A man convicted of murdering his influencer girlfriend before burning her body and car in the woods near Atlanta will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Eugene Louis Jacques was accused of fatally stabbing 22-year-old Beauty Couch 81 times in August 2023. On Friday, a Cobb County jury convicted Jacques of six charges, which included murder, arson and aggravated assault. The murderer was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and the judge tacked on an additional 20 years.
The Swift Trial and Conviction
Jacques's swift trial began last week on May 19. Couch was a roller skating influencer with around 150,000 followers on Instagram, where she went by the handle Beauty Katera. Her body was found near her burnt car. She was also burned and buried under a pile of sticks and debris in a wooded area of Austell, a city just west of Atlanta, Georgia.
Evidence Presented in Court
Prosecutors tied Jacques's location to the site of Couch's body through cellphone location data, license plate reader records and a traffic ticket found just feet from her body that cited his name and the license plate number for his white Nissan Altima. During the trial's opening statements, Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Green said that the victim's body was located about 191 feet from her car.
Defense attorney Bryan Lumpkin unsuccessfully argued that there was no DNA evidence linking his client to the crime and that the investigation had unfairly only focused on Jacques because he was Couch's boyfriend. Lumpkin conceded that Jacques was in the area but attempted to raise doubt by saying: 'He’s in Austell. No doubt. He was there a lot because he went over to see Beauty all the time.'
Arrest and Alias
Jacques was arrested in St Tammany Parish, Louisiana, which is about 450 miles away from Austell, two days after Couch's body was discovered. Police had put out an alert for the now-convicted murderer's license plate number, and he was pulled over by Louisiana police. In court, prosecutors showed body camera footage from the traffic stop in which Jacques can be heard telling an officer his name was Mykael Waters, an alias.
'I elected to run the name and date of birth, Mykael Waters, that was provided to me, during which time, I learned that that person did not exist,' St Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Detective Chance Cloud testified. Detectives quickly determined that the man they had stopped was Jacques, and they searched his car, where they found clothing, bedding, towels, scissors and a map of the parish. They also found receipts in the car for a Boost Mobile phone under his alias, as well as a completed job application for a local golf course under the false name.
Additional Evidence
Katie Garby, another detective with the St Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, testified that she found a burned piece of paper in the vehicle and a pair of bloody tennis shoes, though testing revealed that the blood belonged to Jacques.
Victim's Family Reaction
Shortly after Couch was killed, her mother, Kimberly, told WSB-TV: 'She was a sweet girl, she never bothered nobody. She was a friend to everybody. She loved going skating. She loved going to work. She loved her clothes. She loved wearing her hair so pretty.' Regarding Jacques, she said: 'Bad vibe about him. Period. I want to really just look at him and say, "Why? WHY?" How could you do that to an innocent, beautiful person?'
