The story of how David Jacobs went from an out of shape weakling to a huge 272 pound bodybuilder in just five years is inspiring. But the second part of his story, which includes becoming one of the most hated bodybuilders in the world, a steroid dealing conviction, and a murder-suicide is just plain tragic. However, some people are wondering if there is a huge scandal behind this murder-suicide involving the Police, NFL and the IFBB.

A New Man

David Jacobs was never destined to be a bodybuilder. He wasn’t some genetic freak who could pack on lots of lean body mass in a moment’s time. He wasn’t born in the gym and he didn’t grow up putting excessive hours in with the weights to set the base for what would eventually be a massive body. Jacobs was quite the opposite actually.

Now his early days did lead him into the marines but this obviously wasn’t a long-term career choice for David as he eventually got out of the military and embarked on a business career with Nokia. And it was during this time that the old David Jacobs would disappear and the new one would be born.

Some of Jacobs’ Nokia business trips happened to take him to China. And one time when he was in China, Jacobs decided to take up the challenge of climbing the Great Wall of China. The problem though was that Jacobs was now a tubby, fanny pack-wearing businessman rather than the tough marine he used to be. So, as one could conclude, his attempt to climb the Great Wall failed miserably leaving him exhausted and humiliated.

Jacobs decided that this out of shape loser was not the person he wanted to be and returned to Finland (where Nokia had him living) intent on joining a gym to build a better body. David began working out religiously at this gym and eventually befriended a bodybuilder who taught him about steroids.

After this, Jacobs started juicing and became so immersed in the gym atmosphere that he chose to cash in his Nokia career for an ownership stake in a gym. Unfortunately for him though, business wasn’t so good with his gym and he became so broke that he was barely able to fly back to his native state of Texas.

Now back in Texas and left without a job or money Jacobs came to a crossroads in life. And his decision of what road to take was aided heavily by another bodybuilder he met named Art Atwood...

Opening up Shop

For those who don’t know Atwood, he is an IFBB competitor that has been involved in the sport for years. He has a good knowledge of steroids as well which he gladly shared with his new buddy at the time in Jacobs. But the two had a problem – They were dissatisfied with the low quality of the roids that they were getting from Mexico.

So David decided to take matters into his hands and had more than enough means to do so along with the alleged help of Atwood. You see during his Nokia business trips in Asia he had developed a pretty thorough knowledge of China and was even able to make some quality contacts while there.

As has been the case with a lot of major steroid dealers lately, Jacobs used his contacts to find Chinese factories that were willing to ship him raw steroid powder. At some point during all of this, he was able to teach himself how to turn this raw powder into ready-made steroids which he could begin making some real money off of.

The only problem was that he didn’t really have a front for selling the stuff. This is where his new company called the Supplement Outlet came into play. Jacobs would receive the raw powder under the disguise that it was used to create legal supplements.

After setting up the seemingly perfect operation, he began selling his steroids to people he knew within the Dallas bodybuilding community. David himself was a human advertisement for the stuff he was selling as he pointed to his transformation from a 175 pound weakling to a buff, 272 pound beast. His product and advice definitely worked for others too as he said, “People were walking billboards for the stuff I was making.”

At some point though, dealing to local bodybuilders was no longer good enough for David as he began to look towards bigger and better things. And those better things would come in the form of an NFL player named Matt Lehr.

Lehr was a lineman for the Atlanta Falcons at the time and was introduced to Jacobs by one of his middlemen at a Dallas nightclub. It was obvious that Lehr was using steroids (most likely from Jacobs) as he would fail a drug test only a few months later. This failed test would result in a four game suspension for the big lineman.

But Lehr seemed undaunted by his suspension and continued to associate with Jacobs and they even became friends. Lehr was a fan of bodybuilding and began attending shows around the US with Jacobs which would only further fuel what was to happen later. But before that can be discussed, the story of Jacobs’ demise must be told...

Spiraling Downward

It all began back in March, 2007 when UPS became suspicious of a wet package that was being sent from Plano, Texas to Wichita, Kansas. Upon further inspection, UPS workers found a broken vial of steroids in the package and alerted the authorities. The authorities followed the address the roids were being sent to and arrested amateur bodybuilder Jamie Mongeau.

Mongeau cooperated with the police and told them that Jacobs was the one who sent the steroids to him. After finding this out, authorities worked with the Plano narcotics division to survey Jacobs’ residence. And this is where they discovered a man leaving David’s house with a package of steroids.

This was all the more evidence that the police needed to raid Jacobs’ house. After doing so, they found tons more evidence in the form of steroids, a lab, raw powder, pills, and plenty of guns. After pinning enough stuff on Jacobs, authorities went on to nab some of the people who had helped him create this profitable steroid ring in the aforementioned Atwood and a man by the name of Matt Williams.

This is where things got even more complicated as Matt Lehr’s name turned up in the investigation. His attendance of bodybuilding events across the country with Jacobs brought on further suspicion of the NFL player. So authorities began looking into whether or not Lehr was an even bigger part of this steroid ring than expected. Possibly even so big that he helped distribute Jacobs’ roids to other people.

Then a story of he said, she said erupted beginning with Jacobs saying, “I sold steroids and a significant amount of growth hormone to Matt Lehr.” To this, Lehr’s attorney, Paul Coggins, countered by stating, “He threatened Matt and said you have to pay my attorney’s fees or I am going to end your career. Jacobs saw Matt as a guy with a lot of money and Matt declined to pay his fees. We are confident that the more the feds look at Jacobs, the less credible of a source of information he becomes.”

