Bio

Jesse Dewayne Jacobs was born on February 12, 1950. Before the Texas murder case, Jacobs had a serious criminal history. In 1973, he was convicted in Illinois for murder and received a prison sentence of 25 to 50 years. In 1977, he was also convicted of attempted escape from the Illinois penitentiary and received an 18-year sentence. Earlier records also referenced a 1967 burglary conviction and juvenile offenses involving theft and escape.

Jacobs moved from Illinois to Texas in 1983 while on parole. From December 1983 to February 1986, he was supervised by a Texas parole officer. During that period, he became involved with Lisa Chisholm, who was 14 years old and later gave birth to his child. Chisholm’s parents eventually filed a complaint against Jacobs, and he was arrested for inducement of a minor.

Jacobs’s sister, Bobbie Jean Hogan, had also moved to Texas. She was involved with Michael Urdiales, who was married to Etta Ann Urdiales. By 1986, Michael and Etta were in the process of divorce and were involved in a dispute over custody of their two children.

Shortly before Etta Urdiales disappeared, Bobbie Jean Hogan posted bond for Jacobs after his arrest. The events that followed became the basis of the capital murder case that led to his execution.

Murder Story

On February 21, 1986, Etta Ann Urdiales disappeared from her apartment in Conroe, Texas. She was 25 years old and the mother of two children. Police later searched her apartment and found blood in the bedroom and bathroom. Testing showed the blood was consistent with her blood type. Her car was missing, and a stolen pickup truck was found near the apartment.

According to Jacobs’s original confession, he went to Urdiales’s apartment after his release from jail, struck her on the head, abducted her, and drove her to a wooded area. He said he placed a sleeping bag on the ground, held her hand, and shot her in the left side of the head with a .38-caliber revolver.

Jacobs was not arrested in the case until September 9, 1986, when he was taken into custody for car theft in Hudspeth County, Texas. When police questioned him about Urdiales’s disappearance, he agreed to provide information after being allowed to see Lisa Chisholm and after learning that prosecutors would seek the death penalty. He then led authorities to a wooded burial site in southern Montgomery County. Police recovered Urdiales’s remains inside a blue sleeping bag. The body position and burial location matched details Jacobs had provided.

At trial, Jacobs changed his account. He testified that his sister, Bobbie Jean Hogan, had asked him to help deal with Urdiales, but he believed Hogan only intended to scare her over the custody dispute involving Michael Urdiales. Jacobs said he abducted Urdiales, took her to the woods, restrained her, and later brought Hogan to the area. According to his trial testimony, he heard a gunshot and then saw Hogan with a gun. He said Hogan told him she did not mean to kill Urdiales. Jacobs admitted burying the body but denied firing the fatal shot.

The prosecution used Jacobs’s videotaped confession at trial and argued that he was the person who killed Urdiales. The jury was instructed that it could convict him either as the actual killer or under Texas’s law of parties, which allows a person to be held responsible for a felony committed by a co-conspirator if the offense should have been anticipated. The jury found Jacobs guilty of capital murder.

During the punishment phase, the jury answered Texas’s special sentencing issues in a way that required a death sentence. Evidence of Jacobs’s prior criminal history was presented, including his earlier Illinois murder conviction and his attempted escape conviction. He was sentenced to death in 1987.

Several months later, Bobbie Jean Hogan was tried for the same killing. At her trial, the same prosecutor who had argued that Jacobs alone killed Urdiales told the jury that he had changed his view and now believed Hogan was the person who fired the fatal shot. Jacobs testified at Hogan’s trial, and the prosecution urged the jury to believe his account. Hogan was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and received a 10-year prison sentence.

This contradiction became the central issue in Jacobs’s later appeals. His attorneys argued that the State could not fairly execute him based on a factual theory it later disavowed in Hogan’s trial. The courts declined to overturn the conviction or death sentence. In 1994, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied relief. The United States Supreme Court also declined to stop the execution, though Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissent describing the case as deeply troubling.

Jesse Dewayne Jacobs was executed by lethal injection in Texas on January 4, 1995. He was pronounced dead at 12:12 a.m.