On February 21, 1994, 42-year-old car salesman Leland A. Jacobs was lured from a Chesterfield Ford dealership under the pretense of a test drive and robbed. The men accompanying him — Tony Leslie Fry and a 17-year-old, Bradford Hinson — shot Jacobs eleven times with a .22 caliber handgun. After being shot, Jacobs was tied to the rear bumper of the 1994 Ford Explorer with his own necktie and dragged for 777 feet down a dirt road into the woods while still alive.

A police officer who had been seeking Fry on an unrelated warrant encountered Fry and Hinson as they left the scene; Fry confessed after his arrest. In October 1994 Fry pleaded guilty to capital murder and robbery, received a death sentence, and was later executed in 1999. Hinson was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, and firearm use and was given an 88-year sentence. Fry also confessed during the investigation and trial to multiple other offenses, including church robberies, two arsons, and desecrating a grave to remove parts of a human skull.