Susan Jacobson

•The next day, police got a tip from the Starbucks in the same shopping center. Susan’s wallet (missing the cash and credit cards) had been found on the nearby sidewalk, and turned in at the Starbucks counter at 8:00 am the morning she was last seen. The area where the wallet was found was also outside security camera coverage. None of Susan’s cards were ever used or found. Susan was very shy, and spent her time with her husband, son, and sister. She was excited about the pending arrival of her first grandchild, and had no history of personal or domestic issues that would point to a motive or explanation for her disappearance without a trace.

Sidewalk outside Starbucks where Susan's wallet was found.

•Susan Jacobson has a troubling connection to DeAngelo. She grew up in Danville, right on the other side of the Iron Horse trail from the December, 1978 EAR attack. The police tracking dogs followed DeAngelo’s scent into several neighboring backyards, including the home of her parents, the Leonards, on Paraiso. They not only were contacted as possible witnesses after the EAR attack, but they provided the make and license plate of a suspect vehicle, an old blue Chevy as NCH 718 or NCH 716.

•Susan was a petite brunette—DeAngelo’s preferred victim type:

Susan Jacobson, Danville High School

• Stalking someone in 1978/79, and then kidnapping and murdering them in 2013 may sound like an insane leap, but it actually fits DeAngelo’s known behavior. Starting with his earliest confessed crimes, he is documented stalking victims for four years before attacking them. 

• He started calling EAR victims from 1976-78 in the early 1990s after his wife and children moved out of the family home. 

• He attacked a 13-year-old girl on his fourth wedding anniversary (in 1977), and then followed that same victim when she moved to a gated community in Dana Point in June, 1980. Just a few weeks later, he killed the Harringtons four blocks from the girl’s new home. 

• The neighborhood in Danville where Susan’s family lived was chosen by DeAngelo because the victim of an October, 1976 EAR attack in Rancho Cordova had moved there. It appears from the dog scent tracking that he parked near her new home, possibly peeping on her, and then attacked her neighbors blocks away. Her children’s new school ended up being the site of an EAR warning meeting from law enforcement—just like their old school in Rancho Cordova had been. 

• Like Martin, Wanner, Norris, and Kovacich, 59 yr old Susan Jacobson was last seen at home, on a weekday morning, and there was no sign of any break in, or struggle. Her husband left for work at 6:00 am on May 1, 2013, headed to RC Willey—across the street from the Save-Mart center where DeAngelo repaired trucks. Investigators could look for a minor dispute between the men, possibly a petty confrontation started by DeAngelo on the road, in a parking lot, or at a store. 

• Wallet out of purse, left on the sidewalk is a specific DeAngelo MO going back to the Cordova Cat Burglar in 1972-73. Wallets were generally found on back patios, or on the sidewalk. Sometimes in a pile together from multiple different burglaries;

• Staging a fake kidnapping scene to draw law enforcement attention away from the real scene is a DeAngelo MO. 

• DeAngelo went to great lengths to hide a 1976 home kidnapping. He replaced the window screen, turned off the TV, and turned on the lights and heat. The victim’s parents believed she had gone out with her boyfriend, and did not report her missing;

• DeAngelo stalked his victims in their homes, and waited for their husbands or parents to leave, especially in the early morning, then attacked;

• The case file should be compared to Janet Kovacich, Rosemary Norris, Cindy Wanner, Cherilyn Hawkley, and Erna Martin.

• DeAngelo’s first position in law enforcement was as an intern for the Roseville PD in 1972-73—before he moved to Exeter in May, 1973. DeAngelo was not offered a permanent position with Roseville PD, and he may have harbored a grudge against the department.