A man is convicted and sentenced to life in prison for two counts of solicitation of capital murder after he and his veterinarian girlfriend attempted to hire someone to kill their exes. Originally aired: 03/30/18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the story behind 'True Crime Vault: Toxic Love'?
Welcome to the True Crime Vault, home to 2020's most chilling stories.
Why would you want your husband killed?
I didn't. Wake up one day and just say, hey, I want to kill my ex-husband.
Tonight on 2020, the explosive court case that just wrapped. He's accused of wanting to hire a hitman to kill his ex. A prominent, successful veterinarian and a single mom recording her most private thoughts. Her handsome boyfriend doctor, a ladies' man with a past.
Without sounding pompous, I've always understood women really well and they've always liked me.
Together did this pair of doctors write a prescription for murder. Accused of hiring a hitman to kill their respective exes.
I'm not some monster that wanted my ex-girlfriend killed and her ex-husband.
Cooking up a plot at the Olive Garden.
Police say the happy couple ordered something that was not on the menu.
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Chapter 2: What led Valerie McDaniel to a life-changing decision?
No, we're not trying to hide her identity at all.
Cops say Leon has made his target clear. The good doctor even suggests a method, injecting Megan with potassium chloride to stop her heart.
He told me on more than one occasion that his survival is more important than hers, that he was a lot more important than her.
As Leon and Zach take a cigarette break, cops say the undercover Javier and Valerie are left alone to discuss intended target number two, Valerie's ex, Mac.
And I asked her, are you sure you want to do this? And she said, I have no other choice. He's going to take my baby from me. She was worried about him taking full custody of the girl.
And he finally gets her to say that she does, in fact, want him to be killed.
And that's when he said, well, if you want that done, it's going to be another $10,000. And Valerie said, OK, I have to pay you out in installments of it, but I'll pay you $10,000.
Money is tight for Valerie, thanks to that divorce settlement. She agreed to pay her ex over a million dollars for his share of the vet clinic.
She had just gotten divorced and taken a loan out of $1.2 million to pay Mac McDaniel as part of that divorce. So liquidity may have been an issue for them. So she had to pay $1.25 in the divorce? She had to take a loan out.
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Chapter 3: How did Leon Jacob and Valerie McDaniel's relationship develop?
And now the jury will determine if he should go to prison and for how long. To help them do that, prosecutors call a bombshell witness.
Annie Morrison. Do you know an individual by the name of Leon Jacob? Yes. How do you know him? He's my ex-husband.
If there was any doubt for jurors about what Leon Jacob is capable of, his ex-wife and the mother of his two children puts all that to rest.
There was a time that we got into a fight and he pulled a knife on me. He would push me, grab my arms or my shoulders, kick me, push me against the wall. 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 dissolve my body.
This defendant cannot be trusted to live among us. He's terrorized too many people for too long. The only appropriate punishment in this case is life.
And the prosecutors get their wish. Sentenced to life in prison, the man of so many words suddenly at a loss for them.
Do you have anything to say?
No, sir. And it's Megan Varikas, the woman he wanted dead, who gets the last word, addressing Leon directly.
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