WASHINGTON, 10 June 2004 — Robert C. Jacobs, the American citizen who was shot and killed on Tuesday at his home in Riyadh, refused to live on his company’s heavily-fortified compound, preferring to live among Saudis in a middle class neighborhood.
“My son refused to live in the secure compound provided by Vinnell, because he enjoyed living among the Saudis,” his mother, Oma Lee Jacobs, told Arab News in a telephone interview from her home in Illinois. “He liked them, their cuisine, and enjoyed living there. He liked going to camel races and browsing in the markets there.”
Jacobs, 63, was an employee of Vinnell Corp., a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp. He lived in Saudi Arabia for seven years, where he trained the National Guard in graphic design. “He was training people, but not in warfare,” Mrs. Jacobs explained to her local newspaper.
An unknown assailant shot and killed Jacobs at his home, said a spokesman for Vinnell Corp., which is based in Fairfax, Virginia. “He was found by another employee at his apartment and taken to a hospital, but did not survive,” said a company spokesman, Jay McCaffrey.
The Jacobs family has lived all over the world. Mrs. Jacobs said that although she had never been to Saudi Arabia, she has traveled to 108 countries, including several in the Middle East.
“My husband worked with the State Department,” said Mrs. Jacobs. “We lived all over Africa and Southeast Asia. Bob was very used to overseas living and got along very well with local people wherever he was.”
Their children grew up overseas, she said.
Robert and his sister Janice, an official with the US State Department in Washington, now working with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge on visa issues, were home-schooled in Ethiopia and attended French schools while living in France. Mrs. Jacobs, who lost her husband 10 years ago, said their youngest daughter, Linda, was born in Thailand.
Mrs. Jacobs said that during the decades her son had worked overseas, she had occasionally visited him. Everywhere she went, people told her: “Your son is so wonderful.”
“Bob was friendly, outgoing and really liked people,” she said, adding he had grown a beard while living in the Kingdom.
Mrs. Jacobs said she had discussed the idea of her son returning home to the US, and the decision “was up in the air.” Yesterday, when she returned home from doing charity work in town, she said she thought her son had surprised her and returned “because there were so many cars in the driveway. I thought he was here because the last time I spoke to him, he told me: ‘I’ll probably be seeing you before too long,’” she said.
She is unsure when her son’s body will be returned to their hometown of Murphysboro, Illinois. She said her daughter told her that because terrorists possibly killed Jacobs, the FBI would take part in the investigation of his death. “We don’t know anything more. My daughter said the body has to go to Dover, Delaware, first because of the terrorist connection.”
