The Beverly Hills Murder: How a Son’s Greed Led to His Mother’s Death

A Suspicious Death Unfolds

When Beverly Hills Police Detective Mark Schwartz responded to a call about an unattended death at the home of 67-year-old widow Violet Yacobi on October 10, 2017, he had no idea he was about to uncover one of the community’s most shocking family tragedies. Violet’s children, Daniel and Dina, reported finding their mother’s body on the marble floor below the staircase around 7:30 p.m. Initially, responding officers suspected suicide—Violet’s dog had recently died, she had canceled her cleaning service, and it was the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death. However, when Detective George Elwell arrived at the scene, his trained eye immediately noticed details that didn’t add up. The dust covering the staircase railing was completely undisturbed, which would be impossible if someone had gone over it. Violet was barely five feet tall, and the railing stood over three feet high—more than half her height. For her to accidentally fall over would have been nearly impossible, and any intentional act would have disturbed the dust. The position of her body, tucked under the staircase rather than away from it, defied the laws of physics for a fall from that height.

Growing Suspicions and Investigative Breakthroughs

As detectives examined the scene more closely, additional red flags emerged. There were no signs of burglary—Violet’s wallet, checkbook, cellphone, and iPad were all present. Most troubling were the unusual marks on Violet’s face and neck, along with evidence that she had vomited. During an initial interview, Daniel himself had wondered aloud if his mother had been strangled, noting bruising around her neck. The detectives found Daniel’s behavior peculiar—he was overly cooperative, displaying what they described as nervous energy. Detective Elwell was particularly struck by Daniel’s animated behavior during a walkthrough of the scene, describing it as “like watching an episode of Columbo.” There were also inconsistencies in the family’s accounts: conflicting stories about who performed CPR, and a convoluted explanation about how Daniel and Dina came to arrive at the house at exactly the same time. When the autopsy results came back on October 13, they confirmed the detectives’ worst suspicions: Violet had died from asphyxia by neck compression—strangulation. This was now officially a murder investigation.

Following the Digital Trail

During a second interview with Daniel on October 13, detectives pressed him about his whereabouts on Monday, October 9—the night they now believed Violet had died, nearly 24 hours before her body was discovered. Daniel insisted he had been at his dental office in Inglewood and driven straight home, never stopping at his mother’s Beverly Hills residence. When asked repeatedly about his route home, Daniel became noticeably uncomfortable and gave contradictory, labored answers about such a simple question. Although detectives suspected he was lying, they didn’t yet have proof. Then they caught Daniel in an act that revealed his consciousness of guilt. While alone in the interview room—unaware he was still being recorded—Daniel texted his sister trying to coordinate their stories about performing CPR, writing “Just to keep the story straight.” When Dina called him from another room where she was with detectives, she contradicted his account. Investigators believed Daniel was trying to explain away any DNA evidence that might be found on Violet’s body.

The breakthrough came when cellphone records and security camera footage completely demolished Daniel’s alibi. The phone records placed him not in Inglewood but in Beverly Hills on the night Violet died. Nest camera footage from Daniel’s own home showed him arriving around 8 p.m., and later revealed him without his toupee—something detectives hadn’t known he wore. But most damning was what the cameras captured 40 minutes after he arrived home: Daniel sitting at his computer, searching for “latent fingerprints on human skin.” This was more than 22 hours before Violet’s body would be officially discovered. Facebook data coordinates tracked Daniel’s movements throughout that fateful day, showing him driving past his mother’s house multiple times before 4 p.m., “almost like a shark” circling the property. The data placed him inside his mother’s home from 6:39 p.m. to 7:48 p.m. on October 9—when Violet was alive at the start and dead by the end. The following morning, he returned to the scene for less than four minutes, then went home and contacted a financial investor via Skype: “If I get a mil id want you to manage it”—six hours before his mother’s body would be found.

