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♪♪ -We've all been angry
at people that we loved, and I think we've all
probably done things
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that we wish we could
take back or regret. ♪♪ -October 10, 2017, the Beverly Hills
Police Department
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received a 911 call
of an unattended death. -She's found on the floor
by her son and daughter.
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-Violet Yacobi
was a 67-year-old widow whose husband
had passed a year earlier. She was living
in that house alone.
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It was a nice house. -No one had heard
from her that day, which was uncommon. Daniel Yacobi
and his sister, Dina Yacobi,
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meet at the house. Daniel calls 911. -Daniel Yacobi is
a 36-year-old son of Violet.
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He was a dentist. -He's asked by the 911 operator
if anyone knows CPR. -He says,
"My sister's doing CPR."
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-During that call, it was
just a matter of minutes, the first patrol car
had arrived at the house.
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-This is Violet's house. -Yes, this is it. -Do you remember coming here? -Yeah. It was dark, nighttime.
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I remember walking up the steps
and in the door and... -And no sign of forced entry?
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-No. It's a large entry doorway.
Marble floor. There's a large curving
staircase that's to the right.
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The victim
was laying on her back. Initially, they thought that
she had fallen over the railing.
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-They just didn't know
the cause of death. It wasn't like
she'd been stabbed or shot.
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One of the issues that becomes
incredibly relevant to this case is where she's laying,
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where it is in vicinity
to a railing. -I'm looking straight down, and her feet
are under the staircase.
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That, to me-- she didn't
fall over the railing. -He was the one who said, "This
is not sitting well with me."
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-There was a very significant
abrasion on her jawline in a kind of V-shaped pattern.
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There was a separate abrasion
just below that on her neck. -What you're saying is they
were suspecting pretty quickly
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that she might
have been strangled. -Certainly it was an option. -What did you learn
about this family?
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-We learned
it was a tight family. It was a tight community. That it was not all roses
and rainbows in that house.
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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Any unattended death like this,
we will get called out to. Some are clearly
more suspicious than others.
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-When Beverly Hills police
detective Mark Schwartz got the call about
an unattended death
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at the home of 67-year-old
widow Violet Yacobi, he didn't know
what he would find.
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-This one gradually got
more and more suspicious. -It was October 10, 2017. Violet's son, Daniel,
and daughter, Dina,
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had told police
they found their mother on the marble entryway
below the staircase
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around 7:30 p.m. Responding officers initially
suspected it might be a suicide. -The information
that we got very early on
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about possibly being depressed and possibly
falling over the railing, those are the things
that we showed up with.
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Her dog had just died. She had canceled
her cleaning lady. -Violet had just marked
the one-year anniversary
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of her husband's death, but when
Detective George Elwell, now retired,
arrived at the home,
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he didn't think she could
have gone over the railing. In this crime-scene photo,
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"48 hours" rendered the body
as a graphic to show the position. Is that a pretty good
description?
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-Yes. -And so what am I
seeing there? -Where the body was laying
at the time I got there.
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-Elwell says
that when he looked down from the top of the railing, he was surprised that
he couldn't see Violet's feet,
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which were under the staircase. -I'm not an expert in physics, but anything
that's gonna go over that
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that has any kind
of weight to it, the momentum's
gonna take it away from the staircase a little bit.
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-Elwell,
an old-school investigator with a background in burglaries, also had an eye
for more tactile evidence,
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like the dust that still covered
much of the staircase railing. -Up and down the entire railing,
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there's dust patterns, but for a person of her stature, there's absolutely
no disturbance on that railing
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that would have indicated
anything had gone over. -When he got to the station, he pulled me aside and...
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he said, "We got to
write a search warrant. I'm not comfortable
with what I'm seeing."
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-Around midnight,
the two detectives went to the scene together, and they asked Daniel and Dina
to come for a walk-through.
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There were no signs
of a burglary. -Her wallet was there,
her checkbook, cellphone, iPad.
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Anything that would have
been stolen was still there. -And they soon became
more convinced
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that Violet had not
gone over the railing. -We had Dina
stand next to the railing.
