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2 people found dead at prominent Minnesota businessman's home

"We don’t see this very often,” the police chief in the lakeside city said. "In any of our communities, this doesn’t happen. So we’re taking this seriously."
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Two people were found dead at the home of prominent Minnesota businessman Irwin L. Jacobs, according to authorities and public records.

The bodies of a man and a woman were discovered at the home after a call came in at 8:30 a.m. local time, the Orono Police Department said Wednesday. Both bodies were found on a bed, according to NBC affiliate station KARE in Minneapolis.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office is working to determine the two people’s identities and their causes of death.

Image:
Irwin L. Jacobs' home in Orono, Minnesota, on April 10, 2019.Aaron Lavinsky / Star Tribune via AP

Property records list Jacobs and his wife, Alexandra Jacobs, as the owners of the house in Orono, a city on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, KARE reported.

A handgun was found on the bed, Orono Police Chief Correy Farniok told reporters at a press conference.

Farniok said he could only release limited information on the active investigation, but he emphasized there is no threat to the community.

"We don’t see this very often,” he said. "In any of our communities, this doesn’t happen. So we’re taking this seriously. We’re looking at this from every aspect."

Jacobs, 77, was billed a "Minneapolis takeover artist" by Fortune magazine in 1985, according to KARE.

He made a fortune as a corporate raider who bought and liquidated failing companies at a profit, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

His Genmar Holdings became one of the country's biggest builders of boats but filed for bankruptcy in 2009, KARE reported. Jacobs still owns several businesses.

CORRECTION (April 10, 2019, 3:15 p.m. ET) An earlier version of this article misidentified the owner of the home where the bodies were found. It is owned by Irwin L. Jacobs, a prominent Minnesota businessman, not Irwin M. Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm.