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Irish Times
09-07-2025
- Irish Times
Poignant documentary about Sunny Jacobs to be aired at Galway Film Fleadh
Film-maker Mark McLoughlin showed the finished cut of his documentary Stolen Lives to its subject, Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs, on Friday, May 30th. That was a few days before she died. The showing took place at the isolated Co Galway house at Glenicmurrin, Connemara, which had been her sanctuary and her home with her husband Peter Pringle, who died in December 2023. It was a tough but tender watch for Jacobs. The story of how she had been placed on death row for two murders she didn't commit, and how she changed her life after prison, brought back a flood of emotions, some good, a lot bad. 'She was in really good form. She was always protective about her emotions. It was a build-up of years of self-protection,' recalls McLoughlin. READ MORE 'She was quite overwhelmed after it, but she didn't fully articulate it. On Saturday she sent me a beautiful text about how overcome she was. It was so special for her.' Her parting comment was that she wouldn't change a frame of the documentary. [ The life and tragic death of Sunny Jacobs: how a US death row survivor ended up in Connemara Opens in new window ] She told McLoughlin that an electrician was coming out the following Monday to look at a few things. The house at Glenicmurrin features a lot in Stolen Lives – cluttered, with plug sockets everywhere. Jacobs postponed the electrician's visit on Monday when two American friends turned up out of the blue. That Monday night or early on Tuesday morning she and her carer Kevin Kelly (31) perished in a house fire. His body was found in her room. Evidently he had tried to save her. They died from smoke inhalation. Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs at the Sunny Center in Tampa, Florida, where exonerees live after leaving court It was a tragic end to two lives – one had overcome a near lifetime of adversity, the other was a young man with most of his life ahead of him. Jacobs had been sentenced to death – later commuted to 17 years – in a Florida prison following the murder of two police officers. She was in a car with her partner Jesse Tafero and her two children, aged nine years and 10 months, when she became caught up in a fatal shooting incident at an Interstate 95 rest stop in 1976. She was released from jail in 1991. Seven years later, on a tour of Ireland, Jacobs met Pringle, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of two gardaí, John Morley and Henry Byrne, during a bank robbery in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, in July 1980. His death sentence, along with that of two other men, was commuted to 40 years in jail. Pringle was acquitted of the killing at the Court of Appeal in 1995 after the court ruled the original verdict was unsafe and unsound. The Stolen Lives documentary was 10 years in the making. Since 2014 McLoughlin has been following the story of the couple and also the work of the Sunny Center Foundation, which has homes in Florida for exonerees to rebuild their lives. The documentary spends time in Florida with many of the exonerees, most of whom are American. Stolen Lives is as much an indictment of America's vengeful judicial system as it is about the work that the foundation does to help the people involved rebuild their lives after wrongful convictions. Among those who appear in the documentary is Robert Du Boise, who spent 37 years on death row, and Derrick Jamison and Joseph Frey, who spent 20 years apiece. All attended the Sunny Center in Tampa after their release. McLoughlin says that early on Tuesday morning after the fire that took Jacobs's life, he got a phone call from the woman who ran the centre in Florida to tell him the tragic news. Not only had the subject of his documentary died; he had lost a friend too. 'What started out as a working relationship 15 years ago ended up as a very strong friendship. The most difficult thing with exonerees is building trust. They spend so many years fighting everybody,' he says. 'They build a wall of absolute distrust so it took us a long time to build the trust and that became very special, especially since Peter died. We had a very strong bond. 'Sunny was very guarded with her emotions. She became happier and happier in the last two years. She was in a very good place.' Stolen Lives is told through the eyes of the subjects of the documentary. Both Jacobs and Pringle get to tell their own story. McLoughlin says the documentary is not about guilt or innocence, but about how they managed to turn their lives around after leaving prison. It includes an interview with Pringle's son Thomas Pringle , who was an Independent TD in Donegal for eight years. He speaks candidly about the break-up of his parent's marriage and growing up without his father. Stolen Lives director Mark McLoughlin 'To have two people who were on death row together for so long should be inspiring to other people coming out to get on in their lives,' he says. Pringle believes it is the fate of exonerees that many people will believe them to be guilty even if, as in his father's case, the State quashes the conviction. 'No matter what, there are people who are going to believe he was guilty anyway. The State was convinced that his conviction was unsafe. It doesn't matter. There are a lot of people who think he was guilty anyway,' Thomas Pringle says. The first airing of Stolen Lives had always been planned for the Galway Film Fleadh this Thursday, July 10th, with further plans to tour the documentary in the US. The sudden death of Jacobs adds a deep poignancy to the premiere. Stolen Lives will be shown at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway at 2pm on Thursday, July 10th.