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I asked her
how tall the mother was. She told me. She said,
"She's shorter than me."
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-Violet was about 5 feet tall, and the railing
was just over 3 feet, more than half her height.
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The railing
would come up too high. -If she wanted to climb over... the dust would have been
completely damaged.
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For her
to accidentally fall over was just not reasonable. -Raising more questions
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were the injuries
on Violet's face and neck. -There was some sort of mark
under her chin here.
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There's unnatural marks
on her neck. -It also appeared
Violet had vomited. And what does that say
to you guys?
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-To me, there was a couple
of different possibilities. Did she choke?
Was she strangled?
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-During an initial interview
with two other detectives, Daniel had also wondered
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if his mother
had been strangled. -I, at that point,
had not ruled out this idea that
she had hung herself.
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-Yet there were
no obvious signs like a rope or a belt
near Violet's Body, and Violet's family members
rejected the idea
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that she would take her life. Daniel had described
seeing her just two days earlier
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at a family dinner. When Detective Schwartz learned that Violet was part
of a close-knit
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Russian Jewish community
where suicide is taboo, it occurred to him
that her children
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might be covering it up. -I'm a little more in tune
with the Jewish community, so I was thinking,
"How would it be looked at?"
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-And so you thought
maybe the kids might hide it. -Right. Right.
Could it be an insurance thing?
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Could it be a shame thing? -Later that day,
they talked about oddities they both had observed
in Daniel's behavior.
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For Elwell, it was
during the walk-through. -Daniel's in the foyer
where the body was found,
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just moving from side to side. He's looking down. He's crouching.
He's touching the tile.
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And it just didn't
sit well with me. -You didn't think it could
just be a grieving son...
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-No.
-...trying to figure out why his mother
ended up on the floor? -No. It was so animated.
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It was just like watching
an episode of "Columbo" when he would look for evidence.
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-For Schwartz, it was Daniel's
demeanor when they met. -Daniel was
very eager to help.
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-And what's wrong with that?
-Nothing. But it was like a nervous energy
that he had.
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-But I mean, all along, Daniel Yacobi
is being cooperative. -Absolutely.
-Yes. -Your concern
may be too cooperative.
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-Yes. -They had questions
about the initial story that Daniel told
to other detectives
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of how he and his sister had come to meet
at their mother's house when he learned that no one
had heard from Violet.
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-Apparently, they went there
because no one had been able to get ahold of her
during the day.
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-Daniel calls his sister, and there's some sort of
convoluted story about the keys.
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So Daniel's telling Dina,
"Meet me at the house." It didn't sit right. -And there were
conflicting stories
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about who had performed CPR. On the 911 call,
Daniel told the operator his sister was performing CPR,
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but when talking to detectives, he said he also
had done compressions. -When Detective Schwartz
called Dina,
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she confirmed that Daniel
had not done CPR. -George and I said,
"There's only one person
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that doesn't seem
to be forthcoming and doesn't seem genuine." -They decided they needed
to interview Daniel themselves,
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especially once they learned
that Violet had died the night of
Monday, October 9th,
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nearly 24 hours
before she was found. -Based off of missed phone
calls, contents in her stomach,
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we're pretty confident right now that it's the night of the night
that she dies.
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-And detectives want to know... where was Daniel? ♪♪ -Initially, it's like
an unbelievable explosion
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of horrible news. -The news
of Violet Yacobi's death stunned and saddened her large circle of friends
in Beverly Hills,
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including Galina Blackman. -Who would ever,
uh, kill Violet? -Violet and her husband
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had long been pillars
in their community. -Perfect couple. He was a very, very
solid doctor.
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They were very well-known. -What was important to Violet? -Family. Her brothers,
her husband, her children.
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She had a mission of making
everybody happy, I think. -Her son, Daniel, was a dentist,
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and her daughter, Dina,
worked in physical therapy. -They are the American dream.
Immigrant family.