Not happy with this, Jacobs said, “It’s an issue of right and wrong. I’m taking responsibility for my actions and I’m not blaming people for my mistakes. I’m not going to lay down while other people attack my character and my integrity and accuse me of extortion and lies and making up information. It’s time for Matt to be a man.”

After a lengthy investigation, no charges were filed against Matt Lehr but the story grew far beyond just him. All of the sudden, it was said that Jacobs had been selling steroids to way more NFL players than just Lehr. The potential for a BALCO-type scandal was brewing as Jacobs headed to court. But there would be nothing BALCO-like about David Jacobs sentencing...

Time to Face the Judge

The kind of punishment Jacobs was looking at certainly wasn’t anything to scoff at. After all, he was pushing at least $30,000 and about 1,000 vials of steroids a month. And looking back on past steroid cases of huge significance such as the aforementioned BALCO case, sentencing was never light even if those in question cooperated.

EliteFitness.com member Patrick Arnold, who was the chemist in the middle of the whole BALCO fiasco, had to do three months of time in prison and he pleaded guilty to his offenses. Victor Conte, the founder of BALCO, also cooperated and still got a four month prison term.

Many who were friends and associates of Jacobs’ in the bodybuilding community weren’t expecting anything less for him as he headed to court in May. Much like Arnold and Conte, Jacobs pleaded guilty as the overwhelming evidence against him practically dictated this plea.

Unlike Arnold and Conte though, David somehow managed to avoid any time behind bars when the verdict was announced. His full punishment: Three years of probation and a $25,000 fine. Now it can’t be fun to go through probation for three years or easy to pay $25,000 but for someone who’d made thousands off steroids, it was a slap on the wrist.

Jacobs had just dodged some major prison time and many were wondering how he did it. In fact, people in the bodybuilding community and the NFL were downright suspicious. These suspicions came to fruition when Jacobs met with NFL officials to give them names of all the football players he had sold steroids to.

As can be expected, there were a lot of people who weren’t too happy about this. Jacobs certainly wasn’t naive about the situation either as he stated, “The kinds of people I know about could put a bullet in the back of my head.”

And possibly even worse, Jacobs not was only becoming a hated man among football players but also in the sport where he came from – bodybuilding. Brian Dobson, who owns the legendary MetroFlex gym where Ronnie Coleman trains, said of Jacobs, “A lot of people hate him. To a lot of the other guys who were his buddies, once he got caught, he became the black plague.”

So although Jacobs was able to stay out of prison and only had to pay the government $25K of his steroid earnings, he was now ostracized by his friends and the bodybuilding community in general. But being labeled a snitch by bodybuilders was soon to be the least of David’s worries as the unthinkable loomed ahead...

A Tragic Ending

David Jacobs had never quite reached the level of success in bodybuilding that his training partner, IFBB pro Branch Warren, had attained. But he did achieve some success at the national level throughout his bodybuilding years. And this allowed him to meet a female IFBB pro by the name of Amanda Jo Earhart-Savell.

The two hit it off well and began dating. Their relationship wasn’t always a smooth one as they were an on-again, off-again type couple. But they did like each other enough to get engaged at one point. However, their relationship would tragically end along with their lives as a couple of officers on a routine check-up found them both dead in Jacobs’ home.

The news of their deaths came as a shock to many people. Jacobs’ dad, who is named David as well, was certainly one of them as he said, “I spoke with David through a text message about three or four days ago, and he said he was fine. He has been trying to rebuild his life. He got crossed with some bad things and made some bad choices. At this point, I am just beside myself."

And while Jacobs’ dad was feeling great sorrow for the loss of his son, things probably only got worse when he heard the official police report on the deaths of David and Amanda.

After an investigation by the Plano Police Department, a spokesperson for the police said that the deaths of the two were consistent with a murder-suicide case. So David Jacobs supposedly shot Amanda then turned the gun on himself in a tragic ending to a strange life story. But did the story really end how the Plano P.D. claims it did?

Case Closed?

We’re used to seeing police officers use the same steroids that they often bust other people over. It’s in the news, on TV, and I’ve covered this subject before several times at Elite Fitness. So is it really unfathomable to think that David Jacobs may have, at some point, sold steroids to members of the Plano Police Department and others?

The answer to the question is a simple yes if you believe what Jacobs said shortly before his death. Ready to go public with his knowledge of the police who were buying steroids from him, Jacobs made a statement that, “We as people have given them a set of authority to uphold these laws, but they are breaking them right in front of our faces. And to steal money from my house, and steal steroids, and steal growth hormones from my house, then put handcuffs on me and then judge me.”

The money, steroids, and HGH Jacobs was referring to supposedly came up missing after Plano police raided his house. Coincidentally, about $4,500 along with a sizeable amount of steroids and human growth hormone was no longer there after the raid. And the police he is referring to about breaking laws are the Garland, Richardson, Dallas, Arlington, and Plano departments whom he allegedly did business with.

Interestingly enough, Plano was the department that ruled his and Amanda’s death a murder suicide. And going beyond just this, the way Jacobs had multiple gunshot wounds raises some major questions too. One wound was in his stomach while the other was in his head.

I mean how does one end up with a bullet in their abdomen when trying to commit suicide? It just doesn’t make sense. And the statistics say that only less than 2% of people who shoot themselves in a suicide die from multiple wounds.

Furthermore, what about the owner of Lowen’s Pharmacy in the big steroid ring that was busted last year? This was yet another case where the dealer threatened to go public with the names of police officers he sold to yet wound up dead after guess what – a suicide. A suicide where he had a bullet in his head and another in his chest making this another suspicious, multiple gunshot wound case.

Far be it from me to speculate on this any further though.

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Author: George Spellwin