Commonwealth v. Jacoby
| Decision Date | 28 September 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 709 CAP,709 CAP |
| Citation | 170 A.3d 1065 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Timothy Matthew JACOBY, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Kristen Leigh Weisenberger, Esq., Gover & Perry, L.L.C., for Appellant.
Timothy Jon Barker, Esq., Stephanie Elizabeth Lombardo, Esq., York County District Attorney's Office, Amy Zapp, Esq., for Appellee.
OPINION
On October 9, 2014, Timothy Matthew Jacoby was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder, burglary, tampering with physical evidence, and robbery.2 In this automatic direct appeal, we affirm the convictions and the death sentence.
On March 31, 2010, at 2:52 p.m., the York County 911 call center received a call that originated from Monica Schmeyer's residence on Trone Road in York, Pennsylvania. When the police arrived, they found Monica Schmeyer dead on her living room floor. Blood droplets and stains surrounded her body. The telephone was off the hook; there was blood on the 9 and the 1. There was also a .32 caliber Speer branded shell casing on the floor near Monica Schmeyer's body.
Jacoby eventually became a suspect in the murder. The following is a summary of the evidence that the Commonwealth presented to prove that Jacoby killed Monica Schmeyer.
In 2010, Jacoby was a member of an informal group of individuals that gathered at a Hooters restaurant located on Route 30 in York County, Pennsylvania. The group called themselves the "Orange Shorts Society" ("OSS"), a moniker derived from the uniforms worn by Hooters' waitresses. The members of the OSS included Jacoby, Sarah Powell (Jacoby's fiancée at the time), Dr. Jon Schmeyer, and Pete Lobianco.
At some of these informal meetings, Dr. Schmeyer talked about his divorce from, and the current state of affairs with, his ex-wife, Monica Schmeyer. Dr. Schmeyer told the group that he paid Monica $1,700 in alimony each month, in cash. Monica was known to have a habit of keeping her cash in white envelopes secreted in various places around her home. Dr. Schmeyer also mentioned that their daughter, Elsa Schmeyer, would be travelling to Japan in March of 2010.
There was an OSS meeting scheduled for March 31, 2010. On that date, at approximately 2:00 p.m., Dr. Schmeyer met with Sarah Powell to discuss certain financial matters related to foreign currency. During the meeting, Dr. Schmeyer sent a text message to Jacoby, but received no return message. At 3:00 p.m., Dr. Schmeyer and Powell proceeded to the Hooters for the scheduled OSS meeting. Jacoby never showed for this meeting, even though members of the club—including his fiancée—expected him to attend. Powell tried unsuccessfully to call Jacoby. Powell eventually left the restaurant to return to their shared home. Jacoby was not there either. Jacoby finally returned home at approximately 6:00 p.m. He told Powell that he had been at work.
Around the same time that the OSS members were gathering, in a different part of town, William Kagarise exited his house on Snyder Mill Road, and walked toward his barn to feed his animals. As Kagarise walked to the barn, he looked up and saw a white male walking on Snyder Mill Road with his head down. The male was walking toward Trone Road, which is where Monica Schmeyer lived. Approximately twenty to thirty minutes later, Kagarise saw the same white male walking on Snyder Mill Road, but this time away from Trone Road. The man was carrying a white envelope in one hand, which Kagarise did not observe when he first saw the man.
Kagarise described the man as approximately five feet, ten inches tall, with short hair. Kagarise noted that the man was walking fast, and with a purpose, an unusual behavior for someone at that time of the day in that part of town. Kagarise had never seen the man before that day.
Anthony Crawford also lived on Snyder Mill Road. On the date in question, Crawford saw a silver van parked along Snyder Mill Road at approximately 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. He also saw a white male walking toward the van. Police later investigated the area and found two sets of tire tracks in the grassy area where Crawford saw the van. Using surveillance video from a local bank located minutes from Trone Road, the police were able to determine that the same van had passed the bank headed in the general direction of Monica Schmeyer's residence at about 2:38 p.m., and passed in the opposite direction at approximately 2:59 pm. The police observed the same van head again towards Trone Road at 3:56 p.m., and then return from that direction at 4:57 p.m.