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And were able to create a
beautiful life in Beverly Hills. From the outside, it is a tight-knit,
successful family,
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and that's what
we saw initially. -But detectives began
to take a closer look. On Friday, October 13th,
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nearly three days
after Violet's body was found, the deputy medical examiner
completed the autopsy.
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The official cause of death was asphyxia
by neck compression. Strangulation.
-Yes.
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-Her death was
being ruled a homicide. This was now
a murder investigation, and detectives asked Daniel to
come back for another interview.
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-You are free to leave... So we know that he is saying he had not seen his mother
since Sunday.
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The first time
he sees his mother is Tuesday,
when he discovers the body. So we have that full time frame
that we're looking at.
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-They first asked Daniel
to go through the events of Tuesday, October 10th, and the night he and his sister
had arrived at Violet's house.
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He told them
he was in a panic when he walked in
and saw her on the floor. He said he hugged
his mother's body
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before starting CPR. But when detectives
shared with Daniel the results of the autopsy,
he didn't seem surprised
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to learn her death
had been ruled a homicide. They told him,
based on the lividity patterns,
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the way the blood settles
in the body after death, that they suspected
Violet's body
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had been moved
shortly after she died. They also told him
they believed he was hiding something.
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Daniel continued talking
even when he was asked if he was responsible
for his mother's death.
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Detectives decided
they needed to lock Daniel into his story about where
he was the night Violet died.
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He had consistently told them
that, on that Monday, he worked at his dental office
in Inglewood,
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about 12 miles
from Beverly Hills, and then drove straight home, which was another 6 miles
from Violet's house.
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But each time he was asked
to describe his drive home, he seemed stymied
by the details.
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-When we started getting
his time frame of Monday, that's where
he got uncomfortable.
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At this point, we don't know
he wasn't at Inglewood, but his description
of how he got home,
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it was so labored
for such a simple question, and he could not give
a clear answer.
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-But Daniel was adamant
when asked if he was at or near his mother's house
Monday night
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or any point Tuesday before
he reported finding the body. -We couldn't
call him out on the lie,
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but we knew he was lying. And I knew he was lying
during a time frame that was very significant
in this case.
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Whatever he was holding in,
it was for a reason. -Detective Elwell told Daniel
they suspected
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he had been alone
inside his mother's home before going over with
his sister on Tuesday night.
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But Daniel pushed back and said the detectives
had it all wrong. And there was something else.
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He had told detectives he had a great relationship
with his mom, saying they talked and texted
on a regular basis.
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But when Detective Schwartz
looked at Daniel's phone, the last photo he had sent
his mom was a month earlier.
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-It's been a while. -And it wasn't
a picture of his baby, but of his bank account.
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-At this point.
I found that to be significant. By that Friday,
he's our suspect.
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No doubt about it. ♪♪ ♪♪ -I think a lot of people, when they hear
the name "Beverly Hills,"
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they think of movie stars. -No, that's not Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills
is very, very reachable.
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You can drive
and you see the homes. Movie stars live in areas
where they cannot be reached.
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-That wasn't the case
with Violet Yacobi, says Galina Blackman. -She liked to impress.
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-Blackman, a Beverly Hills
realtor for more than 36 years, specializes in luxury properties
like Violet's.
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Galina was asked
to appraise the home while Violet's husband
was still alive. -At that time, I said I think
it's an $8-million house.
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-When interviewing
Violet's son, Daniel, just days following her death
on Friday, October 13th,
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Detective Schwartz wondered
if money was a motive. Daniel stood to inherit
half of the family fortune.
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Detectives now had a murder, a potential motive,
and a suspect, but after more than two hours of
questioning, they let Daniel go.
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-We can't arrest him.
-Why not? -We don't have the evidence. -Dino was ruled out
as a suspect,
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but they needed to
shore up their case and dig deeper
into Daniel's finances and his relationship
with his mother.
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-This is not like
a business deal gone bad. There's a complexity to that
that we had to understand.
