs provided that was never cashed. Asked why she held onto the order so long, Schroedle replied, “It was the only thing I had.”

Jennifer had been a bright student and an avid reader. Schroedle remembered how Jennifer’s classmates reacted to her death, placing notes on her desk. Soon, Crocker/Riverside would hold a schoolwide memorial service during which schoolmates read a poem about Jennifer and the children sang her favorite song, “Rainbow Connection.”

Thirty-five years on, the killing of the Jacobs family remains unsolved. Police have never named a suspect or been known to make an arrest in connection with the case.

But the slayings still haunt those with memories of what occurred. John Cabrera, 75, who investigated the killings for the Sacramento Police Department, has never forgotten the case. Family and friends still talk fondly of the Jacobs and become emotional talking about them.

The story of the Jacobs killing is a complicated one, involving Sacramento friendships, drugs and continuing mystery. Even now, though, information is emerging.

Discovery of the bodies

The bodies of Michael, Marcy and Jennifer Jacobs were discovered on Jan. 14, 1991, a Monday. Marcy Jacobs had been employed at the California Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement. Her coworkers became concerned after she didn’t show up for work and calls to her house went unanswered, according to news stories from that time.

Don Peri was an analyst in the director’s public information office of the DOJ. He had served on an employee committee with Marcy Jacobs and volunteered with her at Tahoe Park Elementary School.

Peri, now 76, keeps a framed photo in his Davis home of himself, Marcy Jacobs and other people with whom they worked. They were dressed in costume to celebrate Mickey Mouse’s 60th birthday in November 1988. Marcy Jacobs, like Peri, is dressed as a Mouseketeer.

“I remember her as a good person, a kind person,” Peri said. “When she was killed, I thought, ‘I just saw her a week ago and she asked me if my daughter enjoyed her Christmas.’”

The day the bodies were found was gloomy and overcast with a chance of rain, said Cabrera, who was Sacramento Police’s initial lead on the case.

Cabrera reached the scene sometime before noon on Jan. 14. It had been taped off. Officers briefed him. He learned Jennifer’s and Marcy Jacobs’ bodies had been found in the house, while Michael Jacobs’ body was found in the garage. Each had been shot at least once, with Marcy Jacobs also stabbed, according to news coverage.

Murder-suicide was quickly ruled out. While neighbors “had heard the Jacobs arguing over the weekend,” as coverage by The Sacramento Bee noted, no weapons were found near the bodies.

Cabrera had served on the force since the mid-1970s and been to other morbid scenes. He was present as bodies were being unearthed in November 1988 at Dorothea Puente’s boarding house at 1426 F St. in downtown Sacramento. Puente was later convicted of killing three people and died in prison in 2011.

But what Cabrera encountered at 522 Robertson Way was beyond his previous experiences.

“It was an awful scene,” Cabrera said. “I mean, it’s just — it’s so striking and especially because you have a 9-year-old child and so you have to look at the brutality.”

Cabrera theorized the killings occurred around dusk on Saturday and the Jacobs’ bodies lay undiscovered until Monday morning. He said a copy of The Bee from Sunday was still outside the house when he arrived.

Michael Jacobs, who was called “Mick” by friends and family, had worked several years as a carpenter for Jim Fargo, a popular Land Park contractor who is now 74 and living near Tampa, Florida. At the time of the killings, Fargo was doing a job on 9th Avenue. After Michael Jacobs didn’t show up for work, Fargo tried calling repeatedly.

Fargo headed to Robertson Way, where numerous cops and local TV news stations were already on hand. He saw Bob Taylor, who had been a Sacramento Police patrol officer, lived in Land Park and had a Riverside Boulevard store Fargo had renovated. Taylor, who died in recent years, told Fargo that things weren’t good.

Fargo said that in his construction business, Michael Jacobs had been able to do framing, baseboard work, trim and windows. “Mick had a good head on his shoulders,” Fargo said.

Killings have drawn interest for years

The Jacobs’ deaths have captured public attention for decades, inspiring periodic Bee stories. ABC10 published a four-part series in 2019, “Real Monsters.”

One reason is because violent crime is rare in Land Park.

In Land Park, people ride their bikes to jobs downtown or walk with their families to Vic’s Ice Cream on summer evenings. The neighborhood draws families hoping to send their children to Crocker/Riverside, long among Sacramento’s best elementary schools.

The Jacobs bought their two-bedroom, one-bath home on Robertson Way in August 1989, shortly following Jennifer’s eighth birthday. They had rented elsewhere in the Land Park area. The Robertson Way house had been advertised for $134,900 with fresh paint, a large backyard and shade trees.

They took a mortgage of $114,300 to purchase their home and added a second mortgage in July 1990 of $17,000. Both loans would fall into foreclosure following the deaths. The address of the house was changed in the early ’90s to 524 Robertson Way.

Who the Jacobs were

Michael and Marcy Jacobs had each come from humble beginnings.

Michael Jacobs was born in 1957 and grew up on Sampson Boulevard in Lawrence Park, an area of south Sacramento near Stockton Boulevard and Fruitridge Road.

He grew up with a brother Mark Jacobs, a sister, Marie Murata, and a half-sister Genevieve Guerreiro from a previous relationship his mom had. Of Michael Jacobs’ immediate family, only Murata, who is now based in Washington state, is still living.

Michael Jacobs had a large group of friends growing up, including Greg Eberly, who also lived on Sampson Boulevard. Eberly now lives in Roseville.

“He was just quiet and mellow,” Eberly said.

Murata said Michael Jacobs hung out with as many as 25 to 30 people.

“As kids, they did a ton of stuff together,” Murata said. “And then even when they were grown and adults … there’d be a dozen or 15 of them to go to an Oakland A’s baseball game or something.”

She added, “He would do anything for anybody pretty much. He was a great kid.”

Michael Jacobs began dating the former Jaclyn Guidera, who also grew up in south Sacramento, in the mid-late 1970s. Now known as Jaclyn Ashlock, she lives in Montana. “He was cute and he had a really nice blue Jeep and my boyfriend had just broken up with me,” Ashlock said.

Michael Jacobs and Ashlock married in 1980 and remained together until 1985. “He was a great guy,” Ashlock said. “I was just too young.”

Marcy Jacobs had two brothers. Their single mom, Gleeadell “Glee” Valine, worked as a secretary in the mid-1970s for the director of the California Department of Water Resources, Ron Robie.

Robie later became a judge and the Jacobs family’s obituary noted that Robie and Rabbi Lester Frazin would conduct the funeral. Now 89, Robie is an associate justice for the California Courts of Appeal’s Third Appellate District.

Ron Robie said that Glee Valine, who died in 2007, worried constantly about her sons. The men each now have lengthy criminal records, though Cabrera dismissed the possibility of them being involved in the Jacobs’ killings. But Glee Valine was proud of her daughter and her granddaughter, Robie noted.

Jennifer was born Aug. 13, 1981. Marcy Jacobs became pregnant with her during a relationship prior to her marriage to Michael Jacobs.

Jennifer was about 7 when her mom married Michael Jacobs. Murata said Jennifer was “just the cutest thing, with her freckles.”

“Mick adored her,” Murata said. “So he ultimately wound up adopting her.”

One of Michael Jacobs’ greatest qualities appears to have been his loyalty and affection for those around him, his willingness to open his heart.

This quality, though, might have led to his undoing.

A friend and a safe

Police found Michael Jacobs dead next to an open safe. They traced the safe’s ownership to Richard “Ricky” McCarthy, who disappeared in October 1990, shortly after finishing a four-month jail sentence in Yolo County for methamphetamine possession and carrying a concealed weapon, according to news stories.

McCarthy has never been found. His profile remains active in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Michael Jacobs knew McCarthy growing up. Both were from south Sacramento and attended Sacramento High School where McCarthy played on the junior varsity baseball team in 1975.

Ashlock said McCarthy and Michael Jacobs played on a baseball team together as adults.

Mike Spire, who played on the JV team with McCarthy, said he had a “get-rich-quick” mentality, though his plans could go awry. Spire recalled a scheme of McCarthy’s to sneak into a soda distributor off Elvas Avenue and steal bottles they could redeem.

“We stole non-refundable bottles,” Spire said.

Spire last saw McCarthy in 1977, around the time they were both supposed to graduate from Sac High. In their final meeting, Spire took his former teammate for help after McCarthy slit his wrist. Spire believed McCarthy was under the influence of drugs at the time.

Several months later, McCarthy married a girl from his high school. Their daughter, now known as Melissa Sanchez, was born in January 1978.

Sanchez said her parents split up when she was very young. She remembered their fights. And she remembered scales her father used to sell marijuana. Cabrera also said police heard from different people that McCarthy cooked methamphetamine for motorcycle clubs, though police weren’t able to prove it.

Meth was found in Michael and Marcy Jacobs’ bodies. Their family speculated Michael and Marcy Jacobs might have been forced to ingest the meth found in their systems.

But substance use had long been part of Michael Jacobs’ story.

He had used different drugs when he was an early teenager, according to childhood friend Eberly. Ashlock said she and Michael Jacobs used cocaine during their relationship.

Michael Jacobs lived in Potter Valley in Mendocino County during his marriage to Ashlock, working construction with his brother. On trips to Sacramento, Michael Jacobs sometimes brought a pound or two of marijuana with him to give to people, Ashlock said.

Michael Jacobs isn’t known to have sold drugs. Sanchez, who last saw her father McCarthy when she was 12, remembered Michael Jacobs. “I know that he and my dad were hiding money in the door frame of a bedroom, in the floor,” Sanchez said.

At some point, Michael Jacobs agreed to hold the safe for McCarthy. The safe wasn’t a secret to people close to Michael Jacobs, such as his brother-in-law, Steve Murata.

“I remember being in Mick’s garage and him showing me the safe,” Steve Murata said. “I recall seeing inside, but not really remembering any specific items or anything. In fact, as I recall, it was kind of empty.”

Speculation has circulated over the years about what was in that safe, including more than $100,000, gold or meth. Cabrera said a collection of knives was left in the safe after the slayings.

McCarthy had endearing qualities. Sanchez said her father used to buy stacks of books from the Tower Books near the corner of Broadway and Land Park Drive and then give them to people.

While McCarthy may have been sometimes out of contact with his family, Cabrera noted he uncharacteristically didn’t show up to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, about a week before the Jacobs were killed.

“That was highly unusual for him,” Cabrera said.

Investigating the case

No neighbors on Robertson Way are known to have heard or seen anything when the Jacobs were slain.

Cabrera said that three to four people could have been involved in the Jacobs’ deaths and that the lack of forced entry meant they let in someone they knew. The fact Jennifer, an innocent child, was killed also suggested to Cabrera that the Jacobs’ family knew someone who came to the house.

“You can’t wrap your head around why somebody would do that,” Cabrera said. “I mean, what would be the purpose? But I figured it out. When something like that occurs, there’s only one reason: Because that person can identify who is in the house.”

The Jacobs’ home was about 100 feet from Interstate 5. Highway traffic may have muffled the sound of gunshots.

Cabrera theorized those involved in the killing could have hopped a fence and exited through the yard of a connecting property onto a desolate street that runs parallel to the highway. There, a getaway vehicle could have waited.

An elderly neighbor who lived at the connecting property told police he heard two men talking in his yard the night of the killings, Cabrera said. Police were never able to identify these men, Cabrera added.

The early investigation into the killing of the Jacobs was tough going. A reported dispute around overtime limited the amount of time the crime scene could be processed the day the bodies were discovered. The police also chased leads that proved fruitless, such as trying to locate a Volkswagen that a neighbor said they’d seen cruising near the crime scene sometime in the days before.

Still, some possible breaks were surfacing.

About a year after the slayings, Sacramento Police Lt. Ken Walker told The Bee that Michael Jacobs held the safe for McCarthy. Walker, who died in 2024, also said Michael Jacobs told a coworker a few days before his death that some men named Gary and David were coming to talk about money, which he intended to tell them he didn’t have.

In 1991, Cabrera surmised David was David LaMarr. When asked about LaMarr, Cabrera described him to The Bee as a key witness. He likened LaMarr to being an assistant to McCarthy.

What drew Cabrera’s attention was McCarthy’s neighbor saying LaMarr took McCarthy’s motorcycle from his East Sacramento home after his disappearance. Sanchez said LaMarr returned McCarthy’s motorcycle to the family many years later, when she was an adult. The motorcycle has since been sold, she said.

Sanchez remembered being around LaMarr as a child and the advice he would give her father.

“He would tell him, ‘You better get out of this business while you can, because it’s gonna lead nowhere good,’” Sanchez said. “He was prevalent in our lives and he didn’t believe in any kind of violence. He didn’t hang around when any of the bikers were around.”

Cabrera said LaMarr voluntarily came in for questioning in 1991. He said LaMarr was initially cooperative before hiring a lawyer.

‘I don’t know who did it’

In a phone interview with The Bee, LaMarr denied any involvement in McCarthy’s disappearance or being present the night the Jacobs were killed.

LaMarr said he took two of McCarthy’s motorcycles for safekeeping to Oakland, where he lived at the time — and that he did it with the permission of McCarthy’s parents. LaMarr, 66, now lives in Southern California. He also confirmed he knew the Jacobs and had attended Michael and Marcy’s wedding. He said he had visited their Robertson Way home “once or twice.”

He’d known Michael and Marcy Jacobs and McCarthy since childhood. LaMarr said he made a ring for McCarthy’s first marriage. He went to Peter Lassen Junior High School with McCarthy and Marcy Jacobs and attended Johnson High School with Marcy Jacobs, though he said he didn’t know her well then. Asked what Michael Jacobs was like growing up, LaMarr said he was nice and enjoyed camping.

LaMarr denied being the David who Michael Jacobs mentioned regarding the money dispute. Asked if he had any idea who was present the night the Jacobs were killed, LaMarr said he had no clue.

He said he’d hired a lawyer partly because he’d had some concern his words were being twisted.

“I talked to the cops a lot,” LaMarr said. “They felt that I was not involved. That’s why they’ve left me alone. I think they think I know something, which I don’t, and they’ve always harassed me about that. And so I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who did it. I don’t want to know.”

LaMarr wasn’t the only person that police thought could help solve the case.

Cabrera said Gary was Gary Rajotte, the son of Edward “Lonesome” Rajotte who led the Sacramento chapter of the Hells Angels before his 1979 drowning death. Gary Rajotte, who died in 1995, wasn’t a member of the Hells Angels but associated with past members who had known his father, as his former stepmother told The Bee in 1995.

LaMarr said he knew Gary Rajotte but said that he didn’t interact with him much. Gary Rajotte also knew McCarthy.

“Everybody kept saying, ‘Well, you might want to talk to so and so because … they hung around Ricky (McCarthy),’” Cabrera said.

Gary Rajotte was arrested in Sacramento County several times around the late 1980s or early 1990s, according to court records. He received three years of probation after being convicted around May 1990 of possession of methamphetamine for sale, a misdemeanor.

Months after the Jacobs family was slain, Gary Rajotte was again arrested on suspicion of possessing meth with the intent to sell. A search of a south Sacramento address on Aug. 8, 1991, turned up 0.72 grams of meth and, between two safes and Gary Rajotte, more than $13,000. The search also found a .22 caliber handgun and a .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

He was arrested with another man whose name Cabrera was unfamiliar with. The men also faced a charge of illegal fireworks possession.

The charge related to meth was later reduced and then dismissed in March 1992 for lack of evidence, shortly after a trial commenced. The following month, Gary Rajotte received three years’ probation and 30 days in jail for having illegal fireworks.

Gary Rajotte was sentenced in December 1992 to 16 months in state prison on a probation violation. He later got out of prison and died before he could be questioned about the killing of the Jacobs family.

‘No, I didn’t go in that house’

Another possible opening in the killing of the Jacobs family came in the late 2000s.

The Friday night before the Jacobs were killed, Janet Kurnick looked out a window from her home across the street from the Jacobs. Kurnick saw a black pickup truck with a box in the back that she’d heard burning rubber nearby. She saw an unsmiling Michael Jacobs get into the truck before it took off.

Cabrera retired in 2002 and then worked for the department as a retired annuitant until 2012. He investigated the Jacobs deaths again in the late 2000s for the department through a grant. By 2008 or 2009, he’d traced the truck through an arrest record to Pacer Dewayne Hampton, a felon.

Hampton was arrested on Sept. 11, 1991, in Sacramento County and pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to 16 months in state prison. He was on parole at the time of his arrest after receiving a three-year prison sentence in early 1988 for possessing stolen property.

By the time Cabrera visited Hampton at Folsom State Prison after identifying his truck, Hampton was incarcerated on another matter. Cabrera slid a picture of Jennifer Jacobs in front of Hampton. Hampton began to cry, shaking his head and saying, “No, I didn’t go in that house.”

Hampton admitted to Cabrera that he sat in his truck near the Jacobs’ house. But he refused to tell Cabrera who he might have driven there. Cabrera spoke with a prosecutor in the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and learned a change in state law prevented Hampton from being prosecuted as more than an accessory.

Asked if he knew Hampton, LaMarr said he’d “never heard that name before.”

Still a cold case

In 2018, then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and then-Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn announced a possible $50,000 reward in the case.

A detective who worked the case for Sacramento police in recent years, Pat Higgins couldn’t be reached for comment but spoke to Dateline in 2020. “We did re-interview people and make substantial progress in the case,” Higgins told Dateline. “There are definitely several people — and one person alive — that we have (an) interest in.”

Cabrera held out hope Hampton would one day talk more. Hampton died in 2021, after being shot while driving in Fresno County.

“Unfortunately, when he was killed, it was like, there goes our key person,” Cabrera said.

Similar to what he said about LaMarr, Cabrera described Gary Rajotte and Hampton as potential witnesses. Cabrera also said all three were potential witnesses in McCarthy’s disappearance.

Sacramento Police public information officer Allison Smith said via email that the killing of the Jacobs family “is still being considered a cold case investigation” and that there were no updates. A department spokesperson said in an email that McCarthy was still missing and that his disappearance was “part of this case as a whole.”

Advances in DNA technology have helped solve long-dormant cold cases, such as the Golden State Killer. Cabrera hoped improving technology might also help to analyze evidence gathered from 522 Robertson Way.

“There was evidence left at the scene that has been tested and tested and I’m hoping that maybe they’ll continue to test,” Cabrera said. “That might give us a little bit more information.”

Cabrera, who last worked the case in 2012, expressed interest in coming into the department in a civilian capacity to review the case once more.

Whatever absolution could be provided in the deaths of Michael, Marcy and Jennifer Jacobs or the disappearance of Ricky McCarthy would still mean something to their families. Now in her late 40s, with a family of her own, Sanchez still tears up talking about McCarthy.

“I’m the first person to say I make absolutely no excuses, but he was a victim as well,” Sanchez said.

Murata said Michael Jacobs was a great brother.

“I still miss him,” she said.

The Bee’s Graham Womack grew up in Land Park and was a second-grader at Crocker/Riverside Elementary School when Jennifer Jacobs and her family were killed. He didn’t know her but remembers the schoolwide memorial service.

This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 2:01 PM.

Graham Womack

The Sacramento Bee

916-321-1085

Graham Womack is a general assignment reporter for The Sacramento Bee. Prior to joining The Bee full-time in September 2025, he freelanced for the publication for several years. His work has won several California Journalism Awards and spurred state legislation.