An apparent suicide at a high-rise complex near River Oaks may be connected to a murder-for-hire plot.
Poilce believe Valerie McDaniel, a Montrose veterinarian accused in the plot, jumped to her death from the Willowick Condominiums near River Oaks Monday.
Court records confirm McDaniel lived in that complex on the seventh floor in a condo she shared with her boyfriend, Leon Jacob.
Invesitgators say McDaniel and Jacob cooked up a plot to hire a hitman to kill their exes. Investigators tell us the couple agreed to pay the hitman $10,000 each to kill McDaniel's ex-husband and Jacob's ex-girlfriend. Turns out, the "hitman" was an undercover officer.
Police are still searching for answers in McDaniel's death. There were no witnesses, and no one else home.
"(A resident) reported to police there was a body laying out there, they didn't know if she was asleep or what, until the officers came out and found her," said J.P. Villarreal, a detective with HPD's Homicide Division.
Jacob got the news behind bars on Monday.
"It's just a devastating piece of information," said George Parnham, the attorney who broke the news to his client. "He did not know until I went down to the jail."
McDaniel posted a $50,000 bond days after her arrest and was due in court on Tuesday.
"Make no mistake: I'm not blaming the criminal justice system for what occurred today," Parnham said. "It's just an example of what can happen, and we all need to sit back and understand how important it is that we take the lives of those that we touch."
Jacob's attorney still plans to ask the judge for bond at a hearing Wednesday.