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-Daniel, who had grown up
in Beverly Hills, was now living
near tony Bel Air. His wife was also
a medical professional,
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and their baby
was five months old. -Everything in his life
was wonderful. Yeah. Good boy.
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-Dean Summers
got to know Daniel casually. -What are you looking at? -Dean's brother
was Daniel's neighbor.
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-Daniel lived right next door. He was marketed
as the dentist to the stars. -First time you met Daniel,
what were your impressions?
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-Nice guy.
-Someone you wanted
to be friends with. -Somebody that I could
potentially be friends with.
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Just a nice, normal guy
that had his act together. -But it may have been
just an act, say investigators.
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-I think resentment
was one of the things that we started to learn
pretty quick,
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that he had a lot of resentment
towards his parents that he had to live a certain
life and be a certain way.
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-Dean Summers says Daniel
had later confided in him about those feelings. It was the last time
Dean saw him,
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sometime in the year
before Violet's death. -He was not talkative.
He just looked very unhappy.
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And I said,
"Daniel, what's wrong?" -That's when, he says,
Daniel unloaded a laundry list of complaints.
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-"I hate my life.
I hate being married. I hate what I'm doing
for a living. I hate my mother.
I hate my father."
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Those were his words.
And I was just taken aback. -He says Daniel complained
about how both his parents,
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his mother in particular, had controlled
every aspect of his life, even pushed him
into dentistry and marriage.
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-I asked him, "Why don't you
just break free of it and live your own life?" He goes, "I can't.
I'm not making any money.
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They basically help support me." He felt he was stuck because he was financially
dependent on them.
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-Although Daniel had at one
point owned his own practice, he now worked
for other dentists.
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Even though he said
he hated his parents, did you get any sense
that he might hurt his mother?
00:23:35
-Never. Never. -But according to investigators, after his father died, Daniel's relationship
with his mother
00:23:43
and access to the family fortune
became more complicated. They had received a tip early on
from Dr. Elena Spektor,
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who was Violet's sister-in-law
at the time. -She tells me... that Daniel has had an obsession
00:24:02
with money and control
of the estate for some time, that Violet
would confide in her.
00:24:10
-Detectives went back
and reviewed the video of their interview with Daniel
on October 13th.
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During a period
when Daniel was left alone, he had contacted his sister. -We leave the interview room,
but it's still recording.
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-He says Daniel didn't realize
that his sister was with other detectives
in another room.
00:24:34
-Daniel starts sending texts
to the sister about, "Hey. Just remember.
I was doing CPR, too."
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-Daniel wrote... -The sister tells the
detectives, "You know what? He's sending me
some weird texts."
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So she calls him. And, again, these are
being recorded separately, but you can hear it all.
00:25:04
-When Dina called Daniel, she told him that she had
done the compressions. Daniel, speaking in Russian,
insisted he had, as well.
00:25:25
-Daniel is trying
to put himself on the body. -Because he's concerned
there's DNA on the body?
00:25:30
-He's concerned there's DNA.
That's exactly it. -Detectives were convinced
that Daniel was likely lying
00:25:37
about where he was
on Monday, October 9th, the night Violet died, but they couldn't prove it
00:25:44
until they received
his cellphone records the following week. -The cellphone records blew
his story out of the water.
00:25:50
He wasn't in Inglewood at all... -No.
-...on that day. -The phone records
placed Daniel in Beverly Hills,
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and not just driving through. And not only that,
police had obtained footage from Nest security cameras
inside Daniel's house
00:26:07
that showed him arriving home
around 8:00 p.m. that night. Later, they saw this man
typing at a computer.
00:26:16
They were surprised
to learn who it was. -We didn't know
Daniel was bald. -And here he is with his
hairpiece at the same computer
00:26:26
40 minutes after he came home. -You don't know
what he's typing until we get the results
from the computer search
00:26:33
from our forensic team. And he does a search of "latent
fingerprints on human skin."
00:26:38
And that's when I knew. It's time.
We got to go arrest him. He killed his mother,
and he did it for the money.
00:26:52
-I was getting ready
to retire. I wanted to be the one to walk
up and put the handcuffs on him.
