Murder For Hire Deal At Olive Garden? The Valerie McDaniel & Leon Jacob Case

today's video is kindly sponsored by case defy to get your next favorite phone case go to case defy comm slash Kendall to get 20% off hey guys welcome back to my channel and welcome to another true crime video so I'm sure a lot of you out there have exes and maybe you're friendly with your ex maybe you're not so friendly with your ex maybe you hate your ex more than anything on planet Earth maybe you hope karma gets your ex one day maybe you don't wish good things for them and you don't want to see them happy those things are all pretty normal right what's not normal is wanting to see your ex dead today we're gonna be talking about a couple that went really far to seek revenge on their exes so this is Valerie McDaniel she was known as a really awesome person and people who knew her described her as being very generous really smart creative and overall just a really sweet and nice person growing up Valerie was a good kid and a really good student she graduated high school in 1987 and was top of her class and valedictorian of her graduating class after high school she attended Texas A&M and ended up becoming a veterinarian so while Valerie was in school she met a guy named Marion McDaniel who went by Mac the two of them ended up falling in love and ended up getting married they had a really nice fairytale wedding and they also had a really kind of cushy start to life they got to live in a house that Valerie's parents bought for her and Valerie loved a very luxurious lifestyle she really liked the finer things in life nice houses nice cars boats but one thing about Valerie is she really loved animals and eventually she decided to open her own vet clinic and her husband Mac joined in with her to work at the vet clinic as like an office manager type of position obviously getting a business started is a ton of work and they both put in mad hours so they didn't spend that much quality time together but they really put on a front around people and most people said they seemed like a really happy couple the two of them really wanted kids finally they decided to adopt because Valerie could not have kids of her own so in 2008 they adopted their daughter she was only two days old when they adopted her and they were really excited to have a daughter and I think they were really hoping that it would bring them closer together to have a child together but things went bad pretty shortly after this Valerie ended up finding out that Mac was cheating on her one day out of the blue Valerie had gotten a phone call from some stranger that was claiming to be max other woman and not only that she ended up a really spilling the tea because she ended up telling Valerie a list of names of people that Mac was currently sleeping with behind her back she confronted him about this he said he was really sorry so she ended up giving him another chance however it wasn't long until he started cheating on her again Valerie was really desperate for the relationship to work out though she loved her daughter she didn't want to have to split custody so she did stick around again but this time was different because during this time their relationship was obviously really rocky considering she has taken him back for the second time for cheating but during this time she met a man named Leon Jacob now Leon was actually her neighbor's son and he just randomly came over to her house one day and introduced himself to her now first Valerie described Leon as someone who was really cocky and full of himself I can only describe it as this I've always understood women really well and they've always liked me she said that he was really good-looking and knew he was good-looking and used that to his advantage now this guy actually thought he looked like Bradley Cooper I don't know what do you guys think I'll tell you more about that later so after spending more time with Leon Valerie ended up really liking him she thought he was really good-looking he's eight years younger than her and he was a doctor so even though she didn't want to be a divorced person she ended up deciding to file for a divorce in December of 2014 because I think she realized you know she's only in her early 40s she still has plenty of life to live and there's this hot young man that was showing her a lot of attention so I feel like that finally gave her the comfortability to leave mac the divorce took a few years as divorces do but it was finally finalized in 2016 and they were officially divorced after this Valerie and her daughter moved into a very fancy apartment building in Houston so at first she just wanted to make it look like she was just casually dating Leon but eventually he did move in with them even though things moved pretty fast people who knew her and him said that they seemed like they really were in love Valerie seemed really happy and after being in such a bad relationship before her friends and family were really happy for her and were excited about her and Leon however Mac was not a fan of Leon and he did not feel comfortable with the fact that this guy it was all him staying with his daughter so soon after he and his wife had just gotten divorced and this caused a ton of arguments between Valerie and Mac so let's talk a little bit more about Leon I mentioned he was a doctor so Leon specialized in cardio and transplants he had also been married he had met his wife back in college as well and they had two sons together but after being married for 12 years Leon's wife filed for divorce and she claimed that while she was with him she experienced extreme mental cruelty and he couldn't just leave her alone after she divorced him he actually got charged with stalking her he cyber harassed her threatened her called her over and over again but of course his excuse for this was he was calling over and over again to try to talk to the boys because she was keeping his sons from him and he was angry about it I tried desperately to contact my kids over and over and over again and I'm not gonna apologize for that he loved his kids so much that eventually he moved