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The Guardian
2 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Woman wrongly held for years on US death row dies in Irish house fire
After enduring hellish years on America's death row for a crime she did not commit, Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs found an idyll, and healing, in rural Ireland. But in a final, cruel twist, her sanctuary claimed her life. Jacobs, 78, and her carer, Kevin Kelly, were found dead on Tuesday after a fire at her cottage near the village of Casla, in County Galway. It was a tragic end to a remarkable life that was chronicled in books, a play and a film and made Jacobs a symbol of second chances and the campaign against capital punishment. Emergency services were alerted to the blaze at 6.19am and pronounced Jacobs and Kelly, a local man in his 30s, dead at the scene. Police are examining the bungalow to determine the cause of the fire. The news prompted grief and tributes from Jacobs' friends and supporters. 'Sunny was a fierce advocate for justice and a guiding light,' the Sunny Center Foundation, a nonprofit she founded that campaigns against wrongful convictions, said in a statement. 'Fair winds and full sails on your crossing, Sunny. Your memory is a blessing to us.' In 1976, Jacobs was a 28-year-old American hippy travelling in Florida with her 10-month-old daughter Christina, nine-year-old son Eric, and boyfriend Jesse Tafero, Christina's father. They accepted a lift from an acquaintance, Walter Rhodes, unaware he had a criminal record and had broken parole conditions. At a traffic stop, Rhodes shot dead two police officers and sped away with his passengers. He later surrendered, and in a plea deal he blamed the murders on Jacobs and Tafero, who were sentenced to death despite both maintaining their innocence. Rhodes later confessed to the murders, although he subsequently recanted. Tafero was executed in 1990. A malfunctioning electric chair meant it took several attempts and 13 minutes to kill him. Flames reportedly shot out of his head. Jacobs spent 17 years in prison, including five years in a tiny, windowless cell on death row and in solitary confinement, before being exonerated and released in 1992, aged 45. During her incarceration, her parents died in a plane crash, further traumatising her children. Christina was put into foster care and Eric, then in his mid-teens, supported himself as a pizza delivery boy. Jacobs sought to rebuild a bond with her children and to live without bitterness, drawing in part on the yoga and meditation that had sustained her in prison. In 1998 she visited Ireland to speak at an Amnesty International event and met Peter Pringle, a Dubliner who had been condemned to death and served 15 years in prison for the murder of two gardaí, John Morley and Henry Byrne, during a bank robbery, before the conviction was quashed and he was released. Jacobs married Pringle and lived with him in Galway's Irish-speaking Gaeltacht area. They grew vegetables, shared their home with dogs, cats, hens, ducks and goats and each published memoirs. Jacobs' story was included in a play, The Exonerated, that was performed in New York, Edinburgh and London and was turned into a film in 2005. She was played by actors such as Mia Farrow, Lynn Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Kathleen Turner, Brooke Shields and Marlo Thomas. Jacobs gave talks, set up the Sunny Center Foundation and, despite meagre income, shared an apparently happy life with Pringle. 'Everyone gets challenged in life and you can either spend the rest of your life looking backwards or you can make a decision to keep going. That's the choice I made,' she told the Guardian in 2013. Pringle died in 2023, aged 84. In recent years Jacobs suffered from ill health and disability, but neighbours said she remained upbeat and mentally sharp in her adopted homeland. 'The stone in the west of Ireland makes me feel grounded; it anchors me,' Jacobs once told an interviewer.
