Columbia County authorities have released new details in Sunday’s tragic murder-suicide in Evans.
Retired Marine veteran Larry Jacobs, 51, shot the mother of their son, 49-year-old Tijuana “Tia” Dent inside Jacobs’ home at 880 Willow Lake in Evans, authorities said.
When a responding deputy answered a neighbor’s complaint to the house, the officer found the man and woman’s 16-year-old son, who said his parents were hurt and needed help. The officer went inside and found both of them with gunshot wounds to the head and Jacobs with a gun next to his body.
A neighbor told officers that she heard a gunshot around 3:40 p.m,. and looked out the window to see someone lying in the doorway but not moving.
“She also saw (the teen) walk into the residence and began pulling the subject on the floor back into the residence,” the report says. “(The teen) stated he was coming home when he found his mother lying in the doorway injured and was attempting to help her.”
A close family friend, who asked to remain anonymous, said Jacobs and Dent met many years ago while working together in the pharmacy at the Veteran’s Hospital in Augusta. They were engaged at one point but broke it off and never got married as they dated other people. Dent also had at least one adult child with another man.
Jacobs served as a sniper in the military and was a gun enthusiast, the friend said. A sheriff’s report says Jacobs was currently still working at the VA Hospital while Dent was a nurse at University Hospital.
The family friend says the man and woman were not living together and that Jacobs owned the house, but a sheriff’s report gives the Willow Lake address for both of them.
