NV spy shop owner/suspected double murderer Craig Jacobsen: Is he a serial killer? Police investigate...

[Joe1orbit]

Hello,

Here is an interesting and rather detailed article on 26 year old Craig
Leslie Jacobsen. Craig is in prison, and stands accused of murdering a 20
year old woman who came into his security and spy shop in Las Vegas,
Nevada, and then burying her body out in the desert. Her name was Ginger
Rios, and police say there is good evidence that Craig engaged in a bit of
necrophilia after killing Ginger. Evidence indicates she was sexually
assaulted after she was murdered.

We learn in this report that Craig is a prime suspect in the murder of a
second woman, whose body was found in the desert, very close to where the
20 year old murder victim was found. Police have not identified this 2nd
victim yet, but it seems more likely than not that Craig did kill her.

In addition, police are questioning Craig in connection with 5 other
unsolved murder cases involving dead women who were found in the Las Vegas
Valley area over the past three years. Obviously IF Craig did kill all of
these women, that would make him a full fledged serial killer. But I must
caution you folks that there appears to be no solid evidence linking Craig
to any more murders, beyond these two, at this time.

We get some details on Craig's background and his activities in the
state of Florida, which was where he grew up. He indeed has had several
skirmishes with the law, and was arrested several times on burglary and
grand theft charges, prior to moving to Nevada and opening up a spy shop there.

So, Craig certainly seems to be an interesting fellow. He's packed quite
a lot of adventures into his 26 year life. It'll be interesting to see if
these hints of him being a serial killer, that are discussed in this
article, pan out. I intend to try and stay updated on the case.

Take care, JOE

The following appears courtesy of the 8/27/97 online edition of The
Bradenton Herald newspaper:

Bizarre case gets national attention

CHRIS TISCH

Herald Staff Writer

Two bodies in shallow graves. Missing persons galore. An elaborate
computer heist. Boasts of a government graveyard.

The bizarre case of former Longboat Key resident Craig Leslie Jacobsen --
which includes all the aforementioned oddities -- has gained the attention
of the national media.

Both Inside Edition and Hard Copy are reportedly chasing the story of
Jacobsen, 26, who is accused of murdering a 20-year-old woman in his Las
Vegas spy shop and then burying her body in a shallow desert grave.

Jacobsen also is a suspect in the slaying of another young woman and Las
Vegas police are interested in what he may know about five other women
whose bodies have been found in Las Vegas Valley in the last three years.

Before he moved to Las Vegas, Jacobsen was well-known to local law
enforcement for his role in a $250,000 computer heist with roots in
California. He stole $60,000 in computer equipment from Manatee County
businesses in the early 1990s by posing as a computer salesman or federal
agent to scope out a business during the day; he then returned later that
night to burglarize the store, according to court records.

The smorgasbord of strange circumstances surrounding Jacobsen is what
lured in producers of Inside Edition .

``He sounds like a consummate con artist and that's always interesting,''
said Anne Hyland, a producer for the show. ``It has a lot of interesting
elements.''

During his younger years, Jacobsen became known to Longboat Key Police
Chief John Kintz, who arrested him several times. Kintz busted up
Jacobsen's computer heist in 1991 after he and Manatee County Sheriff's
Office detectives linked him to several local business burglaries in which
Jacobsen pretended to be an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

``He was very charming, very professional in his demeanor and in his
language,'' Kintz said Tuesday of Jacobsen. ``He was extremely convincing.
Those people (whose businesses were burglarized) were convinced that he
was, in fact, a DEA agent.''

Jacobsen's local criminal history of burglary and grand theft has more of
a white-collar flavor to it than the murder charge brought against him in
Las Vegas.

Kintz said he initially was surprised by Jacobsen's murder charge. But now
that the murder investigation includes more potential victims, Kintz said
he plans to alert local law enforcement agencies to check their files of
unsolved homicides.

``If they link him to multiple victims in the pattern of a serial killer,
then the likelihood of that (more victims here) is pretty good,'' Kintz
said. ``You don't typically up and decide `Oh, I'm a serial killer.' ''

Jacobsen reportedly helped the FBI nab his California-based associate in
the computer heist after he was arrested by Kintz in 1991. Kintz said
Jacobsen stole computers from local businesses and funneled the equipment
to the associate in California, who in turn, leased the stolen computers to
legitimate businesses.

After Jacobsen was arrested in 1991, he sued Kintz and Sheriff Charlie
Wells. But after Jacobsen pleaded no contest to burglary charges in April
1995, he turned up missing.

He never showed up for court dates and soon became a fugitive. It's about
that time that Jacobsen apparently headed to Las Vegas and launched a
business called Spy Craft, which sold surveillance and spy equipment from
at least three stores in the southwest.

Jacobsen also took on the alias of John Flowers.

A former employee of Jacobsen's recently told the Las Vegas Review-Journal
that Jacobsen hired him to take secret photos of dark-haired women who
worked in hotels and casinos. He also told police he remembers finding
three women's wedding bands in the glove compartment of Jacobsen's truck in
1996, the newspaper reported.

The employee, Bernard McLoughlin, told the Review-Journal that he and
Jacobsen met in the spring of 1996 at a coffee shop in downtown Las Vegas,
where Jacobsen passed himself off as a government employee with ties to the
FBI, CIA and DEA.

For four months, McLoughlin took pictures of women with a tiny fish-eye
camera lens pinned to his shirt lapel, which led to a button-controller in
his hand. McLoughlin also recorded their voices for Jacobsen, who paid him
up to $1,000, always with crisp $20- and $50-bills, he told the newspaper.

McLoughlin also told the newspaper that Jacobsen boasted to him about
leaving bodies in the desert.

``He said, `You know, from here to Provo, Utah, we use the desert as a
government graveyard,' '' McLoughlin told the Review-Journal .

The Tampa Tribune published a portion of a psychological evaluation of
Jacobsen last week in which a psychologist noted that Jacobsen was
paranoid, complained of hearing voices in his head and claimed to work for
the government.

In notes Jacobsen wrote to Manatee County jailers that have wound up in
his court file, he also complains that jailers were poisoning him and
putting the voices of ``Satan and Truman'' in his head.

Las Vegas police say Jacobsen murdered 20-year-old Ginger Rios, an
attractive dark-haired woman who sang with a Las Vegas band called Salsa
Machine, after she entered his Las Vegas Spy Craft store on April 4. He
then drove Rios to a patch of Arizona desert and buried her body, police
reported.

Police were led to Rios' body by Jacobsen's wife, Cheryl Ciccone, 20, who
told authorities Jacobsen threatened her and her 10-month-old child.

Police located the body of a second young woman a short way from where
Rios' body was found. The body has yet to be identified but police think
she and Rios may have been killed and buried by the same person.

Police sources also told the Review-Journal that there is a ``huge chunk''
of circumstantial evidence that indicates Rios was sexually assaulted after
her death.

Jacobsen was arrested Aug. 17 by a fugitive task force in Los Angeles. He
is awaiting extradition to Tampa, where he faces charges of grand theft and
burglary out of Sarasota and violation of probation from the U.S. Marshal's
Service. He then faces extradition to Las Vegas on the murder charge.