Reality TV star charged with murders of mother and brother
A reality TV star, who authorities say killed his mother and brother before turning the gun on himself, has been charged with two murder counts.
Jacob Stockdale, who was on the TV show Wife Swap, and was a member of a Christian family band, turned himself in on Thursday for the June 2017 double murder at his family farm in northeast Ohio, US.
The Canton Repository reports the Stark County prosecutor waited until this week to charge the 26-year-old in the slayings of 54-year-old Kathryn Stockdale and 21-year-old James Stockdale until he’d sufficiently recovered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
“It is our hope that this arrest offers some closure to the Stockdale family and the entire community,” said Stark County Sheriff George T. Maier.
Stockdale was a celebrated fiddler who performed along with his father and slain brother together in the bluegrass-themed Stockdale Family Band.
Family’s private life played out on national television
The accused’s mother Kathryn appeared on the ABC US reality show Wife Swap in 2008, which featured the whole family.
On the program, the matriarch listed the strict rules she set for the family, including controlling the music they listen to, home schooling the children, and banning her boys from going on dates.
“It’s important we have control over their character and education,” she said on the show.
In the episode, a then 16-year-old Stockdale said: “I have never been on a date, there’s better ways to find out about girls then dating.”
Authorities haven’t offered a motive for the slayings.