away from them he moved to Pittsburgh for his doctor's residency and it was there that he met this woman named Megan Vera cos who was 33 years old at the time the two of them met at the hotel that Megan worked at but it wasn't long before they moved in together eventually they ended up moving to Houston together so that he could start a new residency and the two we're really living a lavish lifestyle just like Mallory Leon also loved to spend money loved the finer things in life him and Megan were always going on vacations together going out to dinners fancy outings but one thing that was really strange about all this is it turns out this was actually Leon's seventh residency he had been kicked out of every residency program he had ever been a part of previously now apparently the reason he got kicked out of these other programs was because of his attitude he would act super cocky and act like he was the best person in every class he was disrespectful to professor's fellow classmates some of you even said that there's record of times where he was disrespectful to patients and also put them in danger he was marked down as a liability for some of these hospitals so after Megan had been dating Leon for three years she started to get bad vibes from him Megan ended up kicking Leon out of their apartment because he had been assaulting her she claimed that he was verbally abusive to her and that he hit her and put his hand over her mouth one time of course Leon now says this is all completely untrue so then in February of 2017 Leon was charged with stalking and assault one major fear that Leon had when it came to his ex Megan is that prosecutors were claiming that if she were to testify against him in a court of law that he would not get to practice as a doctor anymore this was always kind of hanging over his head and Leon did not want the illusion that he was this great doctor this unbelievable person to be shattered so because of this Leon decided to get a hitman to take out Megan prosecutors ended up figuring out that Leon had met up with this guy named Tazz and had hired him to kill Megan so Leon met this Tazz guy through a mutual acquaintance and he thought that he would kill Megan for him but TAS claims that he's not a violent person he would never take money to kill somebody and Tazz actually came forward and said that Leon offered up multiple ways that maybe he could think about killing Megan and those ways was a syringe of potassium straight to the heart to induce a heart attack and kill her that's some evil [ __ ] but what he didn't know about Tazz is he was a former US Army soldier he said when Leon came to him with this request he saw it as an opportunity to save someone's life he ended up giving himself the code name Zak and had Leon referred to him as Zak and this is so vile but Leon had asked him to kidnap Megan and once he had her try to convince her to take him back he said if that didn't work he said that he wanted her to move out of town and if that didn't work he instructed Tazz to just go ahead and whack her Leon ended a paint has nine thousand dollars to kill Megan which is pretty [ __ ] low to kill someone has said that he spent that money and has no regrets doesn't feel bad at all which I agree with so shortly after he gave him the money it has ended up ghosting Leon so at this point Leon is freaking out because he gave Tazz this $9,000 and heat ghosted him and not only that Megan is still out there and could possibly put dirt out on his name so Leon ended up hiring a really well-known bail bondsman I lived in an area named Michael kibosh so Michael ended up getting in contact with the police to try to figure out who this other hitman was that he had paid $9,000 to they look for the mysterious Zac and it doesn't take long for them to figure out that it's actually this guy named Taz so when they find Tazz he explains to them that he never had the intention of hurting Megan he simply was going to rip off this guy that wanted his wife killed he figured he was doing the right thing by taking that money so he can't go give it to someone else and not following through with what Leon wanted Tazz ends up agreeing to work with police in a sting operation to catch Leon in the act soliciting a murder so it has ends up calling Leon in wiretap phone call he tells him that he thinks it would be better for him to hire someone else and not to worry because he knew the perfect person to do it he tells him he knows a guy named Javier that can do it seamlessly but little does Leon know Javier is an undercover detective so the next date has and Leon talk on the phone again and of course they're listening to the entire conversation but this time he ended up asking Tazz to take care of both problems and of course has was like what what do you mean by both problems and this is when Leon says both individuals that we are talking about it turns out that not only did Leon want Megan dead he also wanted his current girlfriend Valerie's ex dead Mack who owned the vet clinic with her Leone claimed that Valerie also wanted in on the deal and wanted to see her ex dead so the next day Leon Valery Tazz and the undercover detective Javier all meet up at an old garden to discuss the details of whacking both of their exes the entire operation was recorded there at an Olive Garden having their breadsticks and unlimited salad and soup discussing the details of their exes future murderers and little do they know they're talking right to an undercover detective it was at this Olive Garden on 59 at Buffalo Speedway McDaniel says she and her boyfriend Leon Jacob sat down with the original supposed hit man someone they'd talked to on several occasions by this point and a new person they'd never met a man who was actually an HPD undercover officer now Leon basically said that he didn't want to necessarily have to have Megan be hurt he wanted to see if there was possibility that they could just run her out of town just scare her maybe kind of run her off the road freak her out tell her to leave and if she doesn't that she will be killed and if that didn't work he gave Xavier permission to