Pocatello man pleads guilty to two counts of second-degree murder
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POCATELLO — A man who killed his estranged wife and her boyfriend has pleaded guilty to murder.
Jesse Patrick Leigh, 41, has reached a plea agreement with the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office, according to court documents.
As part of the agreement, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges, which were amended from the original first-degree murder charges. Prosecutors also agreed to dismiss a deadly weapon enhancement and a felony for discharging a firearm in an occupied building.
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Leigh was arrested in October 2021 following a 911 call reporting gunshots and the dead body of Leigh’s wife, 41-year-old Jennifer Leigh. The caller, a neighbor of Jesse Leigh, told police they heard six shots and then saw Leigh walking away.
When officers arrived, they found Jennifer Leigh’s body and her boyfriend’s body, 21-year-old Timothy Hunt. Both had suffered gunshot wounds, which were later determined to be the cause of both deaths.
Pocatello police, Chubbuck police and Bannock County sheriff’s deputies conducted an area search to find Jesse Leigh.
He was found at his mother’s home with a loaded 9mm handgun and blood on his clothes.
At a preliminary hearing last April, prosecutors played an hour-long video recording of an interview with the Leighs’ eight-year-old son. The son, who was there at the time of the shooting, described his panicked father mumbling about having done “bad stuff.”
Leigh was initially charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter. But charges were amended to first-degree murder in January 2022.
Now, after reaching a plea deal, Leigh faces sentencing for two counts of second-degree murder.
The penalty for that charge in Idaho is a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison — up to life. Leigh is scheduled to be sentenced by District Judge Robert Naftz on June 22.