The voice of veteran prosecutor Leslie McWilliams broke with emotion in 27th District Court as she began closing arguments against William “Bill” Jacobsen, who was convicted of repeated sexual assaults against one of his youth baseball players and another boy.
With no DNA evidence and very little medical evidence, the jury reached its decision largely based on testimony from those involved in the investigation, a few corroborating witnesses and two unassuming 14-year-old victims.
Judge Joe Carroll will sentence Jacobsen in about a month after a pre-sentence investigation is completed. He faces a minimum sentence of 25 years but could also receive life in prison.
The manner of testimony from the boys was markedly different. One mumbled, often spoke too softly and had difficulty sharing details. The other boy spoke clearly and needed little prodding from prosecutors. He would expound on what he experienced in excruciating, gut-wrenching detail.
Mrs. McWilliams said afterward she hasn’t seen a courtroom so transfixed by a single testimony in at least 17 years. The boy testified for more than an hour Tuesday and afterward defense attorney Michael White did not ask him a single question on cross-examination.
“It has not been the easiest thing for any of us to listen to,” Mrs. McWilliams said about the testimonies. “We’ve (prosecutors) been doing this a long time. You hope it gets easier, but in cases like this it doesn’t get easier.”
In the end all that mattered was if the boys were telling the truth. Mrs. McWilliams reminded jurors of the demeanor of the boys as evidence they were being truthful.
“Was there anything in what he (the soft-spoken boy) said, is there anything that told you he was doing that for attention?” she said. “He would have rather been covered in fire ants with his hair set on fire than to tell you what happened over the course of a year with Coach Bill.”
In his closing argument, Paul McWilliams told the jury that the continuous sexual assault law, enacted in September 2007, was created to “combat cases exactly like this.”
He pointed out how the boys’ testimonies indicated that as the sex acts escalated, so did the violence on Jacobsen’s behalf. What started out as a good time at a coach’s house eventually became alcohol-fueled sleepovers during which young teenage boys with lowered inhibitions would be sexually assaulted and sworn to secrecy at knifepoint.
“In order for you to find him, Coach Bill, not guilty you would have to tell those two boys that they took an oath and lied,” Mrs. McWilliams told the jury before deliberations began. “They told us the most intimate personal details they will ever tell anyone. There is absolutely zero evidence the boys lied. Both of those boys took that stand and were reliving what happened to them.”
In his closing arguments, White never proclaimed his client was innocent and did not ask the jury to find him so. Instead he said, “Judge, deliberate, give him his most fundamental right (a trial by jury).”
White only called two witnesses to the stand, Jacobsen’s brother Steven and Steven’s girlfriend. Both were at Jacobsen’s home the last time one of the boys was assaulted and said the boy did not seem upset about anything.
During cross examination, Steven Jacobson admitted he is a convicted sex offender himself and his girlfriend said she saw Jacobsen leading the boy down a hallway to a back bedroom area.
Most of the testimony offered Wednesday centered on Jacobsen and his wife, Marilyn Wesson, fleeing to Mexico so Jacobsen could avoid arrest.
Bell County investigator Aaron Ingram said Mrs. Wesson visited with him in his office on June 17, 2008, while Jacobsen was in the hospital. Ingram said he spoke with Mrs. Wesson the next day and set up an appointment to meet with the couple on June 23.
That meeting never happened because over that weekend the couple pulled the license plates off their Geo Metro and placed them on their newly purchased Ford Explorer before fleeing to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
Ingram traced the couple to the border after Mrs. Wesson pawned the couple’s wedding rings in Laredo. U.S. marshals were called in to assist once investigators had a general location of where the couple might be.
Nearly two months after the couple began running, Mexico state police detained them as they walked their dog. They were reportedly living out of their car.
The couple was found to be illegal immigrants in Mexico and expelled from the country.
U.S. Marshal Kevin Labrador met Mexican officials at the border, arrested the fugitives and transported them to Webb County Jail.
One person who did not testify in the trial was Mrs. Wesson, who had been subpoenaed by White. Mrs. Wesson gave a jailhouse interview over the phone on Tuesday to a television reporter. In that interview she said she no longer believed her husband was innocent and had filed for divorce.
For a brief time on Wednesday it looked like prosecutors and not White would call Wesson to testify. The McWilliamses confirmed Mrs. Wesson had made herself available and said they did speak with her.
When the court broke for lunch, White said he believed Mrs. Wesson would be the final witness for the state. Instead, prosecutors rested immediately upon returning from the break.
