2012 around 9:30 P.M. Jacob was hanging out with three other acquaintances
in a house the night he was shot. The three witnesses, along with Jacob,
all took a turn test firing a gun in the backyard of the house prior to Jacob’s
death. Alcohol was consumed prior to the test firing. After test
firing the gun, Jacob and the three witnesses went inside the house. At
that time, Jacob completely unloaded the gun onto the floor. One of the
witnesses at the house picked both the casings and the live round up from the
floor. Apparently, Jacob then reloaded the live round into the gun.
Jacob then handed the gun to another witness whom requested to see the gun
again. The gun was supposedly passed around among the three
witnesses. One of the witnesses admitted that Jacob warned the others to
be careful because there was a live round was in the chamber.Around that time, Jacob was shot in the head. All three of the teens at the house contended that Jacob shot himself.
Within minutes of the shooting, the Sandusky County Sheriff’s
Department was dispatched to the scene. Two officers were the first to
arrive at the scene, and within an hour, the Sandusky County Sheriff also
arrived. At one point, the Officers were heard laughing over Jacob’s dead
body, with one of them questioning who was going to pick up the bill for clean
up. This occurred while Michael Limberios, Jacob’s father, stood outside
the house in the freezing cold, grieving the loss of his son.
In violation of its own standard procedure, no Detective was
called to the scene that night. In addition to not calling a qualified
investigator to the scene, the Sheriff’s Department: did not separate the three
witnesses; did not call in the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation; did not
call in the Coroner; did not require the witnesses to take a breathalyzer, or
otherwise determine their blood/alcohol content; did not collect the evidence
that would assist in determining the amount of alcohol that had been consumed;
allowed one of the witnesses to change her clothes at the death scene without
taking them into evidence; allowed another witness to throw away his
blood-splattered shoes in the Deputy’s presence; did not retrieve the bullet
from the attic of the residence; did not collect DNA or fingerprints from the
witnesses; did not submit the gun for testing, or otherwise having appropriate
tests conducted; did not take measurements of the room, did not document the
location of physical evidence in the room, did not document the location of the
bullet hole in the ceiling, and/or did not document the location of where the
bullet lodged in the attic; did not collect and preserving Jacob’s clothing; did
not require Jacob’s body to be properly examined to gather valuable forensic
evidence; and allowed Jacob’s body to be removed, embalmed and buried within a
matter of days.
Further there were several inconsistencies with the statements
given by the three witnesses in the house that night. In particular, at
least one witness stated that Jacob warned the others that the gun was loaded
but later contended that Jacob may not have known the gun was loaded. The
assertion that Jacob may not have known the gun was loaded was adopted by the
Sheriff’s Department and the Coroner in their official reports. In fact,
on Jacob’s Death Certificate, the Sandusky County Coroner specifically stated:
“deceased shot self in the head, may not have realized the gun was
loaded.”
Further, two of the witnesses at the house told investigators
that Jacob was facing the sofa at the time of the shooting. This could not
be true because it was physically impossible for the shooting to have occurred
in the manner described given the layout of the room and considering that the
entry wound was on the top, left side of Jacob’s skull. In order for Jacob
to be facing the couch he would have had to been facing a westerly direction,
and the bullet would have travelled towards the north or west side of the
residence. However, in reality the bullet traveled toward the south side, went
into the ceiling, and lodged in a beam in the attic.
Also, troubling, the three people that witnessed the shooting
admitted that the gun was moved (after the 9-1-1 dispatcher told them not to
move it).
The Sandusky County Coroner’s ruling of “suicide”, yet contending
that Jacob “may not have realized the gun was loaded”, was based on the
contentions of the Sheriff’s Department after the Sheriff’s Department did not
call a qualified Detective to the scene of Jacob’s death, did not properly
collect evidence, and freely permitted the destruction of valuable
evidence. Further, the Sandusky County Coroner made the determination of
essentially accidental suicide, which to this day he sticks by, without
examining the death scene, without examining Jacob’s body, without gathering or
reviewing any forensic evidence, and without talking to a single
witness.
Renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht has declared that
the Sandusky County’s Coroner’s ruling on Jacob’s death certificate was
wrong. Dr. Cyril Wecht determined that, based upon his observations of the
forensic autopsy he performed on Jacob’s body in September 2012, Jacob’s death
was by homicide. Such observations included a lack of “stippling” at the
entry wound site. Dr. Wecht stated as follows. “(i)n my professional
opinion, based on a reasonable degree of medical and scientific certainty, there
is no way that Limberios could have shot himself, either by accident or with
suicidal intent. The shot had to be fired by someone else, and that
Jacob’s death was a result of a homicide.”
After the investigation was closed initially the night of Jacob’s
death, Jacob’s family continued to question the circumstances of Jacob’s
death. However, despite the family’s continuing questions, the Sheriff’s
Department refused to conduct any further investigation, declaring the
investigation “over” on April 9, 2012. Jacob’s parents were forced to hire
Counsel. Over the course of the next few months, Counsel repeatedly tried
to contact the Sandusky County Coroner, who refused to talk or communicate with
Counsel. In addition, Counsel repeatedly asked the Sandusky County
Prosecutor to conduct an autopsy of Jacob. Those requests were
refused.
After several months of requesting Sandusky County officials to
conduct a proper investigation into the death of their son, and continuous
refusal to do so, Jacob’s parents, Michael and Shannon Limberios, were forced to
file a case on October 19, 2012 (over seven months after Jacob’s death).
Finally, on November 2, 2012, it seemed that Sandusky County was going to reopen
the investigation into Jacob’s death. However, to date, and over a year
after Jacob’s death, it seems that Sandusky County still has not conducted a
meaningful investigation into his death.
The Sandusky County Prosecutor and his successor have sought
delays in Jacob’s family’s search for the truth, have accused them and their
Counsel of manufacturing evidence, have publicly suggested that Michael and
Shannon Limberios “bought and paid for” results of the autopsy report that
suggested Jacob did not kill himself, have publicly suggested that they have
evidence to support their untenable position that Jacob shot himself but have
not shared what that evidence is. Even more so, Sandusky County has
refused Michael and Shannon Limberios’ requests to have the as the Ohio Attorney
General come in and take over the investigation.
All of the above actions have taken a tremendous emotional and
economic toll on Michael and Shannon Limberios. They have repeatedly stated that
all they want is to know what happened to their son on the night that he
died. With each passing day Michael and Shannon Limberios suffer more
grief, not only from the loss of their son, but also from the what seems to be
the repeated and incessant refusal of Sandusky County to conduct a meaningful
investigation which would give them the answer to what happened to Jacob.
Given this, they have not even begun to heal from their horrible
loss.
