{"id":201859,"date":"2026-02-28T09:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/she-convinced-police-her-husband-died-by-suicide-his-family-helped-convict-her-twice-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T09:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:47:11","slug":"she-convinced-police-her-husband-died-by-suicide-his-family-helped-convict-her-twice-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/she-convinced-police-her-husband-died-by-suicide-his-family-helped-convict-her-twice-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"She convinced police her husband died by suicide. His family helped convict her \u2014 twice. – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jake Embert was fatally shot in his Georgia home more than a decade ago.
His family searched for justice for years, enduring a legal saga that spanned three criminal trials and what they said was an agonizing series of failures and mistakes at nearly every level of the justice system in Dougherty County, in the southwest part of the state.
\u201cA slow, grinding, merciless erosion of our humanity\u201d is how his daughter, Rachel Embert, once described it.
For more on the case, tune in to \u201cMalice\u201d on \u201cDateline\u201d at 9 ET\/8 CT tonight.<\/strong><\/em>
In January, that process took a big step forward. For the second time, Jake\u2019s second wife, Susan Embert, 61, was convicted of murder in a crime prosecutors described as a financially motivated killing staged as a suicide.
Embert was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She has always maintained her innocence and told \u201cDateline\u201d that she had nothing to do with her husband\u2019s death.
For Rachel, the long-awaited resolution felt like justice. But, she told \u201cDateline,\u201d \u201cwe\u2019re forever broken.\u201d
According to Jake\u2019s family, the trouble with the investigation into his June 28, 2014, death began soon after Dougherty County police officers responded to a 911 call from Susan. She reported that her husband had fatally shot himself, a recording of the call shows.
The couple had been married for just over a year. An Army veteran and mechanic at a nearby military base, Jake met her through an online dating site after his marriage of 26 years ended in divorce, his family said.
He was 51 at the time. She was 48.
In the months that followed, Jake\u2019s health began to deteriorate \u2014 heart attacks, seizures, stomach pain and nausea. On the day of his death, Susan was broadcast on a countywide police channel telling officers that he\u2019d recently told her he was \u201csick and tired of being sick and tired,\u201d a recording of the conversation shows.
The officers believed he died by suicide. The same recording <\/strong>captured one of the officers saying it was \u201cobvious\u201d that\u2019s how Jake Embert died. A firearm \u2014 a .45 handgun \u2014 was \u201cright there in his hand,\u201d the officer said.
The county coroner, Michael Fowler, agreed and ruled suicide as the manner of his death.
Jake\u2019s children and sister doubted that conclusion, however. His son, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, recalled that his father was opposed to suicide, believing that it was a \u201cpermanent solution to a temporary problem.\u201d
Nor did the timing make sense to his family. Jake loved cars, and a 1975 Pontiac Firebird he\u2019d owned was set to be raced on a local track on the afternoon of his death, his son, Will, told \u201cDateline.\u201d The father and son were close \u2014 Will described his father as his best friend \u2014 and they\u2019d planned on watching the event together with Will\u2019s girlfriend.
Will had gone to pick her up when Jake was shot.
\u201cKnowing that Will was coming right back,\u201d Rachel said, her father \u201cnever would have done that to my brother.\u201d
Rachel was also puzzled by what she described as Susan\u2019s lack of interest in holding a funeral. According to Rachel, Susan attributed this to Jake having no close relationships \u2014 even though he had \u201ctons of family, tons of friends, tons of co-workers,\u201d Rachel said.
Susan disputed this, telling \u201cDateline\u201d that she wanted to hold a service but hadn\u2019t had time to get one together.
When the family pushed authorities for answers, they said they got nowhere. Rachel said she repeatedly questioned the coroner while he was at her father\u2019s home the day of his death. And in a phone call that Jake\u2019s sister recorded with a Dougherty County detective and provided to \u201cDateline,\u201d an investigator told her: \u201cIt is what it is. \u2026 I can\u2019t change what happened.\u201d
The officers who responded to the scene declined to speak to \u201cDateline.\u201d In a statement, a spokesperson for the Dougherty County Police Department said the agency is aware of questions surrounding the investigation into Jake\u2019s death but declined to comment \u201cout of respect for the judicial process.\u201d
In an interview with \u201cDateline,\u201d Fowler said that he was comfortable with his findings based on the information he had at the time \u2014 information that included Susan\u2019s comments to police and what he\u2019d been told by law enforcement at the scene.
Jake\u2019s family hired a private investigator, Lee Wilson, who uncovered a range of issues with how authorities handled the investigation. When the former police detective began reviewing records associated with the case, he found that police had taken less than an hour to complete their investigation. No forensic were conducted, he told \u201cDateline,\u201d and no detectives appeared to have shown up to Jake\u2019s home.
Processing that scene, Wilson said, should have taken hours.
Fowler, he said, could have examined Jake\u2019s body at the morgue and \u2014 crucially \u2014 checked for gunshot residue on his hands. But no autopsy was completed, Wilson said, and Susan had his body cremated within 24 hours.
When Wilson began reviewing photos of the scene, he said a few things immediately stood out: There was no visible blood on Jake\u2019s hand \u2014 as would have been typical for a self-inflicted gunshot wound \u2014 and the gun was in an unusual position, tucked under his right leg, Wilson said.
The bedsheets were also unusually positioned. It looked like someone tried to pull Jake\u2019s body back onto the bed, Wilson told \u201cDateline.\u201d
As Wilson dug into the case, Jake\u2019s family members did their own sleuthing. They\u2019d been suspicious of Jake\u2019s sudden illness \u2014 he\u2019d started getting sick only after meeting Susan \u2014 and they wondered if she could have been poisoning him. It was a difficult question to answer without his body, but his sister, Yvonne Magnus, recalled asking Rachel to find Jake\u2019s hairbrush and bag it.
