‘He Said He Hated Her’

It was unusual for Violet Yacobi to be out of touch with her family.

The 67-year-old—a recently widowed mother of two grown children and grandmother of one—was nearing the end of a year-long period of mourning for her husband Solomon, a physician who died in 2016, and was preparing to resume her active social life and making plans to visit family in Israel.

A day rarely passed without Violet, who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s after living in the Soviet Union and Israel, calling one of her kids—daughter Dina, 56, and son Daniel, 43—or her mother and brothers, who also lived in the area.

So on Oct. 10, 2017, when she didn’t respond to a call from her brother about driving her to the mechanic for her car, the family grew concerned.

Alerted by their uncle, Dina and Daniel met at the family’s $8 million home in Beverly Hills just after 7 p.m. that evening, to check on their mother and made a horrifying discovery: Violet was dead, lying on the marble floor near the foot of the grand staircase.

Police found no sign of forced entry and initially didn’t suspect foul play, suggesting that she had died from an accident or suicide.

On what would have been Violet’s 68th birthday, Jan. 8, 2018, Daniel wrote on Facebook: “I know you and Dad are up there smiling down on us.”

The sudden death of the quiet widow saddened friends and neighbors, but what followed—after a coroner determined she had died by asphyxiation—sent the family into a state of shock.

On Feb. 12, 2018, Daniel was arrested and later charged with murdering his mother. His motivation? Greed.

According to prosecutors, Daniel—who pleaded not guilty—stood to inherit half of Violet’s $12 million estate.

“He choked the life out of her,” said L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Shane Michael at Yacobi’s trial which began on July 21, 2025, after years of delay. “[He] left her there in her home—the home he lived in as a young person going to high school and when he graduated from college.”

On the surface, the Yacobis appeared to be just another family enjoying a comfortable life in a posh L.A. neighborhood.

Violet had spent earlier years raising her children, teaching piano and shopping with friends, while her husband Solomon was a general practitioner.

“She was the matron of the family,” says real estate consultant Galina Blackman, who occasionally ran into Violet at high-end retailers. “She was always taking care of her husband, her kids, her siblings. That’s who she was.”

Her son Daniel had graduated from Boston University’s dental school in 2007. He opened a practice in Simi Valley, Calif., and worked in offices around the Los Angeles area.

But by 2015, business stalled. “When he found out I did PR, he tried to get advice,” says patient Trish Brown. “He was struggling to keep the doors open.”

For more about the murder of Violet Yacobi, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.

Only a few people apparently knew that pressure was brewing within the family. Dean Summers, the brother of one of Daniel’s neighbors, testified at his trial that, prior to Violet’s death, Daniel was deeply depressed.

“He told me [his parents] pushed him into dentistry, and that he hated being in dentistry, and that his mother was very controlling,” Summers said. “He said he hated his mother and he hated his father.”

And family friend Joseph Mamalinger told law enforcement about a troubling question that Daniel asked him weeks before his mother died. “We were having a conversation about dental practices and in the middle of that [he says], ‘Hey, what do you know about inheritance tax?’”

Mamalinger told police he replied, “I think your mom is healthy. Why are you asking me that?”

Mamalinger said Daniel—who authorities claim had searched online “does the choke hold create a bruise?”—became flushed and left.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.  

Prosecutors presented geo-location data tracking Daniel’s white Jaguar to Beverly Hills, where surveillance footage showed the car in the alley behind his mother’s house around 4 p.m. on Oct. 9, 2017.

Within the next four hours, they argued, Daniel entered the house and strangled Violet.

Yacobi’s defense attorney, however, countered with the findings of a forensic pathologist who said Violet died from blunt force trauma consistent with a fall from a second-story balcony.

It took jurors one day to find Daniel guilty of first-degree murder and true the special allegation that the killing was committed for financial gain—and to deliver justice for Violet nearly eight years after her tragic death.

Daniel, who faces the possibility of life in prison without parole, will be sentenced on Oct. 3.

“It’s tragic in every way for everyone,” says a friend of Daniel’s. “His daughter lost a father. The family is torn apart. So, there’s no positive outcome.”