00:26:58
-On February 12, 2018, four months after launching
the investigation into Violet Yacobi's death,
00:27:06
Beverly Hills detectives
George Elwell and Mark Schwartz arrested Daniel Yacobi at home
for his mother's murder.
00:27:14
What was his reaction? -Not shock.
-Like he just sunk into himself. -The first thing he asked me,
he says, "Can I get my toupée?"
00:27:22
-Daniel Yacobi was denied bail and would spend
more than seven years in jail due to court delays
00:27:29
before finally going on trial
for murder in July 2025. Los Angeles County
Deputy District Attorney
00:27:37
Shane Michael
says the evidence shows that Yacobi strangled
his mother for financial gain.
00:27:44
-It's a very personal
type of crime. You have to physically
squeeze the life out of someone.
00:27:52
That's what strangulation is. -According to
the autopsy report, Violet had petechiae
around her eyes and face,
00:28:00
the rupturing
of small blood vessels, a classic sign of strangulation. -There was also
00:28:08
a very significant abrasion
on her jawline. There was a separate abrasion
just below that on her neck.
00:28:15
-We're talking
about a line around here. -Yeah. -But at trial, the defense presented
a very different theory.
00:28:23
-The truth is
that she wasn't killed. Period. Full stop.
End of story. -Dr. Larry Simms
is a forensic pathologist
00:28:30
and a former medical examiner
in Las Vegas, Nevada, who says he has conducted
about 10,000 autopsies.
00:28:38
You don't believe that
Violet Yacobi was murdered. -No. -But her son went on trial
for her murder.
00:28:45
-That is correct.
I testified at that trial. -Dr. Simms rejected Violet's
official cause of death.
00:28:52
-There was no evidence
that she was strangled, period. -None?
-None. -Dr. Simms says the petechiae
were just sunspots.
00:29:01
And those marks across
Violet's neck? Skin folds. What's more, he says, the deputy medical examiner
missed injuries
00:29:10
that pointed away
from strangulation and toward a fall from
the second-story landing.
00:29:17
-This is where
the fracture is right here. -Violet had a spinal fracture that was not mentioned
anywhere in the autopsy report.
00:29:25
Are you at all concerned
that the autopsy that you are relying on for this
prosecution had errors in it?
00:29:34
That's a pretty big mistake,
isn't it? -Yeah, well, when we talk
about, you know, errors,
00:29:40
I think that was an omission. -That wasn't
the only omission. The same deputy
medical examiner
00:29:49
also failed to take note
of rib fractures, including several on her back. He didn't testify at trial.
00:29:57
And the prosecution
tried to address the problem, pointing out that the injuries
had been photographed
00:30:04
and that none of them
contributed to Violet's death. The medical examiner's office
00:30:10
declined to comment
for this story. -I've handled
many homicide cases. I've never seen an autopsy
with so many mistakes.
00:30:18
That was a deeply troubling part for the prosecution
to have to explain. -Julie Rendelman,
a criminal defense attorney
00:30:26
and former homicide prosecutor, is a "48 Hours" consultant
who reviewed the case.
00:30:33
-It left, in a sense,
open for an expert on the defense side
to kind of jump in and say,
00:30:39
"These mistakes
are so overwhelming, we have to start to question
everything about this case."
00:30:45
-Daniel Yacobi's trial
became a battle of experts, with five doctors testifying
about how and why Violet died,
00:30:53
including a new
deputy medical examiner brought in by prosecutors who agreed with
the finding of asphyxia
00:31:01
due to neck compression. But Dr. Simms told the jury that he believed Violet's death
was instead caused
00:31:08
by a rare mass of blood vessels
in her brain stem called an arteriovenous
malformation, or AVM.
00:31:17
-This is an arteriovenous
malformation here that's in the fourth ventricle. -This is what you think
contributed to Violet's death?
00:31:24
-Yes. -He says
he spotted the problem in this microscopic slide
of Violet's brain stem.
