The family and friends of a murdered Kennewick woman came together Friday morning to share their grief and anger. They’re asking the court to sentence her killer to life in prison.
“Richard (Jacobson) is a monster,” Breeann Ebanez said as she cried about the death of her sister Brandy Ebanez. “And I never want anything bad to happen to anyone else.”
Jacobson, 37, is facing a life sentence without the possibility of parole after a jury took 45 minutes on Wednesday to find him guilty of aggravated first-degree murder following six days of testimony.
Jacobson beat and strangled Brandy Ebanez, 34, to death while she was four to five months pregnant with a son she always wanted. He then wrapped her in plastic bags, tied landscaping bricks to her feet and threw her into the Columbia River.
Her body surfaced on Sept. 27, 2022, and was found by an off-duty Kennewick police officer.
While the attorneys were not ready to finish with sentencing, family and friends were allowed to share how the brutal 2022 murder affected them. Several of them had traveled to the area for the trial.
They came to the courtroom on Friday wearing T-shirts with Brandy Ebanez’s picture.
They all asked the judge to sentence Jacobson to the maximum possible sentence.
“My family has suffered too much,” Breeann Ebanez said. “He tossed her like she was nothing. My sister was loved by all of us.”
“Richard, all I want to say is this is the last time you’ll ever have control over my family, and I hope my sister haunts you every night when you close your eyes.”
Brandy Ebanez and Jacobson’s now 15-year-old daughter also spoke, calling him by his first name, and saying that he was never her father.
The girl, who was in the apartment as the murder was being committed, has been left with nightmares and trauma. She’s had trouble sleeping for fear of waking up to screaming, furniture breaking or police banging on the door.
“Richard, I hate you so much,” she said. “I hope every day that you remember the pain and trauma you caused. You probably won’t because of how self-centered, and psychotic and a piece of garbage you are.”
She said her mother hung out with Jacobson every day because of his insecurities.
“He did not just take two lives,” Brandy’s friend Melrae Smith said. “He took a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend. He tried to silence her, but her voice was louder than ever.”
The remainder of the sentencing has been continued until a later date, and Jacobson will remain in the Benton County jail. A brutal killing
Ebanez and Jacobson had a turbulent relationship that was previously marked by violence. While there was a protection order, he was still living with her and their two daughters.
Two of her friends told jurors that she left her job in the summer of 2022. A neighbor said she regularly heard yelling coming from the apartment between July and September that year but it stopped after Sept. 15.
When the couple’s daughters, ages 9 and 12, arrived home that day, Jacobson told them that he and his mother were arguing.
The girls didn’t get a chance to talk to their mother. All they could hear was yelling, screaming and, at times, pleading from the woman, Deputy Prosecutor Josh Lilly told jurors during closing.
At one point, Jacobson came out “ranting and raving about drugs, other men (and) asking whether Brandy was working with police,” Lilly said.
He also searched the entire house for evidence of another man.
Everything was quiet the next morning when the girls left to go to school. One of the girls went to say goodbye to their mom, and didn’t get an answer through the door.
Lilly said this was odd because she usually walked them to the bus stop, and when she didn’t walk with them, she would watch them from the apartment balcony.
When the girls returned home that day, they said Jacobson told them their mother had left. Lilly noted that police would later discover Ebanez’s purse with all of her personal items still inside the apartment, including her wallet.
Over the next few days, Jacobson was seen on security footage making two trips to Home Depot to buy cleaning supplies, garbage bags and duct tape. He also bought landscaping blocks used to make a planter and a dolly that can be converted into a cart.
The girls testified that Jacobson spent the next five days cleaning. He also kept the girls at home from school.
Police tracked his daughter’s phone driving into Pasco where investigators believe he put Ebanez’s body into the river.
The next day, he took his daughters and left for the Portland area.
On Sept. 27, 2022, an off-duty Kennewick police officer spotted Ebanez’s body floating in the Columbia River.
When police searched her apartment, they discovered a large stain that matched her DNA under a bed.
Ebanez was four to five months pregnant when she was killed. The medical examiner testified her face was so bruised that she couldn’t tell where one bruise ended and another one began, Lilly said.
The examiner also testified she was strangled with such force that it broke the bone at the top of her throat.
“This went on for so long that he had to have formed the intent to kill and then carried it out,” Lilly said. “There is only one explanation for beating something this long and this severely. It’s because you decided to kill them.”
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