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Exonerated US death row inmate turned campaigner dies in Galway house fire
Sadness has been expressed after former US death row inmate turned campaigner Sunny Jacobs died following a fire in Ireland. The 77-year-old yoga teacher who was originally from New York was found dead following the blaze at the Sunny Healing Centre in rural Co Galway. Advertisement She spent 17 years in prison in the US, a number of them on death row, following a conviction for murder. Ms Jacobs was released in 1992 after her sentence and imprisonment were quashed. Gardaí said emergency services were alerted to the incident at Gleann Mhic Mhuireann in Casla at around 6.20am on Tuesday. Gardaí said the bodies of a woman aged in her 70s and a man in his 30s were recovered from inside the home after the blaze was brought under control by firefighters. Advertisement They have also appealed for any witnesses to come forward. 'Both bodies were taken to the mortuary at University Hospital Galway for post-mortem examinations, while the scene was preserved for a technical probe,' they said. 'The results of the post-mortem examinations will inform the direction of garda inquiries.' A statement on Ms Jacobs' campaign website confirmed she had died in the incident, along with her caretaker. Advertisement 'We don't have many details at this time, but investigation is ongoing and our contacts in Galway are providing us with information as it comes in,' they said. 'Sunny was a fierce advocate for justice and a guiding light for many. 'As someone who survived wrongful conviction – including five years in solitary confinement under a sentence of death, and 17 years of imprisonment total – she knew the difficulties of incarceration and the struggle to regain one's footing after being exonerated and released.' They said that Ms Jacobs, along with her late husband Peter Pringle, established The Sunny Centre to help other exonerees through the difficult process of building new lives after being released from prison. Advertisement 'Together, they brought many exonerees to the centre in Ireland to help them process their trauma and move forward to the next steps of their healing,' they said. 'During and after the pandemic, they continued to support and counsel exonerees remotely by video and phone. 'After Peter's passing in 2022, Sunny continued the work of The Sunny Centre. She hosted exonerees and started a training programme for those who wanted to carry forward her vision to establish similar centres for exonerees within their communities.' The statement concluded: 'Fair winds and full sails on your crossing, Sunny. Your memory is a blessing to us.' Advertisement
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Exonerated US death row inmate turned campaigner dies in Irish house fire
Sadness has been expressed after former US death row inmate turned campaigner Sunny Jacobs died following a fire in Ireland. The 77-year-old yoga teacher who was originally from New York was found dead following the blaze at the Sunny Healing Centre in rural Co Galway. She spent 17 years in prison in the US, a number of them on death row, following a conviction for murder. Ms Jacobs was released in 1992 after her sentence and imprisonment were quashed. Irish police said emergency services were alerted to the incident at Gleann Mhic Mhuireann in Casla at around 6.20am on Tuesday. Gardai said the bodies of a woman aged in her 70s and a man in his 30s were recovered from inside the home after the blaze was brought under control by firefighters. They have also appealed for any witnesses to come forward. 'Both bodies were taken to the mortuary at University Hospital Galway for post-mortem examinations, while the scene was preserved for a technical probe,' they said. 'The results of the post-mortem examinations will inform the direction of garda inquiries.' A statement on Ms Jacobs' campaign website confirmed she had died in the incident, along with her caretaker. 'We don't have many details at this time, but investigation is ongoing and our contacts in Galway are providing us with information as it comes in,' they said. 'Sunny was a fierce advocate for justice and a guiding light for many. 'As someone who survived wrongful conviction – including five years in solitary confinement under a sentence of death, and 17 years of imprisonment total – she knew the difficulties of incarceration and the struggle to regain one's footing after being exonerated and released.' They said that Ms Jacobs, along with her late husband Peter Pringle, established The Sunny Centre to help other exonerees through the difficult process of building new lives after being released from prison. 'Together, they brought many exonerees to the centre in Ireland to help them process their trauma and move forward to the next steps of their healing,' they said. 'During and after the pandemic, they continued to support and counsel exonerees remotely by video and phone. 'After Peter's passing in 2022, Sunny continued the work of The Sunny Centre. She hosted exonerees and started a training programme for those who wanted to carry forward her vision to establish similar centres for exonerees within their communities.' The statement concluded: 'Fair winds and full sails on your crossing, Sunny. Your memory is a blessing to us.'
BBC News
3 days ago
- General
- BBC News
County Galway: Two people die after house fire in Connemara
A man and a woman have died following a house fire in Connemara, County and gardaí (Irish police) were alerted to the blaze at Gleann Mhic Mhuireann, near the village of Casla, at about 06:20 local time on bodies of the woman, who was in her 70s, and the man in his 30s were recovered from the property by firefighters. Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the cause of the fire is under examination but at this stage foul play is not suspected. It added that the dead woman is believed to be from the United States originally. Both bodies were taken to University Hospital Galway for post-mortem examinations and gardaÍ have appealed for witnesses.
