Toledoan gets 20 years in ex-husband’s slaying

Woman pleads guilty to manslaughter

6/7/2013

Just a few days before she was to go to trial for aggravated murder, a Toledo woman admitted in court Thursday that she broke into a house where her ex-husband was staying and fatally stabbed him in the chest.

Jackie Kenney-Cobb, 42, of 913 Evesham Ave. pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated burglary in the Sept. 19, 2011, death of Michael Cobb, 54, at a South Toledo house.

After accepting her guilty plea, Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Gene Zmuda sentenced Kenney-Cobb to 20 years in prison, which was an agreed-upon sentence laid out in a plea agreement.

While Kenney-Cobb and her attorney, Ronnie Wingate, said she and the victim had been involved in a long-term abusive relationship, Judge Zmuda said Mr. Cobb’s death was the result of intolerant people “who believe they love each other and act out that love through anger, frustration, and physical violence.”

“Whatever problems, however tough your life has been, however abusive of relationships you’ve been in — either before Mr. Cobb, with Mr. Cobb, after Mr. Cobb — nothing justifies what you did,” the judge told Kenney-Cobb. “To ... go from your home, to take an aggressive stance, break into the home without permission, and to stab him because you believe he took money he shouldn’t have taken, because you find him in bed with another woman is no reason.”

Kenney-Cobb had been scheduled to go to trial Monday on charges of aggravated murder, murder, and aggravated burglary.

Mike Loisel, an assistant county prosecutor, said the victim’s family reluctantly agreed to having Kenney-Cobb plead guilty to the reduced charges. Prosecutors, he said, had ample evidence, including Kenney-Cobb’s DNA on the handle of a knife left at the scene. He said a woman who was in bed with the victim at the time he was attacked would have testified that Mr. Cobb said, “She did it. She did it. My ex-did it,” before he stumbled downstairs and collapsed.

Mr. Cobb’s older sister, Yvonne King, told the court her brother had made poor choices but wanted a better life.

“Our family has gone from sadness and sorrow to wanting revenge, but in the end we all said Jackie does have a family and we want them to be able to see her,” she said.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.