NEW ORLEANS – Billie Ray Jacobs' relatives tried to make contact with him for days but were met with silence and excuses each time.
Once police made their way into the home in the 2000 block of Dumaine Street, they found a large knife next to Jacobs, two dogs that had minor stab wounds and a handwritten note from 62-year-old Brenda Jacobs, stating that the couple would lose the house and become homeless.Finally, they arrived at his Treme home last Friday and spotted his lifeless body, covered in dry blood, slumped over a table as his distraught wife lay in a side yard.
Brenda Jacobs wrote that she killed her husband and tried to kill their dogs and herself "so that they could be at peace," according to an arrest warrant.
The home, which had been listed as delinquent on tax bills since February, was the same place where she killed another husband 25 years ago.
The most recent killing apparently happened sometime last week.
Billie Ray Jacobs' relatives had tried to get in touch with him since at least Wednesday.
After they couldn't find him then, they went to his home on Thursday and saw the 64-year-old man seated at the kitchen table, albeit slumped, according to the warrant.
Not knowing anything was wrong, though, they knocked on the door and heard Brenda Jacobs say she was "getting dressed." She did not, however, open the door.
The relatives arrived back at the home about 9 a.m. the following day and spied the bloody scene through an open door, at which time they called police.
Investigators said that Billie Ray Jacobs' body showed signs of being dead for "at least" 48 hours.
Brenda Jacobs was brought to University Medical Center to be treated for "extreme abdominal discomfort," according to the warrant. While being questioned at the hospital, police said, she admitted that she stabbed her husband.
But, she said, she did so because he was an alcoholic and demanded she give him money for liquor.
Police booked Brenda Jacobs on a single count of second-degree murder.
A judge on Monday set bond for her at $250,000.
It was the second time she was accused of killing a spouse.
Jacobs and Darrell Williams, 39, got into an argument in the same home in September 1990 that ended with Jacobs pulling a .38-caliber revolver from underneath a mattress.
Jacobs shot Williams below the left temple, according to a report in The Times-Picayune at the time.
She pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September 1991 and was sentenced to five years in prison in January 1992.
New Orleans Advocate staff writer Matt Sledge contributed to this report.