go ahead [Music] and Valerie was part of this conversation too she started giving details about what she wanted done to mak her and Javier came to the decision that they were going to hijack his car and make it look like a robbery gone wrong shoot him in the head and kill him that way and with her own words Valerie said that she wanted to for sure go through with this because she felt like she had no other option her main reason for wanting to have Matt killed was because he was threatening to take their daughter she didn't want to splitting time with him she was very protective of her child and she felt like he could potentially take her away from her but doesn't this just seem so stupid when someone just miraculously dies or there's you know fogginess around their death and they're young you know it's not something that can be explained necessarily or you don't know who did it oftentimes they will look at the ex it seems really silly for a couple to hire someone the same person to kill both of their exes and think that they're gonna get away with it and not somehow be connected back to it like even if this was a real situation and this wasn't a sting why on earth would you move forward with this I'm you know at least get two different hit men and don't like connect all together at the Olive Garden it just seems incredibly foolish and honestly just ridiculous that they thought they were gonna get away with this and it's really interesting because Valerie is known as this really good person she's this vet she's super generous to her friends she's always giving to people everyone loves her like still to this day all of her friends stand by her they love her but it's crazy to see she did have a side to her where she was legitimately wanting her ex to be murdered not goes to my point from the beginning most of us have exes that we may necessarily not want good things to happen to but most of us don't want them murdered most of us don't want them to die I think there's got to be a serious character flaw with someone who thinks murder is ever justified so the next day on March 9th 2017 Xavier went over to Leon and Valerie's house and showed them a picture of Mack dead it was literally a photo of him lying on the ground with a bullet wound in his head I don't know if I'll be able to show it because YouTube does not like that type of thing but they used like pig's blood and staged a whole photo of him lying on the ground and also photos of him in his car now these photos were obviously fake Mac was informed that there was a hit out on his life and was asked to participate in a sting operation and he agreed and staged those photos with police so Valerie and Leon saw the photos they're happy with the job they continued going on about their life and later on that night Xavier texted photos to Leon of Meagan kidnapped with her hands tied behind her back and duct tape around her mouth looking terrified and this is when Xavier told me on that she was so out of control that he had no choice but to kill her now of course all of this was staged as well Meagan was in on this but her reaction was very very real while they were staging these pictures of her she had an absolute meltdown she realized that this could have been reality that if he was successful maybe someone could have kidnapped her and possibly killed her it just all started to hit her and she had a complete emotional reaction because she was scared of Leon so technically the next day March 10th 2017 at 3:00 Ann police showed up to Valerie's apartment and came inside to tell them some bad news of course they know what the bad news is they've seen these pictures but of course valerie acts super shocked when police tell her that her ex had been murdered police went to the couple's Houston high-rise apartment where the suspects appeared to act surprised [Music] you can tell Valerie's at a really weird emotional place in these video clips she's trying her best to seem surprised and shocked and sad you can tell she's kind of Numb and was ready for this information obviously eventually Leon joins the room and the police tell him that Valerie's ex has been killed and he instantly reaches out to comfort her his reaction honestly his acting is a little better than Valerie's he seems a lot more surprised [Music] but then he just randomly says we were here all day we were with their daughter just offers that information up which makes him look incredibly guilty obviously what he's doing here is trying to create an alibi make it seem like there's no way they could have been involved in it so after a few minutes of letting them act meanwhile the police know the whole time that this is acting the police decide to tell them that they are being arrested they were told that they're being arrested for solicitation of murder and that Mac and Megan were both still alive and were in on the operation you know as they're arresting Valerie Mac actually comes up to the front door she had to look at him this man that she wanted dead and she ended up having to get her daughter who was sleeping in the apartment and hand her over to him and this was actually the last time that Valerie would ever see her daughter so the two of them are arrested and brought into jail now Leon is not able to make bail because he has pending charges against him that involved Megan from the past but Valerie does make bail and she goes home to wait until trial starts why would you kill out of jail on bail but certainly not out of hot water forty eight-year-old Valerie McDaniel a successful Montrose veterinarian has a starring role in a sordid tale normally it's more of a I guess a high-society crime and the fact that they're the ones who can afford to have people killed I would say as far as going to the extent of making somebody up pretending that they're killed taking them pictures this is not something we have not done before and her life just began to derail after all this she was devastated about not having her daughter she felt like tons of people in her life who had really looked up to her we're probably now judging her and not only that her vet license was suspended