YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — A Mahoning County grand jury will now consider a murder charge against a woman accused of running her boyfriend over with a car and killing him.
Judge Renee DiSalvo Thursday bound over the charge against Shanay Jacobs, 32, after a preliminary hearing that lasted about an hour and a half. Her $750,000 bond continues.
Jacobs is accused of running over Nathaniel Watson, 30, her boyfriend, about 5 a.m. Oct. 15 in a yard in the 200 block of South Schenley Avenue. Police arriving for a fight call found his body underneath a car that was in a yard.
The first officer arriving at that call, Steven Gibson, testified that he was drawn to a car parked on the sidewalk and in a yard so he stopped. Jacobs was outside of the car and he could see Watson underneath the car, he testified.
Gibson testified he tried to ask Watson if he was alright, but he got no answer.
Gibson testified Jacobs told him Watson walked in front of her car, and she also made the same statement in his cruiser, which he captured on his body camera.
The lead investigator on the case, Detective Sgt. Jerry Fulmer, said the decision was made to charge Jacobs with murder because video from a house on the street showed her headlights at first pointing straight north, then veering off the road until they flashed onto a house. He said that showed him that the car was steered deliberately off the road to hit Watson.
Fulmer played the video of the car’s lights for the judge. In the same video, Watson can be heard screaming when he is hit.
Police do not have actual video of the car running Watson over.
Also, when Fulmer interviewed Jacobs, she at first said Watson stepped in front of her car, but she later said Watson turned his back to the car and she then ran him over, Fulmer testified.
The other detective on the case, Detective Sgt. Chad Zubal, introduced door camera video evidence from the home of Jacobs’ sister. An argument between the two sisters can be heard and Watson was trying to break that up, Zubal testified.
The footage shows Watson walk out of the front door and off the front porch with Jacobs following him and yelling at him that he can walk home, Zubal testified.
The previous evening and into that morning, Jacobs and her sister had gone out, but when they returned to the home on South Schenley Avenue, they were arguing, and at one point, the argument was physical, Fulmer testified.
Defense attorney Walter Madison asked all three officers if they saw any signs that Jacobs was under the influence of alcohol, but all three officers said she appeared to be sober.