Ex-Corporate Raider, Wife Found Dead in Bed: Friend

He was once a corporate raider known as "Irv the Liquidator." Now Irwin Jacobs and his wife Alexandra are dead in an apparent murder-suicide at their home about 15 miles south-west Minneapolis, Minn., the Star-Tribune reports. Police say only that two bodies were found in bed with a gun and public safety is not at risk—but Dennis Mathisen, who calls himself a "very dear friend" of Irwin, says the 77-year-old was responsible for the deaths. According to Mathisen, Alexandra "had been in a wheelchair for the last year or so and had signs of dementia. Irwin was just distraught over her condition." He adds that he talked to Irwin roughly three days ago "and he was upbeat."

Now the "family is in shock," a family friend tells the Lakeshore Weekly News. Police say someone who enters the house regularly found the bodies, called authorities, and waited until officers arrived. Soon a half-dozen sheriff's and police vehicles were at the hilltop property overlooking Lake Minnetonka. Irwin Jacobs was a renowned Minnesota businessman who got rich in the 1980s as a corporate raider, buying out struggling companies and selling them for profit, per Fox News. He also had a minority share of the Minnesota Vikings which he later sold. He was married to Alexandra for 57 years. They had five children. (More murder-suicide stories.)