during this whole time she was really emotional and she started using her iPad to take voice memos kind of use it as a diary to talk about her feelings about Leon and you know the charges against her and what life was going to be like for her going forward what she knew was not good talking to the officer I said can't you just talk to him and make him make him be Valarie went and met up with a bunch of her colleagues they said that she was really emotional feeling incredibly down and looking back they realized that this was her saying goodbye to them because on March 27th 2017 Valery ended up jumping off her apartment balcony which was seven storeys and did not survive the fall but we were learning a brand new information this coming to us from the medical examiner just now officially ruling this a suicide yellow crime scene tape surrounded the gates of this high-rise in River Oaks where veterinarian dr. Valerie McDaniel took her life this morning by jumping from the building onto a courtyard police do not suspect foul play coworkers family friends and those who took their animals to the clinic right behind me in which McDaniel own described her as compassionate kind and worked very well with their pets and they say that they're in disbelief about not only her death but the entire situation I'm just really so sorry that this happened and it just it's it's really made me sad I think she was a kind and compassionate person and that's how I knew her she was just excellent care of all the animals just a kind person you know her patients are horrified to learn that you know she's passed and so I think it's a tragic loss who's your dog back there that's foxy foxy is a rescued mutt they say her demeanor and her health are in large part due to the care of dr. Valerie McDaniel she's a compassionate caring person very extremely good at her job extremely bright Valerie hired me [Music] that'll be an interpretive great great friend of mine and she was always willing to help me do whatever I needed to continue to follow my passion which is veterinary medicine I think Valerie knew that the road ahead was going to be hard that it was going to be really hard to fight against her targes when she literally sat down with an undercover officer at the Olive Garden and said exactly what she wanted done she knew that she probably wouldn't get off easy here and her reputation was completely ruined everything she built was completely ruined and she was a person that really cared about what people thought of her and her status and she knew that everything was gonna come crumbling down and not only that Mac would end up with full custody of their daughter which was clearly her worst nightmare and she was willing to kill him to make sure it didn't happen all of her friends and family were completely shocked that she did this but they kind of understood why they just knew that she could not live through this trial and face what she had done Leon says that he has nothing to do with Valerie's death that he takes no responsibility and pushing her to that or convincing her it was a good idea to get involved in this whole plot he said it was completely her idea to do that to herself and he doesn't feel bad so about a year later on March 20th 2018 Leon's trial begins and at this point he's facing two counts of solicitation of capital murder so now it's up to Leon to prove that he wasn't the one running all of this that it wasn't all his idea and it's really easy for Leon to throw Valerie under the bus now because she's not able to speak for herself anymore Leon's defense attorney argued that Valerie is the one who came up with this whole scheme and canon's Leon to go along with it now they had two key people take the stand and that was Mac and Meagan Meagan got up there and testified that Leon had always been a great a creep he had done weird [ __ ] like hiding in bushes outside of her work stalking her everywhere she went sometimes he would just follow her in her car and one time shake she called 911 because he had followed her for so long eventually Leon got out of the car stood in front of her car blocking it and refused to move unless they talked so he was that type of controlling person so now let's fast-forward and let's go to January of 2017 without going into the fact since you and Leon have a pretty bad fight yes and did that results in you going to the police yes and ultimately did the police file charges in that case yes do you know what charges were filed assault against the family member and the family member being you as his girlfriend right correct it turns out that back in February of 2017 Leon was arrested a second time on stalking charges and less than ten days after that Megan was contacted by police and told that her life was in danger and in court Leon gets up there and has the balls to tell everyone that he did not tell Paz or Javier to kill Mac or Megan in any way shape or form even though he was caught on an audio recording saying that he wanted Megan injected with potassium to give her a heart attack the defense tried to argue that Javier was responsible for all of Leon's words and actions that the police just wanted to have a successful sting operation and Leon is the victim here now Zach will get up here he's going to tell you that he was a hero he's an army veteran in a Purple Heart recipient he could not stand idly by while this lady a damsel in distress you did itself but the reality is mo Tess is nothing but economy he was saw a situation take advantage of somebody like Ileana you had money you had power and is steal from it so get up here and take that he he took money from no one other doing anything he helped out with well you can give me that money back the reality is this Zach saw the opportunity make his own fortune and jumped on it Leon claims that his intent was never to have either of them killed all he really wanted was to scare them and never really wanted to cause any harm however the prosecution argued that this was [ __ ] because when Javier first showed Leon the photos of Megan tied up he didn't say not to kill her or protect her in any way he didn't