BreakingNews.ie
07-06-2025
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
Carer who died in house fire was a 'son, brother, partner, friend and rock'
The funeral service for Kevin Kelly, who died in a house fire in Casla, Co Galway earlier this week has heard that he was born 14 days after his due date and did things his own way from that point on. Mr Kelly (31) died alongside Sunny Jacobs (76) when a fire broke out at her cottage at Gleannicmurrin in Casla on Wednesday morning. Advertisement Mr Kelly was a carer for Ms Jacobs. He also looked after her husband Peter Pringle prior to his death in 2023. Kevin's younger sister Jill told mourners at the Discovery Church on the Tuam Road this afternoon that he was a free spirit who lived to help others. Kevin was born in Dublin but moved to Inishmore with his family at the age of four. The Kelly family subsequently re located to Athenry. Jill said that Kevin loved 'the tranquil life surrounded by the community of Connemara". Mourners were told that Kevin loved dogs even though he was bitten in the face by one at a young age. Jill said that there was a lesson to be learned in how Kevin moved on from this frightening experience and ended up volunteering for the dog welfare charity MADRA. Advertisement Jill said that his time in MADRA was a 'life-changing experience' for her older brother. 'It was where his love of dogs was truly discovered and it was where he met his beautiful (partner) Sheree. Sheree told me this week that the first time she went out to MADRA to volunteer she got out of the car and she said to Kev 'Where do you keep the pit bulls? "And that was it. He was hook, line and sinker (in love). Sheree you and Kevin were made for each other and he loved you so much.' Jill added that they had lost 'a son, a brother, a partner, friend and rock". Kevin is survived by his mother Fiona, his father Ken, Ken's partner Maureen and her son Jonathan, Kevin's partner Sheree, his siblings Jill and Cúán, brothers-in-law Conor and Kal, his nieces and nephew, extended family, friends and neighbours. Following the service a cremation took place this afternoon in Shannon Crematorium at 4pm.
Irish Times
07-06-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Carer who died in Connemara house fire with Sunny Jacobs remembered as ‘free spirit'
The funeral service of Kevin Kelly, who died in a house fire in Connemara , Co Galway earlier this week, has heard how he would 'do anything he could for anybody'. His younger sister Jill described Mr Kelly (31) as 'a free spirit' who 'wasn't one bit shy about standing up for what he believed and not doing things just to follow the crowd'. The service took place at the Discovery Church on the Tuam Road on Saturday afternoon led by pastor Paul Cullen. The fire broke out at a cottage near Casla, a village between Indreabhán and An Cheathrú Rua, at about 6am on Tuesday. Mr Kelly and Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs (76), who spent five years on death row in the United States, were pronounced dead at the scene. READ MORE Kelly had been Jacobs's carer, and had also acted as carer for her husband Peter Pringle who died in 2023. [ The life and tragic death of Sunny Jacobs: how a US death row survivor ended up in Connemara Opens in new window ] Speaking at the service, Jill said her older brother was born in Dublin but moved to Inishmore off Galway Bay aged four, where his 'love for the tranquil life surrounded by the beauty of Connemara' started. She said he never lost his love for mountain tops and would often disappear off up a mountain or hill in Connemara alongside his dog Molly and 'whichever other dogs he had taken under his wing and you might not hear from him for ages'. Jill spoke of her brother's love for dogs despite being bitten by one when he was younger, which showed his ability to 'let go and move' and that he 'never took life too seriously and was quick to forgive'. Mr Kelly left school and went on to work at Madra, a dog rescue and adoption service in Connemara, where he met his partner Sheree, she said. 'It was love at first sight in more ways than one,' Jill said. 'Kevin's time at Madra completely changed his life. It was where his love of dogs was truly discovered and came into play and it was where he met his beautiful Sheree.' Jill said the couple were 'made for each other'. 'We have all lost someone today – a son, a brother, a partner, a friend, a rock,' she said. 'He was so many things to so many people and we all share that grief. It does not belong to any one of us but to all of us.' Pastor Paul Cullen said 'everybody was heartbroken' for Sheree and that 'a few days ago not one of us expected to be here today'. [ The story of Sunny Jacobs was never as straightforward as the media suggested Opens in new window ] 'Not one of us expected to be standing in this room, trying to and completely unable to find words or logic or meaning around what has just happened,' he said. 'I think in our mutual shock and sadness it is good to lean into each other and to be kind to each other and caring to each other.' A number of readings and a poem were read out by members of Mr Kelly's family. Mr Kelly is survived by his parents Fiona and Ken, his siblings Jill and Cúán, his partner Sheree and his extended family.