00:31:32
According to Dr. Simms, the AVM had hemorrhaged, causing Violet
to become disoriented.
00:31:39
-She's stumbling around,
and she slammed into the railing before she went over
the railing.
00:31:45
-The defense presented a photo superimposing the abrasion against a star-shaped design
on the railing.
00:31:54
Dr. Simms says it's a match. -This is a very unusual
patterned injury, and it fits it perfectly.
00:32:03
-Is this at all possible
that Violet could have died because of a medical event
and fallen down?
00:32:12
-For me, no. I went up and down
every inch of that railing, and there's absolutely
no physical evidence
00:32:21
to show that anything
went over that railing. -I look at the body. Those are things that are
hard evidence that speaks to me.
00:32:32
-Prosecutor Shane Michael argued that Dr. Simms simply
cherry-picked the evidence
00:32:38
and disputes his theory about
the cause of that odd abrasion. -He didn't know
the dimensions of the star.
00:32:47
If you were to fall and smack
your chin on a piece of metal, you would not expect
an abrasion.
00:32:54
You'd expect to see bruising.
You might see a cut, bleeding. -And he says
Violet had osteopenia,
00:33:02
a weakening of the bones. -A 67-year-old woman
would have had to have been on the floor
with her back arched
00:33:10
like in a, you know,
yoga-class cobra pose to get her chin flush with that. -What do you think, then, caused
that "V" mark on her chin?
00:33:20
-Her son strangling her. -The prosecution's radiologist
also testified that if Violet had fallen
from the railing,
00:33:30
he would expect to see
more catastrophic injuries. -There was no skull fracture.
00:33:36
There were no fractures
in her arms. There were no fractures
in her legs. There was no pelvic fracture.
00:33:41
There was nothing on the floor that would be consistent
with falling from approximately 13 feet
onto a marble floor.
00:33:49
-The other doctors testified
there was no brain hemorrhage, nor did they say
they saw an AVM,
00:33:56
including the neuropathologist
who created the very slides Dr. Simms used
to form his opinion.
00:34:05
The fact that you have
dueling medical experts who can't agree
on how Violet Yacobi died,
00:34:13
doesn't that add up
to reasonable doubt? -It can. If you can convince
the jury to believe
00:34:20
that she died of natural causes, then Daniel Yacobi
is not guilty of a crime. ♪♪
00:34:33
♪♪ -Prosecutor Shane Michael used the trail of evidence
left by Daniel Yacobi to show that his relationship
with his mother
00:34:47
had reached a breaking point
in October 2017 and that greed
for the family fortune,
00:34:54
worth an estimated $13 million, had fueled his plot
to kill Violet. ♪♪ Do you believe
that he killed his mother
00:35:05
because he wanted
his inheritance early? -Yes. -The defense disputes that. Yacobi was in the process
of buying a new dental practice
00:35:15
and had recently secured
a million-dollar loan. Still, his now ex-wife
admitted in court
00:35:22
they had lived
beyond their means. And Shane Michael pointed
to Yacobi's own statements.
00:35:28
-He was regularly talking
about his need for money and need to make more money. -A family friend testified
00:35:35
that Yacobi had asked him
about inheritance tax a couple of weeks
before Violet's death.
00:35:42
-The ideation and thought
of killing his mom had been building. ♪♪ -The prosecutor
also presented a timeline
00:35:53
of Yacobi's online searches
going back to August of 2017 that he said
revealed Jacobi's plan
00:36:02
to murder his mother
and stage the scene. -He was searching
"unexplained deaths,"
00:36:09
"death statistics,"
things like "choke holds," "bruises caused by choke holds,"
"falling down stairs."
00:36:16
He was trying
to figure out a way to deflect any suspicion that
might be pointing toward him.
00:36:23
-Of particular interest
to the prosecution was a YouTube video... -This is the rear naked choke.
00:36:29
-...demonstrating what's known
as a rear naked choke hold. They played it at trial.
00:36:35
-It's certainly
the kind of choke hold that could cause abrasions similar to the ones that we saw
in the photos of Mrs. Yacobi.