do anything to try to stop them from hurting her when the jury heard Leon's past it was a no-brainer they deliberated for only an hour before coming back with their verdict we the jury find having found the defendant Leon Phelps Jacob guilty of solicitation of capital murder so soon there was another hearing to determine his sentencing during this Leon's ex-wife Annie Morrison ended up testifying in court talk to me about during that time period when your you were pregnant with your younger son was he violent with you yes he was it was much of the same pushing grabbing me there was one time he pushed my head down onto the counter and and bruised my face near my eye I don't recall what the fight was about I recall we were in the kitchen and he pushed my face into the counter he threatened to punch me in the stomach he kicked my legs I remember I remember bringing my legs up as far as I could toward my chest to try to protect my stomach yes he threatened that if I ever left that he would kill me he said that nobody would ever find my body because he was a doctor and he had access to chemicals that would that would dissolve my body he said if I ever left he would find me and the children and take my children and I would never see them again the jury also only took one hour to come up with his sentence and he was sentenced to life in prison for both counts of solicitation of capital murder okay the art of the court didn't mr. Jacob that you haven't been found guilty of two cases of solicitation of capital murder we now delivered by the sheriff of Harris County to the director of the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice were on both cases you shall serve a life sentence and be fully credited with all the she's already served on this case thank you so Leon is currently in jail and he won't be eligible for parole until 2040 seven when he will be 69 years old and I highly doubt he will get out at that point knowing his track record with women and how he's treated so many women in the past I really do believe that if they didn't cook all this up a Valerie would have been next and there would have been another woman after Valerie so I am super glad that the cycle has ended and Leon is in jail because I think he's a crazy thug you convinced me to leave my life I had a [ __ ] burn and you convinced me it was awful you manipulated me to leave my family in your life I had I believe everything happens for a reason while you sit in jail I hope you think of me the girl that you called poor and uneducated because it's because of me you will be in prison for life you will never see your children grow up you will not be a part of their lives and they will be fed better for it I think some part of me always knew that you would try to hurt me and that you were always lying and what's hilarious is as I mentioned earlier he thinks he looks like Bradley Cooper he thinks Bradley Cooper should actually play him if there's ever a movie about this whole thing he said that in a jail interview he's got this huge ego and doesn't seem to take accountability for any of his actions he's still to this day just defends himself when it comes to all of it so how much has he actually learned you be the judge let me know what you guys think of this case below how much do you think Valerie was involved in this it's hard because she's not here to speak for herself but a lot of her friends and family think that she was really almost a victim of Leon in a way that he really convinced her to do this but at the end of the day how can you be if you're really a good person you cannot be convinced to want to participate in a murder I don't care what my ex had done me there is no way I would ever get to that point where I would let someone convince me that they need to be murdered and that I should be involved in the planning of it that shows major character flaw with Valerie and of course I feel sorry for her friends and family that lost her but at the end of the day I wonder how much she was pressured into this by Leon it doesn't take away from her involvement and what she needs to be responsible for it end of the day but I definitely think that Leon was super super manipulative and I don't think Valerie would have sought out a murder-for-hire plot if she didn't know Leon and he didn't convince her not that it's an excuse in any way but again I want to hear your thoughts below so let me know and before I go I want to thank today's sponsor case defy I just got some new cases from Casa Phi I think these ones might be my favorite yet I love case tough iphone cases because they're not bulky they're really stylish there's so many options so much personalization really something for everybody and not only does it make your phone really cute but it also protects it with their military strength drop protection see my phone's completely fine one thing that I love about their phone cases is if you click on a design that you like normally there's multiple color options to make it even more custom I really love this one I have right now it's got this really cute forest scene but then kind of melts down into this water color drip I just think it's so pretty so go to case defy comm slash Kendall maybe you can get the same one and we can match that's case Viacom / Kendall for 20% off today thanks again to KCI for sponsoring this video and that's it for me today guys I hope you're having a great day and I was sleek [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Kendall Rae

Views: 1,420,966

Rating: 4.9448452 out of 5

Keywords: kendallraeonyt, kendallrae, kendall rae, valerie mcdaniel and leon jacob, valerie mcdaniel, true crime, dateline, forensic files, itv, true crime daily, true crime documentary, dateline mystery, crime, 48 hours, crime documentary, true crime podcast, mystery, cold case, mile higher podcast, crime watch daily, mile higher, unsolved, documentary, id discovery, true crime story, unsolved mysteries, true crime stories, investigation, real crime, court tv, investigative, leon jacob

Id: kqTsGDMkghU

Length: 32min 5sec (1925 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020