Vet accused in murder plot apparently leaps to her death
Friends, family left in shock after body is found
Friends and customers of a prominent Montrose veterinarian were stunned earlier this month when she was arrested and accused of trying to arrange the killing of her ex-husband. They were shocked again Monday when she apparently leaped to her death from the seventh-floor patio of a River Oaks condominium where she lived.
The lifeless body of Valerie Busick McDaniel, 48, was found near the swimming pool of the condo in the late morning. She had moved into the upscale Willowick condo in 2015 during contentious divorce proceedings and was living there after posting bond on solicitation-of-murder charges.
Police arrived before 11, but there was little to be done. Houston Police Detective J.P. Villareal said McDaniel’s body was discovered in a courtyard between the building and its pool after a building employee called 911. There were no
witnesses, and no one else was home at the time, Villareal said, adding that foul play is not suspected.
McDaniel’s mother, Carole Busick, arrived not long after police and was seen embracing friends and relatives outside the front of the building as news of her daughter’s death quickly spread throughout a community where she was well known.
“What a tragic and terrible loss,” said old friend Greg Holloway, who met McDaniel in high school and kept up with her casually over the years. “If only we could have helped her from the beginning.”
Clinic stayed busy
McDaniel was owner of the popular Montrose Veterinary Clinic. Her vet license was suspended after the charges were filed against her, but sources said she was attempting to have it reinstated so that she could return to practice while awaiting trial. The clinic has remained busy even with her facing a potentially lengthy prison sentence.
She was scheduled to be in court Tuesday for a status conference on the criminal proceedings and also was to return to court later in the week to discuss a separate protective order sought by her ex-husband.
Paramedics from the Houston Fire Department and Houston Police Department officers responded to the scene at 10:45 a.m., and McDaniel’s body was removed about 2:30 p.m. from the garden area between the swimming pool and the 15-story condominium complex.
Her identity was confirmed later in the afternoon by a spokesman with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
McDaniel leaves behind not only the thriving vet practice but an 8-year-old daughter already traumatized by the divorce of her parents and the recent arrest of her mother. Valerie and Marion “Mack” McDaniel III were sharing custody of the girl until the arrest, after which a court order barred her from having contact with either of them.
Her divorce was finalized last August. She was given complete ownership of the Montrose clinic and other property while her exhusband received a house on Tiki Island and approximately $1.25 million in cash to equalize the community property.
Several months later, police were informed of a plot involving McDaniel and a man with whom she was purportedly romantically involved, Leon P. Jacob, 39. Authorities allege the two contacted a “facilitator” who was to find a hit man to kill her ex-husband and Jacob’s former girlfriend, whom he had been charged with assaulting and harassing in early 2017. Instead, that third party called police and a simulated crime scene was arranged.
McDaniel and Jacob were arrested after giving $20,000 in cash to an undercover officer posing as a hit man. Because of the existing charges, Jacob was denied bail.
‘Craziness stood out’
Valerie McDaniel grew up in Houston and graduated from Episcopal High School in 1987. She was remembered by friends as popular, kind and compassionate. She purchased the veterinary clinic of a retiring doctor in 1997, the same year she married, and gradually built a thriving practice that had a loyal clientele and employed several other vets.
To those who knew the McDaniels casually, they embodied the ideal upwardly mobile couple. As the clinic prospered, they were able to buy a weekend getaway near the beach, a boat, luxury cars and other property. Close friends, however, watched the marriage gradually disintegrate. She alleged in court documents that he had an affair, overspent, ineptly managed the clinic and abused her. The two sought marital counseling, but she filed for divorce in 2014, asking for a disproportionate share of their property because of the alleged affair.
When she became involved with Jacob, the son of her divorce lawyer, friends feared she had made a serious mistake.
“His craziness stood out, and I told her that,” said a close friend Monday. She asked that her name not be used because she said she fears Jacob. “But you can’t blame everything on him obviously; she was a grown woman and went along with it.”
The friend, who was slated to testify on her behalf if the divorce went to trial, said McDaniel was known to all as a kind, caring mother and a generous animal doctor, even making house calls when it was necessary. She took calls and messages on weekends and would ask customers to send her video of ill animals. She even drove up to the clinic from Galveston on a Saturday to put down the ailing dog of a clinic employee.
But recently, the friend said, her personality changed.
“I don’t know if she got involved with drugs or what happened to flip such a switch,” she said. “It’s not her, at all. I’m sorry that she’ll be remembered for this last month of craziness.”
Tough choices
The friend said McDaniel was facing tough choices after being charged with solicitation of capital murder. McDaniel’s attorney said she was pulled into the murder plot late, but the district attorney’s office insisted she was a willing participant.
“To be honest, I’m not surprised that outcome was what it was today,” her friend said. “Because her life was that veterinarian clinic and her little girl, and I didn’t know how she would go on without that.”
McDaniel’s attorney, Matt Alford, declined comment. The attorney for Mack McDaniel did not respond to requests for comment. Jacob’s lawyer, George Parnham, said her death showed the stress that those accused of serious allegations are under, and he called her apparent suicide a tragedy for her family and friends and also for his client.
“No one wishes this result on anyone who is embroiled in the criminal justice system,” Parnham said.
He said Jacob has asked him to file a motion to ask the judge to release him from jail to go to the funeral.