BreakingNews.ie
3 days ago
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Woman who died in Galway house fire was a death row survivor wrongfully convicted of murder
A 76-year-old woman who died in a house fire in Galway has been named as Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs, who served 17 years in prison, including time on death row, after she was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a US policeman and a Canadian constable. Ms Jacobs perished after a blaze broke out at her bungalow near Casla in Go Galway on Tuesday morning. Advertisement A man in his 30s, who is understood to have been her carer, also died in the incident at Gleann Mhic Mhuireann. Gardaí and the emergency services were alerted to the fire at 6:20am on Tuesday. The bodies of the man and woman were recovered from inside the property. The scene has been preserved for a technical examination. Postmortem examinations will be carried out at University Hospital Galway. Ms Jacobs was placed on death row in Florida in 1976 having been wrongfully convicted of a double murder. Advertisement Her son was nine whilst her daughter was just 10 months old when she went to prison. When Sunny Jacobs was freed in 1992, her son Eric was a married father whilst her daughter Christina was 16 years old. Ms Jacobs told the BBC in 2017 that when she went to jail when she was a 'mother, a daughter and a wife' and by the time she came out she was a 'grandmother, an orphan and a widow.' Ms Jacobs and Jesse Joseph Tafero, the father of the younger of her two children, were tried separately, convicted, and sentenced to death by the same judge for the murders of two police officers at a rest stop off of Interstate 95 in Broward County, Florida in 1976. Ms Jacobs and Mr Tafero had been travelling with their two young children Eric and Christina when their car broke down. They were trying to get home to North Carolina. A man Jesse knew called Walter Rhodes agreed to drive the couple and their children home. Advertisement Sunny fell asleep with the children in the back seat, but was startled awake by a policeman knocking on the window of the parked car. The officer was Philip Black, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and his friend Donald Irwin a Canadian constable who was on holiday. She said that gunfire broke out and Black and Irwin were slain. Jacobs and Tafero maintained from the beginning that Rhodes had shot the officers, and that they had nothing to do with it. Although there were two eyewitnesses to events surrounding the murders, neither contradicted Jacobs' and Tafero's version of what happened. Nor was their version contradicted by physical evidence. Both Tafero and Rhodes had gunpowder residue on their hands, a fact that was consistent with Tafero's claim that Rhodes handed him the gun after shooting the officers. There was no gunpowder residue on Jacobs' hands. Advertisement The convictions of Jacobs and Tafero rested primarily on the testimony of Rhodes, who was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1981, the Florida Supreme Court commuted the sentence of Ms Jacobs to life in prison. Mr Tafero was not so lucky. He was put to death in 1990. After the execution, Mr Rhodes confessed he had fired the fatal shots confirming both Jesse's and Sunny's long-maintained innocence. Sunny was freed in 1992 when she was 45 years old. Ms Jacob's subsquently met and married Peter Pringle in 2013. Mr Pringle had been sentenced to death in 1980 in Dublin for the murder of two gardaí, John Morley and Henry Byrne, in a bank raid in Ballaghaderreen in Roscommon. Advertisement He served 15 years in jail before he was released in 1995 after his convictions for the July 1980 murders were deemed unsafe. Following her release from prison Sunny Jacob's campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty. She met Mr Pringle at an Amnesty International event in 1998. He was also involved in advocacy work. Mr Pringle died on New Year's Eve 2022 at the age of 84. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper in 2013 Mr Pringle said that he was 'deeply touched' when he heard about the story of Ms Jacobs. 'I just had to talk to her. There was this spiritual connection there." Ms Jacobs told the paper that she had to learn how to do things all over again when she was freed from prison in 1992. 'I had to learn how to make a living, be a mother and simply be a person again. It was very difficult, but at the same time I wanted to get past it. I wouldn't say my experience haunts me, but it's always there. Everyone gets challenged in life and you can either spend the rest of your life looking backwards, or you can make a decision to keep going. That's the choice I made." Ireland Timetable of case against former Armagh GAA captai... Read More While Ms Jacobs was in prison her parents, who looked after her children, died in a plane crash. She said that her focus was on rebuilding her relationship with her children once she was freed. In her Guardian interview she said that she had never expected to find love again. "I'd given up on meeting anyone. I just accepted that not everyone was meant to have a partner. But then I met Peter." The pair set up the Sunny Healing Centre in rural Connemara where they offered a space for healing and respite to individuals who had faced miscarriages of justice. Ms Jacobs was also an author and spoke at universities and conferences. Oscar winning actress Susan Sarandon played Sunny in the movie 'The Exonerated' which was released in 2005.
