Death row survivor wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years dies in horror house fire
A death row survivor who spent 17 years behind bars for a crime she didn't commit has tragically died in a house fire.
Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs was killed in Galway in the Republic of Ireland earlier this week, along with a man in his 30s understood to be her carer.
They were both pronounced dead at the scene of the fatal fire at a bungalow at Gleann Mac Muireann near Casla in Connemara on Tuesday morning. The two are understood to have been the only people in the house at the time of the blaze.
Police and Fire Services were alerted to the fire at around 6:20am on Tuesday and brought it under control. The bodies of Ms Jacobs and the man in his 30s were recovered from inside the property.
Sunny spent nearly two decades on Florida's death row after she and her then partner were wrongfully sentenced to death by the Florida courts for the murder of two police men. A mother of two, Sunny spent 17 years behind bars for a crime she did not commit.
Her passing was confirmed by the founder of Death Penalty Action in America Abraham J. Bonowitz. He told The Irish Mirror that he met Sunny a few months after she was freed following 17 years of wrongful incarceration in The Sunshine State.
"I first met Sunny in 1993, just months after she was freed from 17 years of wrongful incarceration in Florida, including five years as the only woman on Florida's death row, after evidence of her innocence vacated her conviction,' Mr Bonowitz said in the statement. 'In the wake of injustice, Sunny used the remainder of her life to work to keep others from enduring wrongful incarceration, to help those freed from wrongful incarceration to heal, and to work to abolish the death penalty in the United States and worldwide.'
He continued: "It was a great privilege to know Sunny, not only in the work that we shared, but as a true friend. One of my greatest honours was to be the person to drive her to visit the memorial to the victims of Flight 759, which crashed near the airport in New Orleans in 1982. We were together at the 2024 Annual Conference of The Innocence Network in New Orleans. It was the first time she was able to visit the site where her parents of blessed memory, Bella and Herbert Jacobs, died. Even in her old age, Sunny was constantly working to help others.'
Sunny's late husband was Irish death row survivor Peter Pringle. They set up 'The Sunny Centre' to support people who had been victims of wrongful incarceration.
The story of Sunny's plight was also told in books, plays and film, with her being played by Susan Sarandon in the TV film 'The Exonerated' in 2005. Director Micki Dickoff also put her career on hold for the 1996 film 'In the Blink of an Eye', with Mimi Rogers portraying Sunny.
The film also told the story of her husband Jesse Tafero. Tafero died in 1990 during a brutal botched execution by electric chair that saw flames shoot out of his head.
Mr Bonowitz added: 'Our last conversations were about how we can better assist such individuals in their latter years - particularly those who, like Sunny, received no compensation or even an official acknowledgement of their innocence.'
He continued: 'My heart and prayers go out to her daughter, Christina, her son, Eric, to all who knew her personally, all who had the chance to hear her speak or know her story, and all who have been inspired by the example she set in how she lived and used her life to help others.'
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