Texas Rangers solve 1988 Cold Case Murder

Daniel Andrew MacGinnis was sentenced to serve 20 years for her murder.
Daniel Andrew MacGinnis was sentenced to serve 20 years for the 1988 murder of Patricia Ann Howell Jacobs.(Texas DPS)
Published: Sep. 23, 2022 at 2:16 PM CDT

AUSTIN, Texas (KWTX) - The Texas Rangers Unsolved Crimes Investigation Program has solved the 1988 killing of Patricia Ann Howell Jacobs after more than 30 years.

Daniel Andrew MacGinnis entered a guilty plea on Sept. 20 and was sentenced to serve 20 years for her murder.

That sentence will run concurrently with a previous 199-year sentence on unrelated drug and weapons charges in Tyler County.

Jacobs’ body was found on Oct. 6 1988 in the Neches River in Port Arthur, Texas after she was last seen the previous evening at the Silver Spur nightclub in Silsbee.

A month later, her driver license and other personal items were located under a bridge near Kountze, Texas.

Investigators identified MacGinnis as a suspect after two other incidents involving women but did not have enough evidence to charge him in Jacobs’ case.

Then, in 2018, Jacobs’ family reached out to the Texas Rangers UCIP who believed further investigation was needed and officially reopened the case in October 2018.

Through the new investigation, clothing that had never been DNA-tested and other items were identified and the evidence was submitted to the Houston DPS Crime Lab for testing and retesting.

The new DNA evidence was then entered into the Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS), which identified a “hit” on MacGinnis.

After an interview and confirmation of the DNA evidence, he was arrested and eventually charged with Jacobs’ murder in Jefferson County.

During the murder trial, MacGinnis entered a guilty plea and it was accepted.

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