Irish Times
07-06-2025
- Irish Times
The story of Sunny Jacobs was never as straightforward as the media suggested
In every photo taken of her, Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs appears eager to live up to a childhood nickname that otherwise might have seemed perversely ill-suited to the arc of her life. Yes, I've had my troubles, the broad smile she wears in every photograph projects, but look at me now. I'm at peace. And all the evidence suggests that she had indeed found solace in Connemara, until her body – and that of her 31-year-old carer Kevin Kelly – was pulled from an inferno in her home last weekend. The circumstances of her life made those of her death all the more tragic. Jacobs spent 16 years in prison for a crime she didn't commit, five on death row. Her co-accused, Jesse Tafero, died in a horrific botched execution. [ The life and tragic death of Sunny Jacobs: how a US death row survivor ended up in Connemara Opens in new window ] What happened on the morning in 1976 that determined the course of her life was this. Or what happened was something like this – maybe. Nearly 50 years on, the details are still murky, obscured by the heat of the moment, conflicts of motive and narrative, confusing forensic evidence, the unreliable nature of human recall and the passage of time. READ MORE Sunny Jacobs, then 28, was sleeping in the back of a car parked up at a rest stop in Florida, a bag containing pink pyjamas at her feet and two small children at her side: Eric was nine; Tina just 10 months. In the front were two men: Tafero, her boyfriend and father of her baby, and another man, Walter Rhodes. A state trooper – accompanied by a friend, a Canadian police officer – came to do a routine check. One spotted a gun in the car – there were several, it would later emerge. Gunfire broke out – it was never clear how it started – and both police officers were killed. Rhodes was the only one who tested positive for gunpowder residue. He agreed to testify against Jacobs and Tafero in return for a life sentence. Tafero and Jacobs were sentenced to death by 'Maximum Dan' Futch, a judge who kept a replica electric chair on his desk. The same US news outlets that had gorged on Jacobs when she was on trial just as enthusiastically redeemed her after she was freed on a plea deal in 1992. Originally she had been portrayed as the Bonnie to Tafero's Clyde. Now she became a vegetarian hippie who simply found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that her parents died in a plane crash while she was still in prison. Death in Connemara: who was Sunny Jacobs? Listen | 18:42 She went on to campaign against the death penalty and to marry another former death row inmate, Peter Pringle. They moved to Connemara where they sometimes had exonerated inmates come to stay. There have been documentaries, a stage play, books, interviews, even a Vows column in The New York Times. As journalist turned private investigator Ellen McGarrahan discovered, when she set out to write a book on it , there is no absolute truth about any of the events of February 1976, least of all the question of who Jacobs was. She had many advantages in life – loving parents, material comforts – but a series of bad choices saw her end up on the run with her drug-dealing boyfriend in a car packed with drugs, weapons and two children. Her life is a reminder that we should be wary when presented with stories of women – and particularly women accused of high-profile crimes – who are rendered in black and white, all good or all bad. Jacobs wasn't Bonnie – but neither was she just a hapless hippie who stumbled into a bad situation. McGarrahan suggests the gunfire started with a taser shot from the back seat, where Jacobs and the children were huddled. In the search for a definitive set of facts, broader truths were overlooked. One of those was perhaps best expressed by Jacobs herself. The only facts that actually matter are that two people died and 'the system was misused and as a result countless people were victimised. And someone may have been put to death who was innocent, or at least was entitled to a new trial.' If there are lessons to be gleaned from the life and awful death of Jacobs, one is about the unspeakable cruelty of that system. McGarrahan became haunted by the story after she witnessed Tafero's execution in May 1990. The description in her book is so distressing that I decided not to include it here. But then I read that US president Donald Trump intends to forcefully pursue new death sentences, particularly against migrants. And so here is what McGarrahan saw. 