The Motive: Money and Resentment

Violet and her late husband had been pillars of Beverly Hills’ close-knit Russian Jewish community, embodying the American dream. They had immigrated and built a successful life, with Violet’s husband becoming a respected doctor. Their estate was worth an estimated $13 million, including an $8 million mansion. Daniel stood to inherit half of everything. On the surface, Daniel appeared to have it all—a career as a dentist, a wife who was also a medical professional, a new baby, and a home near tony Bel Air. But beneath the facade, Daniel was drowning financially and emotionally. A family acquaintance, Dean Summers, recalled a conversation with Daniel about a year before Violet’s death, where Daniel unloaded his frustrations: “I hate my life. I hate being married. I hate what I’m doing for a living. I hate my mother. I hate my father.” Daniel complained that his parents had controlled every aspect of his life, pushing him into dentistry and marriage, and that he felt trapped because he was financially dependent on them despite appearing successful.

After his father’s death, Daniel’s access to the family fortune became more complicated, and according to Violet’s sister-in-law, he had developed an obsession with money and control of the estate. Though Daniel was in the process of buying a new dental practice and had secured a million-dollar loan, his ex-wife later admitted in court they had lived beyond their means. Prosecutors presented a damning timeline of Daniel’s internet searches beginning in August 2017—searches for “unexplained deaths,” “death statistics,” “choke holds,” “bruises caused by choke holds,” and “falling down stairs.” He had even watched a YouTube video demonstrating a “rear naked choke hold.” Investigators believed Daniel had been planning his mother’s murder for months, researching how to kill her and stage the scene to deflect suspicion. A family friend testified that Daniel had asked about inheritance taxes just weeks before Violet’s death, further suggesting premeditation.

The Trial: Battle of Experts and the Verdict

Daniel Yacobi was arrested on February 12, 2018, four months after his mother’s death. He was denied bail and spent more than seven years in jail before finally going on trial in July 2025, delayed by court proceedings. The trial became a battle of medical experts, with five doctors testifying about how and why Violet died. The prosecution argued that Daniel had strangled his mother using a rear naked choke hold for financial gain—a deeply personal crime requiring him to physically squeeze the life out of someone he claimed to love. The autopsy had shown petechiae around Violet’s eyes and face, classic signs of strangulation, along with significant abrasions on her jawline and neck. Violet had also suffered rib fractures and a spinal fracture consistent with being lifted and compressed during the attack. Most damning was the discovery of Daniel’s DNA under Violet’s fingernails.

However, the defense presented forensic pathologist Dr. Lary Simms, who testified that Violet had not been murdered at all. Dr. Simms claimed the petechiae were merely sunspots and the neck marks were skin folds. He argued that Violet had died from a rare brain hemorrhage caused by an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) that made her disoriented, causing her to fall from the second-story landing. The defense even presented a photo suggesting that an abrasion on Violet’s chin matched a star-shaped design on the railing. The prosecution faced another challenge: the deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy had made significant errors, failing to note the spinal fracture and several rib fractures in his report—though they were photographed. This gave the defense ammunition to question the entire investigation. The prosecution brought in a new deputy medical examiner who confirmed the strangulation finding, and a radiologist who testified that if Violet had fallen from that height onto marble, he would expect to see catastrophic injuries—skull fractures, broken arms and legs, pelvic fractures—none of which were present.

After three weeks of testimony and nearly eight years after Violet’s death, the jury deliberated for approximately five-and-a-half hours over two days. Their verdict was unanimous: guilty of first-degree murder for financial gain. The judgment carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Detective Schwartz reflected somberly, “This broke that family apart.” Even Galina Blackman, Violet’s longtime friend, expressed mixed emotions: “I feel for Violet and I feel for Daniel… What in the world made him do that?” The case stands as a tragic reminder that behind the glamorous facade of Beverly Hills luxury can lie devastating family dysfunction, where greed and resentment can transform a son into his mother’s killer. Violet Yacobi, who had devoted her life to making her family happy, died at the hands of the child she had given everything to, all because he couldn’t wait for his inheritance.