Two Dead in Connemara Fire, Including Woman Once On Death Row Over U.S. Police Killings

Tuesday, 3 June 2025 16:25

By Martin Osborne

Sonia “Sunny” Jacobs served 16 years in a Florida prison after being convicted in connection with the killing of two police officers.

A woman who previously spent five years on death row in the United States is among the two people who died in a fire in Connemara.

Sonia “Sunny” Jacobs served 16 years in a Florida prison after being wrongfully convicted in connection with the killing of two police officers.

She has been identified as one of the fire victims.

The second person, a man in his 30s, has not yet been officially named.

In 1976, Jacobs was in a car with her partner, Jesse Tafero, and her two children when they became involved in a deadly shooting at a rest stop along Interstate 95.

Walter Rhodes, who was also in the car, later confessed to the murder.

Jacobs was sentenced to death but acquitted in 1992 and released from jail.

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