'His scalp caught fire. Flames blazed from his head, arcing birch orange with tails of dark smoke. A gigantic buzzing sound filled the chamber ... In the chair, Jesse Tafero clenched his fists as he slammed upwards and back. He is breathing, I wrote on my yellow notepad. ... Breath. His chest heaving. The – the buzzing again. Flames. Smoke. His head nods. His head is nodding. He is breathing ... It took seven minutes and three jolts before he was finally declared dead.' Jacobs never forgot that this could have been her fate; the fact that the flames came for her in the end is the cruellest conceivable irony. In the final analysis, her story is a reminder about how ready we are to render women as either the evil witch or Snow White, with no room for the grey areas in between. It is about how you don't have to be blameless to deserve a chance of a happy ending. And it is about redemption. ' Life turned out beautifully ,' Pringle told The Guardian in 2013. While they could be forgiven for glossing over some of the details of their lives, that – for a period at least – was the unvarnished truth.
Irish Examiner
07-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
Sunny Jacobs' death in Galway fire marks end of life shaped by wrongful conviction and resilience
As Sunny Jacobs sat in her tiny cell on death row waiting to be executed for a crime she insists she did not commit, she decided the only way she could find some peace was to pretend she was a monk in a cave, and not a prisoner in a cell. Every day, she would work on her mind, because that was all she had left that belonged to her. As a young mother of two, Sunny spent 17 years in prison and five in solidarity confinement on death row in the US before she was released — in 1992 — at the age of 45. In 1976, she had been accused of murdering two police officers who approached a car she was in with her partner, Jesse Tafero, her two young children, and an acquaintance, Walter Rhodes, who had broken parole conditions. As they approached the car, the police officers were fatally gunned down. Rhodes blamed the murders on Sunny and Jesse — who were tried and sentenced to death. Jesse Joseph Tafero was put to death in 1990 — a malfunctioning electric chair meant it took several attempts and 13 minutes to kill him. Flames reportedly shot out of his head during the horrifying execution. 'I still grieve for him' Sunny said in her soft American accent when we first met in 2008. 'It was so awful, really, all I could do was try to survive. I can't imagine it, I try not to.' Her parents, who were caring for her children Christina and Eric while she was in prison, were killed in a plane crash — Christina went into foster care and Eric, a teenager, learned to support himself. Sunny Jacobs had experienced the worst type of hell on earth. After she had found peace and tranquillity in the west of Ireland years later, where she lived in an idyllic community in Casla, Co Galway, with people who adored her, she expected to live out her life in peace. But sadly, that was not to be. Early last Tuesday, Sunny, who was 78, died along with her carer, Kevin Kelly, as a blaze ripped through her cottage. It was a tragic end to a remarkable life that was documented in books, a play, and a film, The Exonerated. All week, tributes have poured in for the woman who beat all the odds and had survived nearly two decades behind bars. Her RIP notice said 'We share the tragic news of Dr Sunny Jacob's tragic death at her home in Casla, Connemara, Co Galway on June 03, 2025. 'Sunny, a beloved member of the community as well as the wider international community where she was well-known for her humanitarian work and as an activist supporting and giving a voice to others. 'She is a huge loss, and will be heartbreakingly missed by her daughter Christina, son Eric, and grandchildren, Claudia, Jesse, and Bella. She was loved and will be missed by many, many close friends and family. Proceeded in death by her spouse Jesse Tafero, and her late husband and activist, Peter Pringle.' The first time Sunny Jacobs told me her story was in 2008 when I worked on a late-night talk show. She recalled how after Jessie's horrific execution, Walter Rhodes confessed he had fired the fatal shots, 'He confirmed what Jesse and I had said all that time, but it was too late for him, and I had lost so much, my children were not with me, my parents killed so horribly,' she said. What was I to do? I had nothing left, it was beyond traumatic, shocking, the worst, yes the worst, but the only thing the authorities didn't take was my mind. 