Murder-for-hire suspect likened to ‘angel on Earth’
To those who have really known her, from her high school days when she was the coolest kid in the class until her recent times as owner of a veterinary clinic loved by many of its customers, Valerie McDaniel was the sort of person who seemed incapable of inspiring an unkind word.
She had a way about her, people said. Not just confident and smart — a former valedictorian, in point of fact — but totally together. Back at Episcopal High School, one old chum remembered McDaniel as “the kind of girl you wish you were, totally cool.” Reserved but never standoffish, quiet but unaffected, a friend to punk rockers and cheerleaders alike. And little of that changed as she got older.
“When you were around her, you immediately liked her,” said longtime friend Greg Holloway, who has known her since their days at Episcopal, where they were part of the first graduating class in 1987. “She had this aura about her. She didn’t get worked up over anything. She was so friendly and compassionate, and she was that way toward everybody. This does not square.”
In the time it takes for a news flash to go viral, 48-year-old Valerie Busick McDaniel was something else entirely. The sweetest person one might ever meet, what one longtime associate likened to an “angel on Earth,” stood accused of paying someone to arrange the murder of her ex-husband. She was released from jail after posting a $50,000 bond last week.
As if to preempt any suggestions that the respected animal doctor had stumbled into a dark scheme unaware of the particulars, prosecutor Nathan Moss said McDaniel was no dupe. She had willingly gone over the gruesome details and forked over the cash to make them a reality, he said.
“She ... discussed with the officer exactly how she wanted her ex-husband killed,” Moss said. “In no way is she a victim.” Image doesn’t mesh
But in no way does that image — the cold-blooded patroness of assassination — mesh with the fundamentally caring person to whom so many testify. One way or another, it doesn’t add up. The matter of what McDaniel did or said should be resolved in the next year, but the mystery of how a person who is profoundly one thing and yet allegedly steps, however briefly, into the role of another, is a deeper question that friends want answered.
Until they get one, they choose — at least in their hearts — not to believe.
“Valerie? No, absolutely not,” said another longtime associate, who like most interviewed did not want his name used. “I have never seen her angry, certainly not to a point where this could cross her mind.”
Suspicion, such as it is, turns to a man nine years younger who was purported to be her boyfriend. Leon Philip Jacob was arrested along with McDaniel and also charged in the bizarre arrangement in which his former girlfriend, along with McDaniel’s ex-husband, was to be done in. The two reportedly had met through his mother. Jacob’s parents lived next door to the McDaniels in West University Place, and she represented Valerie in her divorce.
Jacob has a checkered history, which includes numerous brushes with the law, unstable employment and personal bankruptcy. Claiming a medical degree from an offshore school in the Caribbean, he was dismissed from a residency program at Baylor College of Medicine after one year. He entered another program at a hospital in Ohio but lasted only a year there as well when he was kicked out. In recent years, Jacob apparently presented himself as a physician working out of his Houston home.
Jacob drew the attention of Houston police early this year when an ex-girlfriend complained that he was stalking, threatening and harassing her. In February, after she had made repeated complaints to police, he finally was charged with a felony count of stalking. That charge was pending at the time of his arrest on the murder-for-hire charge. He remains in jail with bail denied.
The nature of his relationship with McDaniel is unclear. Although they appeared to be romantically involved, he was pursuing his ex-girlfriend at the same time. On Feb. 2, according to court documents, he sent the woman an email stating that he was still in love with her. “I am making over $7,500 a week now after taxes,” he wrote. “I told you I would get back on top. It’s time all this craziness stops and we get back to a life together.” Run-ins with the law
Jacob also ran afoul of the law in Illinois, where he was charged with cyberstalking and harassing his estranged wife, an attorney for a pharmaceutical company. He received an 11-month sentence but was granted probation. Court records fail to show that the divorce was finalized and indicate an ongoing custody dispute involving the couple’s two sons. In his bankruptcy filing, Jacob cited more than $100,000 owed to several lawyers and about $2,300 to his wife for child care expenses.
