Bio 

Bruce Charles Jacobs was born on October 13, 1946. In May 1963, when Jacobs was a teenager, he assaulted a 12-year-old girl who was walking to school. He forced her behind a nearby building and stabbed her in the back with a steak knife when she tried to flee. He was later sent to a boys’ school.

Records from his time at the Mountain View School for Boys in the mid-1960s show additional violent incidents. He was placed in maximum security after attacking a dorm parent with an axe or pick handle. He was also placed in maximum security after another incident involving anger toward another student-inmate.

In 1967, Jacobs assaulted a teenage girl in Oregon as she walked home from school. He held a razor blade to her neck and demanded money. After the girl testified against him, Jacobs threatened to kill her. He later served prison time in Oregon from 1967 to 1972 for assault with intent to commit robbery.

By the 1980s, Jacobs was living in Dallas, Texas. He worked mostly in low-wage jobs, including dishwashing. Testimony later presented at his capital murder trial described repeated incidents of harassment and threatening behavior toward women. Several co-workers testified that he harassed and propositioned female employees and threatened them when they rejected him.

Other testimony described Jacobs appearing at homes or following women. One woman who worked at the Dallas Zoo testified that Jacobs, a stranger to her, came to her home after her name and picture appeared in a newspaper. She said he entered her home without knocking after taking keys she had accidentally left in the door.

Murder Story

On July 21, 1986, the day before Conrad Harris was killed, Holly Kuper was inside the Dallas home she shared with Hugh Harris and his son, Conrad. After Hugh Harris left the house, Kuper heard knocking at the front door. A man asked her for directions to a street that was visible from the residence. A few minutes later, when she opened the back door to let the dog out, the same man approached and tried to force his way inside. Kuper managed to close and lock the door and then called police.

The next morning, July 22, 1986, at about 6:30 a.m., Bruce Charles Jacobs broke into the Harris residence near the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas. He looked into the bedroom where Hugh Harris and Holly Kuper were sleeping. He then went to the kitchen, took a butcher knife, and entered the bedroom where Conrad Harris was asleep.

Conrad Harris was killed on his 16th birthday. Jacobs stabbed him repeatedly as he lay in his room. Hugh Harris and Holly Kuper woke to Conrad’s screams. When Hugh Harris opened the bedroom door, he saw Conrad bleeding on the floor and a man standing over him holding a large knife. As Harris backed away, the assailant fled through the rear of the home.

The medical examiner later testified that Conrad suffered 24 to 26 stab and cut wounds to his left arm, left side, and back. He lost approximately half of his blood supply. The stabbing was forceful enough that part of the knife broke off and became embedded in his body.

Police recovered the murder weapon outside the Harris home. The knife was covered with blood, but investigators did not find usable fingerprints on it. However, police recovered five fingerprints belonging to Jacobs from one of the Harris family’s dinner knives.

Hugh Harris described the attacker as a short white male with a black beard, muscular arms and shoulders, a tank top, and a Panama hat. Holly Kuper told police that the description matched the man who had tried to enter the house the day before the murder.

The description and composite drawing were circulated through newspapers and radio broadcasts. Several witnesses contacted police after hearing the reports. One witness who worked near Southern Methodist University said he saw a man matching the description walking quickly from an alley shortly after the murder. Another witness saw a similar man running toward a taxi near the west side of campus.

The taxi driver later told police that his first passenger that morning had a beard and hat like those in the composite drawing. He said the man entered the cab with his hat pulled down and lay down in the back seat.

Two days after the murder, police rode with the taxi driver while retracing the route he had taken with the passenger. As they approached the area where the passenger had been dropped off, the driver pointed out a man walking nearby and said he looked like the customer, except that his beard was gone. Police identified the man as Bruce Charles Jacobs.

Officers watched Jacobs enter a house and began taking steps to place the location under surveillance and obtain a search warrant. Before they completed those steps, Jacobs left the house and walked into a nearby 7-Eleven store. Police followed and arrested him.

After his arrest, Jacobs gave written consent for police to search his apartment. Investigators recovered damp blue jeans with small traces of human blood, beard hair fibers, and cash totaling about $800. Holly Kuper had reported that the intruder dumped out the contents of her purse on the morning of the murder and that a $100 bill was missing.

Jacobs later gave a written statement in which he admitted being inside the Harris home that morning and being seen by Hugh Harris while holding a knife. However, the statement was not introduced at trial because the judge ruled before trial that Jacobs had not received adequate Miranda warnings before giving it.

Jacobs was indicted by a Dallas County grand jury on October 16, 1986, for capital murder. The charge alleged that he murdered Conrad Harris during the course of a burglary. His trial was held in 1987.

On June 30, 1987, a jury found Jacobs guilty of capital murder. After a separate punishment hearing, the jury answered the required punishment issues in a manner that resulted in a death sentence. On July 2, 1987, the court formally sentenced Jacobs to death.

Jacobs continued to appeal his conviction and sentence for years. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence on March 23, 1994. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 17, 1994. Later state and federal habeas petitions were also denied.

During his appeals and later interviews, Jacobs maintained that he was not the person who killed Conrad. He admitted being inside the Harris home but claimed another intruder committed the murder. Courts rejected his challenges, and no late appeals stopped the execution.

Bruce Charles Jacobs was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, on May 15, 2003. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.