SACRAMENTO, Calif — One cool, dark January day in 1991 will forever be marked by the finding of the Jacobs family, who was gruesomely murdered in their home.
After Marcy Jacobs did not show up for work, her coworker went to look for her. Upon arrival, Marcy Jacobs' coworker called 911 and then the investigation that has taken 28 years began.
The State of California put an emphasis on solving this case by offering a $50,000 reward for any new information given that leads to an arrest or a conviction.
Here is what is known so far:
John Cabrera remembers January 14, 1991, as a dark day.
During his 15 years working homicide for the Sacramento Police Department, he'd come into contact with a slew of ruthless killers and the broken hearts they left behind.
"I have seen so much," Cabrera recalled recently. "I have seen so much death."
On that mildly cool, January day, the winds calm and the sky grayed by the clouds, Cabrera added three more victims to his memories of death.
"We got the call," Cabrera said. "It was a man and a woman and a child, and all of them were dead."
Twenty-eight years later, and the question still remains: Who killed the Jacobs family?
Sacramento Police said that when they entered the family's Upper Land Park home on Robertson Way, they found Michael Jacobs, 33, in the garage; Marcy Jacobs, 31, in the bathroom; and Jennifer Jacobs, 9, in her bedroom.
All of them suffered at least one bullet wound in their head.
Michael Jacobs' body was found near an open safe with fatal gunshot wounds to his head. His wife, Marcy, appeared to have been shot in the face while in the living room. She then made her way to the bathroom where she died after receiving stab and slash wounds, according to former Sacramento Police Detective Dick Woods.
The couple's young daughter, Jennifer, was found in her room, holding her teddy bear, dead from a gunshot wound to the head, Woods said.
On the first day, Sacramento Police dispatched their entire homicide unit and all of the department's crime scene investigators to the scene. As the investigation continued, Cabrera, Woods, and other detectives and CSI personnel worked tirelessly to find leads to solve the mystery surrounding the Jacobs' family slaying.
"Putting together what was going on—the details of this crime—it just started to open up more and more," Cabrera said. "We found that Ricky McCarthy, of course, was an associate of theirs. But he was also missing."
McCarthy, a childhood friend of Michael Jacobs, had asked the family to hold on to one of his large safes, which investigators now believe was the target of the crime. A few weeks before the Jacobs were killed, McCarthy went missing, and was never seen again.
Police now believe the same people responsible for McCarthy's disappearance are connected to the Jacobs slayings.
Although detectives have continued their work towards solving the case, no solid answers have been confirmed by the Sacramento Police Department.
On June 15, 2018, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn announced that there would be a $50,000 reward for anyone with information that could help the Jacobs Family Murders.
“Over the years, this case has been very challenging for multiple investigators. Due to forensic advances, detectives working with the California Department of Justice, have again begun actively working this case,” said Sacramento Police Chief Hahn in a press release. “We are hoping with the passage of time, and the offer of a $50,000 reward, anyone who has information regarding this incident will come forward to help solve this extremely violent crime.”
RELATED: California law enforcement officials hope $50K reward will help solve decades old cold case
While detectives are still searching for answers, there are facts that have lead to several different theories, such as the contents of the safe. Woods said that there was probably money or gold in the safe found next to Michael Jacobs' body.
Woods and Cabrera said that the crime scene suggests that at least two people were involved in the murder of the family.
Although the Jacobs family was known by neighbors to be a normal, average family, Michael and Marcy Jacobs' autopsy reports showed that they had a small amount of methamphetamine in their system. Despite this, police found that the family had no record of criminal activity, and there was no evidence in the house to suggest habitual drug use.
While the Sacramento Police Department has enough information to formulate ideas of why this family was murdered, they still don't have the first-person accounts to confirm their theories.
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The gruesome slaying of the Jacobs Family in Land Park still is on the minds of Sacramento Police Officers who are still searching for answers.