'I had some control over my mind, but I had to learn to work with my mind and that is where I learned meditation, yoga, mindfulness and how important it was. 'It kept me alive, it really did, so I began working on my mental state, I pretended I was a monk praying in a cave and not a prisoner in a cell. All those dark days when you are alone in that cell, with no window and no light, you have your mind, you either lose your mind or use it to its full potential." By deciding she was not going to be a prisoner, Sunny believed she gave herself some hope. 'Outside of my cell and the prison, death row, the world, the death of those police officers, the death of Jesse, my parents' deaths, my kids being left without parents, that was the nightmare. 'I would allow myself to be really really angry for a few minutes, and then I began to believe I was a monk. I was in a cave and not a cell, I was not a prisoner, instead I was a monk. 'I'm not particularly religious, I just wanted to find peace and somehow this drove me to peace and my own mind saved me from hell. 'I know what happened was awful but why think about it now?' she said years later. 'I came here to Ireland to find peace and I did get peace. I am surrounded by a lovely community'. For years afterwards, Sunny and I spoke to each other on email and the phone. Every so often, she would pop up on chat, when online chat first went live. She would say things like: 'Hey again, this is like meeting on street corners, I'll talk to you real soon." She told me about that awful night in the US, and although she did not witness the events from inside the van where she was sleeping with her children, she has always said Walter Rhodes murdered the police officers. Having fled the scene in the police car, they were captured at a roadblock and arrested. Sunny Jacobs with her late partner Peter Pringle, who spent 14 years in prison for the murder of two gardaí, before being exonerated. Sunny Jacobs and Jesse Tafero were sentenced to death, while Rhodes was given three life sentences, despite being the only one to have tested positive for traces of gunpowder. Sunny, when freed, went on to live in Galway with her partner Peter Pringle, who led a parallel life to hers, having been wrongly imprisoned himself for 15 years. 'I think the universe brought us together as a gift because both of us had chosen the path of peace and healing, rather than revenge or retribution' she said. That path included forgiving those responsible for what happened to her, but she said it was not a selfless act. 'For me, forgiveness is a selfish act that I do for myself so that I don't have to live with hatred in my heart and I can fill those places with joy and love and happiness instead and it's just as simple as that.' Her ability to forgive always astounded me because she suffered so much in her life. I told her I would understand if she hated the world. But, "I never did", she said. My kids suffered of course, they lost their father and me. I was not dead, but they knew what happened to their dad, they would always find out. 'Christina went into foster care, and she believed we were guilty of those crimes. My son Eric had to make his own way in life' By the time Sunny was released from prison in 1992, her children were adults, her son was a dad, and she had to learn to live a new way. 'I was not the young mother anymore with my two tiny children' she said. 'I was in my 40s, and they were all grown up.' She met her future husband Peter Pringle through Amnesty International in Galway after her release. He had also been on death row in Ireland for the murder of gardaí John Morley and Henry Byrne in July 1980. He had spent 14 years in jail before being released, saying he had been exonerated and later wrote a book claiming he had been framed. They set up the Sunny Centre together and worked in mediation and trauma healing. Peter died on New Year's Eve at home in Glenicmurrin in 2023. Despite all the horrors in her life, Sunny found peace in Galway. She had an incredible emotional intelligence and an ability to see outside the trauma and terror — working on her mind so she could find contentment. 'When I realised they could not take my mind in prison, I was able to see a future, and moving here to Galway I found that future, and I found my peace.' Read More Garda Commissioner confirms review into Tina Satchwell case amid scrutiny of 2017 house search
