Tenant pleads guilty to killing landlord in fight with hammer, knife

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Ronald MacDonald insisted to the police that his landlord had left the city to visit his ailing father in Simcoe.

But the truth was that Craig Jacobs’ body was still at the east London home, in the back of MacDonald’s Ford-150 pickup truck, put there by MacDonald after he had stabbed him to death.

London police officers made the grisly discovery on Dec. 22, 2022, at the single-storey Queens Avenue home just east of Adelaide Street owned by Jacobs, where he lived on the main floor and MacDonald rented the basement for 2 1/2 years.

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On Friday, MacDonald, 68, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and admitted he killed Jacobs, 65, after simmering tensions between the roommates and the threat of eviction spilled over into a fight with a hammer and a knife.

Ontario Court Justice Jason Miller accepted the joint submission from the Crown and the defence and sentenced MacDonald to nine years in prison. With time-served enhancements factored in, he has six years and six months left to serve.

“I’m sorry that it happened, that it took place,” MacDonald said to Miller. “I didn’t mean to kill. It happened and I’m sorry that it happened to him.”

Miller rightfully called the fatal stabbing on Dec. 18, 2022, four days before the body was discovered, as “another example of what happens when people let their tempers get the best of them and don’t walk away from a situation once it gets heated.”

Assistant Crown attorney Artem Orlov read an agreed statement of facts outlining what led to Jacobs’ death.

The two men had separate quarters in the house but shared the main floor bathroom and kitchen. By December 2022, they were not getting along. Jacobs called the police on Dec. 16, 2022, to report a dispute. Officers went to the house, offered advice and didn’t lay any charges.

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Jacobs called the police again the next day, concerned about MacDonald. Officers went to the house on Dec. 18, 2022, in the morning and spoke to both men.

“Police provided advice and requested Mr. Jacobs fill out the proper paperwork for the landlord and tenant board should he wish for the accused to be evicted,” Orlov told Miller.

At 1:30 p.m. the same day, Jacobs told his neighbours that he was having issues with his tenant. “This was the last time Mr. Jacobs was seen alive,” Orlov said.

On Dec. 20, 2022, one of the neighbours dropped off a jar of homemade cookies on Jacobs’ porch. The next morning, she saw that the jar was on the ground and assumed some animals had eaten the baked goods.

Then, on Dec. 22, 2022, the neighbour tried to drop off homemade soup, but when she knocked on the door, there was no answer. She called the police at about 7 p.m. requesting a wellness check on Jacobs.

Officers first tried to call Jacobs, then went over to the house, where they were greeted by MacDonald. His pickup with the Tonneau cover over its bed was the only vehicle and he told the police that Jacobs had left with friends two days earlier in a white car for Simcoe to visit his father who had a heart attack.

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But that story didn’t check out. The police called Jacobs’ father and he wasn’t ailing and his son wasn’t there.

The police went back to the house and MacDonald invited them in. Officers found Jacobs’ wallet with all of his identification and bank cards in his bedroom. They saw that MacDonald’s hands appeared swollen and had open wounds on the knuckles. He said he injured them moving drywall.

He changed his story, saying Jacobs had gone to see his dad or great uncle who was ill and the car he left in was black or red.

The officers went outside and tried to open the truck’s tailgate, but it was locked. Then they pulled off the cover and found Jacobs’ fully clothed body covered in blood and among the items that filled the truck box. There were noticeable wounds to his chin, right hand, neck, left shoulder and left chest.

MacDonald was charged and taken to London police headquarters where he was interviewed by Det. Micah Bourdeau. When he asked MacDonald how the body ended up in the truck, MacDonald replied, “Well, it didn’t walk there.”

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Orlov said that in pleading gulity to manslaughter, MacDonald admitted that on Dec. 18, 2022, when he arrived home from work at 6 p.m., he and Jacobs got into an argument about “the home being in disarray and items within the home having been broken.”

The next five minutes ended Jacobs’ life. Jacobs swung at MacDonald with a hammer, hitting him three times in the torso and once on the head, leaving him dizzy. MacDonald grabbed a jack-knife and the pair tussled over it. At one point, Jacobs bit MacDonald’s hand.

MacDonald regained control of the knife and recalled stabbing Jacobs twice with one stab into his chest. When Jacobs was unresponsive, MacDonald retreated and Jacobs was dead.

MacDonald didn’t call the police. Instead, he scrubbed the dining room, disposed of the cleaning supplies and put Jacobs’ body in the back of the truck.

Jacobs died of multiple stab wounds to his face, chest, back and upper and lower extremities. One stab wound hit his lungs, a main artery and his liver, causing internal bleeding.

No victim impact statements were filed, but Orlov noted that Jacobs had friends in the community and his neighbour had been at court to watch the proceedings.

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Defence lawyer Katie Heathcote said MacDonald was a Ford Talbotville worker for 20 years before taking a buyout and still has a pension. He continued to work as a general contractor.

His criminal record stretched back to 1974, and had offences in every decade to now. His last convictions in 2013 netted a four-year prison sentence.

If the case had gone to trial, both Heathcote and Orlov said there were triable issues such as whether MacDonald acted in self-defence and a challenge to the warrant-less search of the  truck. His guilty plea spared witnesses from testifying and saved the court time and expense.

Miller agreed to the recommendation, calling the circumstances “the deadly and tragic culmination of the souring of that relationship between the two parties.”

He called Jacobs’ death “a tragedy” and remarked at “how frustrating (it is) to continuously see us lose members of the community in situations where people let their temper get the best of them.”

“I bet you wish you had just gone for a walk that day,” he said to MacDonald.

“When you get into these disagreements, you’ve got to just walk away.”

jsims@postmedia.com

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