In Ohio, Jacob was charged in 2012 with burglarizing the home of the head of the residency program that had terminated him. The charge later was reduced to trespassing. In 2004, Jacob was charged with driving under the influence in Pittsburgh. ‘A bad taste for men’
Shortly after McDaniel’s arrest, her attorney, Matt Alford, suggested to reporters that Jacob was the architect of the murderfor-hire plot and that she was not a part of it until the last second.
“She clearly came into this situation after the fact,” Alford said. “She was on no one’s radar until the very end.”
That she ever could have been on any police radar is stunning to those who know her. Her personal life may have had its wobbles — “A bad taste in men,” one friend remarked — but by and large she had achieved what she had hoped when leaving Texas A&M with a veterinary medicine degree in 1997. Just three years later, she bought the practice of a retiring Houston vet and slowly built her clinic into a Montrose staple, albeit one not shy to push the envelope when it came to prices.
She and her husband, Marion “Mack” McDaniel III, had a life most would envy, including a nice home in an upscale neighborhood and a Tiki Island getaway for weekends. They owned a boat and late-model luxury cars. Over the years, there had been some apparent financial issues, including several tax suits and a foreclosure action on their home, but those days appeared to be over. To those who knew them casually, they appeared to be a happy, upwardly mobile couple.
But in 2014, after 17 years of marriage, came the news that she had filed for divorce. In her divorce petition, she accused her husband of adultery and of fraudulently depleting their assets and wasteful spending. In claiming that he was responsible for the failure of the marriage, she asked for a “disproportionate share” of the estate once it had been reconstituted to the value it had before his “fraudulent acts,” which are not detailed. Divorce finalized
In other court filings related to the divorce, Valerie McDaniel alleged that he had mismanaged the vet clinic and that police had been called to their home because of unspecified “incidents.” She asked for primary custody of their daughter, claiming that he was not a strong presence in her life.
The divorce was finalized in August of last year. According to the decree, Valerie received full ownership of the veterinary clinic, another small residence adjacent to it, and her River Oaks condo. Her husband got the Tiki Island home and approximately $1.25 million to equalize the community property, which was valued at more than $4.5 million. Payment was to be made within four months, and the decree refers to a loan that Valerie may have needed to make it. The couple agreed to coparent their daughter, who would alternate weeks living with each. Protective order issued
If the payoff to her husband was a burden or the settlement not to her liking, one close associate said that she did not show it, appearing happy and relieved when her divorce was finalized.
“You could see it in her eyes,” the associate said. “I cannot imagine that she would risk everything for this. She is the most loving person I have ever known. Her life is her daughter and the clinic she fought so hard for.”
So far, the clinic is still open and busy. One employee said a few customers left following the publicity, but not many. McDaniel reportedly hopes to return to her practice while awaiting trial. Her license was suspended after the solicitation of murder charges were filed.
Neither Alford nor the attorney for Mack McDaniel, Kyle Sanders, would offer comment. Her exhusband objected to her having been released while awaiting trial. Sanders said he feared for his safety because “she has little to lose at this point.” A protective order was issued instructing her to avoid contact with him or their daughter. How could this happen?
Prosecutors say Jacob and McDaniel first approached a “facilitator” to arrange the killing and paid him $10,000. But that person instead went to police, who arranged a visit from a supposed hitman who was actually an undercover officer.
At a later meeting in a restaurant, the two were given photos from a staged crime scene that showed the apparently dead Mack McDaniel and the ex-girlfriend bound and gagged. A $20,000 cash payment was then pushed across the table, prosecutors said.
The idea of such a transaction, and the motive ostensibly behind it, have troubled those within Valerie McDaniel’s universe. If this can happen, what next? In his mind’s eye, one old friend still sees the “very quiet and sweet” person everybody liked. When he clicked on a link and read the details behind the allegation, the only word that popped into his head was crazy.
“I almost fell out of my chair,” he said.