The van belonged to a company called Armstrong World Industries. In 2010, both Stanley Knight and Jacoby worked for the company. Knight identified the van from the surveillance videos. He explained that the van had been customized so that work-related materials could fit into it. Knight was able to observe some of the customizations to the van in the video, and positively identify the van. Knight also indicated that both he and Jacoby had used the van in the past, and that Jacoby had access to the van on the date in question.
When an employee at Armstrong World Industries used the van, he or she was required to sign out the van on a calendar that was posted in the lot where the van was parked. However, the March 2010 page was missing, which Knight found to be highly unusual. Nonetheless, Jacoby later submitted an expense report on March 31, 2010, which indicated that he used the van at some time between March 26 and March 31. Knight also noted that Armstrong World Industries did not do business in the area surrounding Monica Schmeyer's residence.
Dr. Samuel Land autopsied Monica Schmeyer, and concluded that she died from a single gunshot wound
above her left ear. Dr. Land found a bullet and a fragment inside of Monica Schmeyer's skull. The doctor also observed bruising and lacerations to her brow, face, and chin. Dr. Land determined that these injuries were not consistent with a single post-death fall to the floor, but instead resulted from repeated strikes to the head by her assailant, possibly with a firearm.
When the police processed the crime scene, officers found blood on the bottom of Monica Schmeyer's sock and droplets of blood on her pants and bedding. The police believed that this blood evidence suggested that there was a struggle before she was killed. Thus, Dr. Land took scrapings from underneath Monica Schmeyer's fingernails and submitted them to the police for DNA testing.
The scrapings were submitted to NMS Labs for Y–STR DNA.3 A sample from Monica Schmeyer's left hand produced a full Y–STR profile from a single contributor. Further testing revealed that Jacoby and all of his male relatives could not be excluded as the source of the sample. Notably, by all accounts, Monica Schmeyer had never met Jacoby before her death. Thus, the presence of a Y–STR profile that could not exclude Jacoby under her fingernails provided police with compelling evidence that Jacoby was her murderer.
Corporal David Krumbine, an expert in firearm and tool mark examinations, inspected the .32 caliber Speer branded cartridge that was found near Monica Schmeyer's body. Cpl. Krumbine determined that the cartridge could have been fired from a Kel–Tec manufactured firearm. The expert also concluded that the bullet and fragment retrieved from Monica Schmeyer's skull were consistent with the Speer cartridge.
Cpl. Krumbine's conclusion that the cartridge could have been fired from a Kel–Tec firearm was important to the police's effort to identify the killer, because Jacoby was the registered owner of a Kel–Tec P32 semiautomatic handgun. However, this particular weapon was never found, and no one could link the cartridge to the weapon registered to Jacoby.
The police were still investigating the murder approximately fifteen months later when they requested and obtained a search warrant for Jacoby's residence. On July 6, 2011, the police executed the warrant and found a second-generation Kel–Tec barrel. The top of that barrel had been ground down to resemble the shape of a first-generation barrel, which is necessary for the second-generation barrel to fit onto a first-generation Kel–Tec firearm. Internet purchase records demonstrated that Jacoby had purchased a second-generation barrel, but this purchase occurred after Monica Schmeyer had been murdered. Nonetheless, as noted earlier, Jacoby was the registered owner of a first-generation Kel–Tec firearm, and the barrel that he purchased was not compatible with the weapon he owned without first being ground down to the correct size.
Following the search of Jacoby's residence, the police requested and received a second search warrant for Jacoby's parents' farm and home.4 In part, the police sought the warrant because Jacoby's fiancée, Sara Powell, told police officers that Jacoby had moved his .32 caliber Kel–Tec weapon, which he usually kept under the pillow on his bed, to his parents' house. The warrant was executed later the next day.
At Jacoby's parents' house, the police found an empty box for a Kel–Tec P32 first-generation semiautomatic handgun, as well as documentation supporting the purchase and registration. Jacoby's signature was affixed to the documentation. The police also found live .32 caliber Speer ammunition, and a first-generation Kel–Tec barrel. The police also found a "Desert Eagle" .50 caliber handgun.5
The police also searched an area of Jacoby's parents' farm that was used as a shooting range. The police examined this area because Jacoby's brother had informed officers that he had seen Jacoby using the range to fire a .32 caliber weapon. There, the police found four .32 caliber Speer spent cartridge casings.
Cpl. Krumbine examined the four casings, and compared them to the casing found next to Monica Schmeyer's body. He concluded that the casings all had been fired from the same, but unknown, firearm. He also...
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