Man takes plea in 1992 stabbing death of his girlfriend, found in bathtub with baby in York

The discovery was gruesome.

On Feb. 16, 1992, York City police found the bodies of Tammy Lee Mock, 18, and her 7-month-old daughter, Holly, in the bathtub of their apartment on West King Street near South Richland Avenue.  

Mock had been stabbed and cut more than 200 times. Both of them, police said, were covered in bleach.

Daniel Jacobs, Mock’s boyfriend, was later found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death for the killing of his girlfriend and ordered to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his daughter.

But in 2001, U.S. District Judge James M. Munley vacated the death sentence, ruling that Floyd Jones, Jacobs’ attorney, was ineffective. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit then threw out the conviction for the killing of his girlfriend — but not the one for the murder of his daughter — in 2005.

For more than one decade, the case lingered over concerns about whether Jacobs was competent to again stand trial. Finally, on Tuesday, the jury selection process began in the York County Court of Common Pleas. Then, he decided to accept a plea agreement in the case.

READ:York County judge to throw out death sentence in double-murder. What's next is unclear.

Jacobs, 47, of York, entered an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter for 10 to 20 years in prison, which will run at the same time as his life sentence. That means he did not admit guilt but instead acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to get a conviction.

“Twenty-seven years is enough,” Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tim Barker said outside the courtroom, “to keep calling the victims and telling them he’s challenging, in another appeal, evidentiary issues raised at trial."

Prosecutors, he said, were fully prepared to go to trial. But the plea agreement brings “legal finality” to the case. Family members supported the resolution.

Now, Jacobs has essentially either given up or exhausted all of his appeals in the killings.

Barker said the resolution doesn’t leave him with a great feeling. Sometimes, he said, justice is practical.

“He will be doing life in prison without parole,” Barker said. “He will be dying in prison.”

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Korey Leslie, Jacobs’ attorney, said in an interview that the outcome was the best that his client could’ve hoped for at a new trial.

During the first trial, Jacobs testified that he “went off and out of control” and killed his girlfriend after he discovered that she had apparently drowned their daughter. The admission would've been brought up in the new trial.

The basis for the charge of voluntary manslaughter was that he acted under a sudden, intense passion and carried out the killing.

"He got to stand on his assertion all along and receive the maximum sentence," Leslie said.

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Common Pleas Judge Harry M. Ness accepted the plea agreement, which he described as an appropriate resolution.

Three of Mock’s loved ones sat in the gallery of the courtroom. They did not make statements before sentencing.

Later, Ness ordered that Jacobs be sent back as soon as possible to the State Correctional Institution at Greene.

“His need to be in York County is now over,” Ness said. “Good luck to you, sir.”

Contact Dylan Segelbaum at 717-771-2102.

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