Those left-behind hairs, she believed, could contain potential evidence.
The family also came to believe that Susan may have been after Jake\u2019s money. Magnus recalled how after six weeks of marriage, her brother told her that Susan was pressuring him to make her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Magnus reminded him that he had an underage son, she recalled, but he assured her that Susan would take care of Will if anything happened to him.
After Jake\u2019s death, Wilson\u2019s investigation found, Susan obtained a payout from that policy and moved to Florida.
Susan told \u201cDateline\u201d that it was Jake\u2019s idea to make her his beneficiary. She denied poisoning her husband and said that Jake\u2019s family was lying about her.
On Dec. 31, 2014, Wilson sent a seven-page document to Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards summarizing his findings. After Edwards\u2019 investigators reviewed the case, the prosecutor came to believe that Susan had likely killed Jake and staged his suicide.
\u201cHe was more valuable to her dead than alive,\u201d Edwards told \u201cDateline.\u201d
Fowler, the coroner, changed Jake\u2019s manner of death from suicide to homicide, and in 2015, Susan was charged with his murder. She was later charged with an additional count of aggravated assault that was linked to the suspected poisoning.
The evidence supporting that charge came from Jake\u2019s hairbrush. Testing ordered by the prosecutor\u2019s office showed that he had antifreeze, insect repellent and other toxic chemicals in his body, Edwards said later in court.
Susan had allegedly been killing him slowly, but Edwards told \u201cDateline\u201d that a series of events prompted her to take more desperate action. Among them: A friend of Jake\u2019s planned on revealing that Susan had sent him nude photos of herself, Edwards said.
If Jake filed for divorce before his death, the prosecutor said, she wouldn\u2019t be entitled to his insurance benefits.
The family was grateful Susan had been charged, but she denied the allegations and a series of delays stalled her trial until December 2019. Still, after less than an hour of deliberations, the jury found her guilty and she was sentenced to life in prison.
But that conviction was short-lived.
Four years later, it was overturned on appeal after an attorney for Susan discovered that one of her jurors was a convicted felon and ineligible for jury service. Jennifer Hyman had just graduated law school when she took the case and found the detail while doing a Google search, she told \u201cDateline.\u201d
Susan walked out of the Georgia prison where she was incarcerated.
The development stunned Jake\u2019s family. To his sister, it seemed to be part of a pattern with how the case had been handled since the beginning \u2014 one that she said made her question the \u201cwhole judicial system.\u201d
Edwards said his office should have taken a closer look at the jurors. But, he added, \u201cwe have to rely in some respects on the representations of the jury.\u201d
More setbacks followed for the district attorney. A judge ordered Susan to stand trial again, but as prosecutors prepared for that retrial, the judge barred them from introducing anything linked to a critical part of their case \u2014 the poisoning allegation. Defense attorneys had argued that there hadn\u2019t been a proper chain of custody for the hair and the criminal charge linked to that allegation should be dropped.
\u201cInadmissible, wholly speculative, and unsupported by data,\u201d is how the judge presiding over the case described the toxicology report detailing that evidence, according to NBC affiliate WALB of Albany, Georgia<\/a>.
Susan\u2019s second trial got underway in December. But those pared-down proceedings were over almost as soon as they began.
On the first day of testimony, Fowler, the coroner, mentioned the word \u201cantifreeze\u201d in response to a question from the prosecutor. Susan\u2019s attorney immediately sought a mistrial \u2014 a request Dougherty County Superior Court Judge Victoria Johnson granted on Dec. 8, a filing shows.
In an email to the district attorney\u2019s office the next day, Rachel Embert appeared exasperated.
\u201cFor eleven years, we have waited, endured, begged, hoped, shattered, rebuilt, and broken again,\u201d she wrote. \u201cOur father was murdered once. The justice system has destroyed us repeatedly ever since.\u201d
In an interview, Fowler said that no one told him he wasn\u2019t supposed to mention the alleged poisoning in his testimony. Edwards, the district attorney, acknowledged that his office may have let that \u201cslip through the crack.\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t say that did not happen,\u201d he said.
Trial No. 3 began weeks later with a rearranged team prosecuting the case. Among the details they introduced at trial: Jake was left-handed. But the gun Susan said he shot himself with was found in his right hand.
\u201cIf a person is gonna commit suicide with the firearm, that\u2019s arguably the most important shot that person is ever gonna make,\u201d prosecutor William \u201cDowdy\u201d White told \u201cDateline.\u201d \u201cDo you make that shot with your nondominant hand?\u201d
Susan\u2019s attorney, Charles Cullen, argued that many left-handed gun owners also shoot with their right hand. But on Jan. 7, a jury convicted Susan of murder.
Three weeks later, she was sentenced to life in prison.
Will said there\u2019s plenty of blame to go around for the tortured path of his father\u2019s case. The coroner, the investigating police officers, the on-call detective, the courts \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s them not doing their job,\u201d he told \u201cDateline.\u201d
Still, Will chose to become a police officer. Often lingering in the back of his mind, he said, is how the authorities handled his father\u2019s death.
\u201cI\u2019m not gonna do my job the way that they did theirs,\u201d he said.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to <\/em>988lifeline.org<\/em><\/a>, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit <\/em>SpeakingOfSuicide.com\/resources<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>
Tim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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DEVELOPING: Trump urges Iranians: ‘Take over your government’ | Israel tracking missiles from Iran news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeJake Embert was fatally shot in his Georgia home more than a decade ago.His family searched for justice for years, enduring a legal saga that spanned three criminal trials and what they said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}