00:36:45
-The prosecution theorized that Yacobi caused
the spinal and rib fractures while choking Violet
from behind.
00:36:54
-If he's choking her
from behind, you assume he's applying
as much pressure as he can.
00:36:58
If he's lifting her
off the ground, if he's got his hip in her back. There are any number of ways
00:37:05
that you could apply force
to her back. -Do you believe
that is how Violet Yacobi died,
00:37:12
that her son actually used
his own arm to kill his mother? -I do.
-Yes. -And Detectives Elwell
and Schwartz
00:37:22
say Yacobi's DNA under
Violet's fingernails proves it. Did you notice
any kind of scratches on him?
00:37:30
-We weren't looking. The DNA is under her fingernails
for a reason. He's asking about DNA
for a reason.
00:37:36
He did the research.
It was calculated. -Detective Schwartz had done
some calculations of his own
00:37:43
using data from Daniel's
iPhone Facebook account, and he says it places Daniel
at his mother's house
00:37:51
at the time
he believes she was killed. -One of the things that came
back in the Facebook records
00:37:58
were latitude, longitude
coordinates. -Schwartz used those coordinates
to pull video
00:38:04
from the city's
closed circuit cameras and security cameras
from Violet's neighbors.
00:38:10
-We were able
to track his movement through the whole day
into the next day. -That's Daniel Yacobi's
white Jaguar
00:38:19
in Beverly Hills traffic
on October 9th before the prosecutor
describes him "stalking" his mother's house.
00:38:29
-He was driving
up and down the street at least two or three times. -Around 4:00,
Daniel Yacobi's car
00:38:37
appeared on the next-door
neighbor's security footage. A few minutes later,
it popped up again
00:38:43
on another home security camera in the alley
behind Violet's house. -Almost like a shark.
00:38:50
He's circling the block.
And he's going down the alley. He pulls up right around here,
just behind the residence,
00:38:59
and for whatever reason, he stops...
and then he slowly backs up. -He never gets out,
00:39:06
and he's not moving
the garbage cans back there. He is in the car, presumably looking into the back
of his mother's property.
00:39:14
-Then he drives away. But Facebook coordinates
place him at his mother's house
from 6:39 p.m.
00:39:24
until 7:48 that night. -How he entered the house,
don't know. Don't know
if he rang the doorbell.
00:39:31
Don't know if he snuck
around the side. -What the data establishes,
according to the prosecution,
00:39:36
is that Violet was alive
when Daniel arrived... and, by the time he left,
she was dead.
00:39:43
Afterwards,
Yacobi drove straight home. -Now we have his Nest camera. And almost to the second,
00:39:51
you're seeing him
walk through the door. -Less than 45 minutes
after walking in,
00:39:58
he was typing in that search for "latent fingerprints
on human skin." -22-plus hours before
his mother's body was located,
00:40:07
he was already thinking
about what evidence might have been left behind
at the scene.
00:40:12
-It's evidence of consciousness
of guilt, says Shane Michael. And Yacobi would do it again
the following morning
00:40:20
when he went back to the scene
for less than four minutes and then drove back home.
00:40:26
At around 1:00, he contacted
a financial investor via Skype. -A million dollars.
00:40:37
Six hours before
his mother's body is found. His belief was that
he was coming into money.
00:40:42
-In late August 2025, after three weeks of testimony and nearly eight years
after Violet's death,
00:40:50
the jury got the case. -If they come back not guilty, on some level, this guy
has gotten away with murder.
00:40:57
-After deliberating
for nearly five and a half hours over two days, the jury was unanimous:
00:41:04
guilty of first-degree murder
for financial gain. It's a judgment that carries
a mandatory life sentence
00:41:13
without the possibility
of parole. -This broke that family apart. -Very sad
that it ended that way.
00:41:22
-I feel for Violet.
And I feel for Daniel. -You feel for Daniel, too? -I feel for him. Yeah.
00:41:28
What in the world
made him do that? ♪♪