The Murder of Beauty Couch

The initial response on August 23, 2023 was not a homicide call. Austell Fire Department crews arrived at Joe Jerkins Boulevard and Landers Street to extinguish what appeared to be a brush fire, unaware that a vehicle was involved or that a woman was dead nearby. The Dodge Dart registered to Deanna Thurman was towed from the scene after the fire was out. It was only after police made contact with Thurman and learned her daughter had been unreachable since the prior day that investigators returned to the area and searched the wood line.

Beauty Couch's body was located less than 200 feet from where the car had burned. She had been placed in the wooded area and covered with tree branches and debris. The Cobb County Medical Examiner documented 81 stab wounds. Her body had also been set on fire. Cobb County Police immediately confirmed foul play.

Among the physical evidence recovered at or near the scene was a traffic ticket bearing the name of Eugene Tobi Louis Jacques and the license plate number of his vehicle. Cobb County investigators ran the plate through license plate reader networks and tracked the car's movement out of the Atlanta area toward Louisiana. Within days, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's deputies located Louis Jacques and took him into custody. At arrest, he identified himself as "Mykael Waters." A Boost Mobile receipt and a job application under that alias were found in his vehicle. Body camera footage of the arrest was preserved and later used at trial.

Cell phone location data and license plate reader records were among the electronic evidence presented by prosecutors to place Louis Jacques near the scene on August 22, 2023. The defense challenged the absence of DNA evidence on his clothing or in his vehicle and argued that investigators had focused on Louis Jacques solely because of his relationship with Couch. Defense attorney Bryan Lumpkin also suggested at trial that some evidence may have been planted, characterizing elements of the physical evidence as "bizarre."

Prosecutor Jared Horowitz countered that the totality of the electronic evidence, Louis Jacques's immediate flight from Georgia, his use of a false identity at arrest, and the physical evidence recovered at the scene collectively established his guilt. The jury deliberated for approximately two hours before returning a guilty verdict on all six counts on May 22, 2026.