Cory Schweitzer’s family sensed an underlying problem that couldn’t be ignored.
Ashley Tucker, his girlfriend, received a succession of breakup messages that seemed uncharacteristic of Cory. Sensing something was amiss, she reached out to his sister, Cara Balafas. This concern led them to his home in Florida, where the distressing reality unfolded—Cory, a 31-year-old detention deputy, was found dead, having suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
“He was laying in the bed,” recalled Cory’s father, David Schweitzer, during a July 26 appearance on the Oxygen network’s show, Snapped. “I touched his arm and he was cold.”
The somber discovery on August 19, 2022, uncovered a chilling narrative—a murder cunningly cloaked as a suicide.
What Happened to Cory Schweitzer?
The scene of the crime presented police with evidence more indicative of a homicide than a self-inflicted death.
For starters, the bullet had pierced Cory’s right cheek, even though he was left-handed, and the weapon was found near his left shin.
“If you shot yourself like this, the gun would be laying on the floor,” noted David. “Why is it down by his leg, out of reach?”
Even stranger, investigators found a shell casing on the nightstand that came from a different manufacturer than the bullets in the gun—and the weapon was fully loaded.
The investigation quickly shifted to Cory’s loved ones, none of whom believed he was suicidal.
Ashley was ultimately dismissed as a suspect and when asked who could have wanted Cory dead, she immediately pointed to his ex-girlfriend, Jacqueline Johnson-Cabrera.
“He told me, ‘She’s psychotic, I ended it with her,’” Ashley said in interview audio included on Snapped. “‘She had a fallout with my family.’”
Who Was Jacqueline Johnson-Cabrera?
Cory and Jacqueline, a Marion County detention deputy, met while working at the jail and started dating in the spring of 2020. His family was excited to meet her.
“We invited them over and it went to crap real fast,” said David. “She was rude, obnoxious and acted like she was better than everybody else.”
Cory’s mother Eileen Schweitzer recalled Jacqueline’s competitive nature.
“Cara and Jacqueline were applying to the police academy here,” she said, “and one of the first things out of her mouth was, ‘What are you going to do when I get to the academy and you don’t?’”
Convinced that Cory was blinded by love, his family urged him to leave Jacqueline, but he was devoted to her.
Their relationship finally ended, however, in early 2022, after Jacqueline was kicked out of the academy. Even so, Cory decided to financially support her, at least until she found another job. Cara also claimed Jacqueline had made up rumors about her and threatened to shoot her.
Then, in July of that year, Eileen received an anonymous text message from someone who called Cara horrible names. Although the family sensed it was Jacqueline, they couldn’t prove it. Still, it was the last straw for Cory.
“He just severed all ties,” said David. “That may have been the catalyst for him getting killed.”
Then, shortly after Cory’s death, Cara’s phone started ringing. Friends had already heard about Cory’s death from Jacqueline.
“How does she even know he was shot?” Cara told Snapped. “How does she know it was in the head? I said, ‘This girl has way too much information, considering we all just found him and nobody knows anything.”
Who Killed Cory Schweitzer?
Jacqueline agreed to speak to police and insisted she wasn’t anywhere near Cory’s Pine Ridge home on the day of his murder.
She also shared a different version of their breakup.
According to Jacqueline, right before his death, Cory sent her a text message saying he wanted to get back together—and she still had the proof in her phone. But reading the messages only made detectives suspicious.
“It was obvious that she was initiating the conversations,” Citrus County Sheriff’s Sergeant Thomas Dowling said, “trying to get him to reply.”
Then, on August 18, Cory allegedly sent Jacqueline a message saying that he wanted to get back together. When Jacqueline replied that he was still with Ashley, he insisted they had broken up.
“I think she had sent messages from his phone,” said Dowling. “I wasn’t believing that Cory had sent them.”
Investigators also learned that Jacqueline had purchased a 9 mm gun days before Cory’s death and was storing it at a friend’s home. When they retrieved it and sent it to a crime lab, results confirmed it was the same weapon that killed Cory.
Later, a search warrant revealed that Jacqueline’s phone, while wiped clean, contained an app that was linked to her email and Cory’s neighbor’s Wi-Fi at the time of his death.
Jacqueline was arrested on Aug. 24, 2022, and charged with Cory’s murder.
“I believe Jacqueline…could not accept the fact that Cory moved on,” Citrus County Sheriff’s Detective Roscoe Watts said. “You could tell that she was in a very dark place.”
Dowling added, “Jacqueline believed that if she could not have him, nobody could.”
According to Dowling, one of Cory’s wounds suggested that he had put up his hand before he was shot at close range. It’s a detail that David can’t forget.
“The fact that she woke him first—she had to be spiteful enough to let him know that she wasn’t going to let this go,” he said. “That’s a hard thing to live with.”
In June 2024, with Jacqueline facing the death penalty, her attorney worked out an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to plead guilty, while also maintaining their innocence. Jacqueline pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and burglary and was given two life sentences.
Today, Cory’s family is proud to keep his memory alive.
“He was an amazing human,” said Cara. “Everyone he met, they all knew it.”