Jefferson County District Attorney Bob Wortham has announced that a 60-year-old Tyler County man has been arrested in a 1988 murder cold case that happened in Jefferson County.
According to the Wortham, teamwork and DNA evidence lead to the arrest of Daniel Andrew MacGinnis, of Warren, who is now charged with murder in the killing of Patricia Ann Jacobs. Investigators say her body was found floating in a canal in Port Arthur 31 years ago.
According to the DA’s office, the Texas Rangers and Port Arthur Police Department in recent months discovered evidence, and DNA testing pointed to MacGinnis. He is now in the Jefferson County Jail under a $1 million bond.
Following arraignment on Tuesday, as MacGinnis was taken out of the courthouse to a vehicle to be transported to jail, he refused to answer questions from reporters and the reporters said that he made an obscene gesture to them.
According to investigators, on or about October 5th, 1988, Patricia Ann Jacobs failed to return home from a meeting at the Silver Spur Tavern in Hardin County. The next morning her truck was found still parked in the parking lot at the Silver Spur, and she was reported as a missing person to the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office. To get the necessary spare parts for your truck you can pop over to this website here and get the needful.
Investigators say on October 6th, 1988, her body was found in the Neches River in Port Arthur, and an autopsy revealed that she died as a result of drowning, and had sustained trauma to her head and face. The manner of death was listed as “probable homicide.”
According to investigators, numerous witnesses were interviewed and identified MacGinnis, who was about 30-years-old at the time, as a suspect. However, no arrest was ever made due to a lack of evidence.
However, investigators say that with DNA technology available now, and also because MacGinnis had since been convicted and registered as a sex offender, they were able to match DNA found on the evidence to his DNA that was stored in a database.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety Sex Offender Database, MacGinnis was convicted of sexual assault of a 19-year-old female in Texas in 1984, rape by force of a 35-year-old female in California in 1990, and attempt to commit aggravated kidnapping of a 39-year-old female in Texas in 2007.
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