Woman who escaped death row dies in house fire 30 years later
Sunny Jacobs, 76, was falsely convicted in Florida for the murder of two police officers in 1976 and spent 17 years on death row before her release in 1993.
A Florida death row exoneree died in a house fire in Galway, Ireland.
Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs, aged 76, and a male companion in his thirties, were pronounced dead at the scene of a catastrophic bungalow blaze on Tuesday morning. No other people were present in the home at the time the fire broke out, reports the Irish Mirror.
Emergency services, including Gardai and Fire Services, responded to the early morning emergency call at around 6:20 am local time on Tuesday, managing to put out the fire. Jacobs and her male caretaker were found dead inside the house.
In an alleged miscarriage of justice dated back to 1976, Sunny and her partner were wrongly accused and convicted for murdering two police officers by Florida law enforcement officials.
At the time of her arrest, Sunny was 28-years-old and a mother; she spent 17 years in prison, five of those years on death row, until evidence of her innocence surfaced, leading to her exoneration in 1993.
Abraham J. Bonowitz, a fervent advocate with Death Penalty Action in the US, reminisced about meeting Sunny following her long-overdue release from prison.
Bonowitz's initial introduction to Sunny Jacobs occurred in 1993, mere months after she had been freed from an unjust incarceration.
He said: "I first met Sunny in 1993, just months after she was freed from 17 years of wrongful incarceration in Florida, including five years as the only woman on Florida's death row, after evidence of her innocence vacated her conviction."
He added: "In the aftermath of injustice, Sunny dedicated the rest of her life to preventing others from experiencing wrongful incarceration, aiding those freed from wrongful imprisonment in their healing process, and striving to abolish the death penalty both in the United States and globally.
"It was an immense privilege to know Sunny, not only through our shared work but as a genuine friend."
Bonowitz noted that one of his "greatest honors" was being by Sunny's side at the memorial for the victims of Flight 759, which tragically went down near the New Orleans airport in 1982.
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He shared: "We were together at the 2024 Annual Conference of The Innocence Network in New Orleans. It was the first time she had the opportunity to visit the site where her beloved parents, Bella and Herbert Jacobs, perished."
He continued: "Even in her advanced years, Sunny was tirelessly working to assist others."
Bonowitz spoke about the individuals who have contributed to sharing Sunny's harrowing tale of wrongful imprisonment and her journey to freedom and exoneration from death row.
He remarked: "Books, films, and stage plays have amplified Sunny Jacobs' voice, who was a featured character in the play and film, The Exonerated, originally produced by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. She was portrayed by Susan Sarandon, among many others."
He continued: "Sunny's tale was first brought to the big screen when she was depicted by Mimi Rogers in the movie In the Blink of an Eye, directed by her childhood pal, Micki Dickoff, who paused her career to help establish Sunny's innocence and that of her husband, Jesse Tafero."
Sunny is included on that list, also telling her story, writing it out in her memoir Stolen Time: One Woman's Inspiring Story as an Innocent Condemned to Death.
"There will be much more written and spoken about Sunny Jacobs. I have made a donation in her memory to The Sunny Centre and I encourage others to do the same," her friend stated.