Killer Conversation: Jerry Jones

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Speaker 4 Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence.
Please listen with care.

Speaker 3 Jerry, did you take a filet knife and inflict 63 stab wounds on your wife, Lee, and kill her? I did not.

Speaker 3 And you swear on everything you believe to be holy, that that's true. Everything I can imagine to be holy, I would swear to that fact.
Yes.

Speaker 4 That is the sound of Jerry Jones being interviewed by 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant about the 1988 murder of his 41-year-old wife, Lee.

Speaker 4 My name is Judy Ryback.

Speaker 4 I'm a longtime 48 Hours producer, and this is Killer Conversation, a podcast about what we at 48 Hours have learned about the criminal mind after years of interviewing convicted killers.

Speaker 4 In this episode, Peter Van Sant will take us behind the scenes of two conversations he had with Jones, one of the killers who still haunts him to this day.

Speaker 4 We'll hear never-before-heard, revealing exchanges between a highly skilled interviewer and a man convicted of killing the mother of his three children.

Speaker 4 Peter, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 3 It's great, Judy, to be working with you again. We've done this many times, so it's a pleasure.

Speaker 4 So, Peter, about how many killers do you think you've interviewed for 48 hours?

Speaker 3 Kind of a strange question, isn't it?

Speaker 3 I mean, I don't get asked that very often, but I did some digging and because over the decades, actually, and it's over 20 killers they've strangled shot stabbed blown a husband up in a car bomb cut throats tortured beaten poisoned dismembered burned and buried their victims they're all scary people but the man we're going to talk about today jerry jones he's from my home state of washington in fact this murder case was just about eight miles from where i grew up and he still has me looking both ways when i leave the the office.

Speaker 3 When I leave the broadcast center where we are recording this, I always check to my left and right because it's the way he murdered his wife, Lee, that really haunts me to this day.

Speaker 4 That is incredible, Peter. You told me that over dinner one night while we were on the road, and I was just blown away.
And that's because Jerry Jones is a free man today.

Speaker 4 He was paroled from prison in 2008 after serving only 16 years of a 25-year sentence.

Speaker 3 That's not unusual in my home state of Washington.

Speaker 3 The system there, they've always taken a European view of incarceration and they see it as a time of rehabilitation that people can change. And Jerry, after 16 years in prison,

Speaker 3 he got that second chance and he's now living peaceably, as far as I know, in rural Washington state and western Washington.

Speaker 4 As someone who believes in second chances, I have mixed feelings about that, but I really want people to understand the brutality of this crime.

Speaker 3 The lead investigator who I interviewed, who'd been in many, many homicide situations, had never seen anything like this.

Speaker 3 Keep in mind, you know, a typical murder on a 48-hour show, somebody shoots someone.

Speaker 3 Or if they're going to use something like a knife, they get a butcher knife, they go for the heart, they go for the jugular for a quick kill, right?

Speaker 3 It was just the opposite in the way that Lee Jones died. She wasn't stabbed as much as this is difficult to listen to, as she was sliced.
This was a fillet knife that had a curved end to it.

Speaker 3 It's a kind of knife that you might have to cut your steak, right? It was not a butcher knife. And she was cut at least 63 times.

Speaker 3 And the forensic expert said that there may have been 40 different attempts to cut her and that this movement of the blade, if he was going left to right or right to left,

Speaker 3 would sometimes give her two or three wounds. So at least 40 different

Speaker 3 thrusts at her with this knife, but they were not designed to kill her right away. She suffered minute after minute after minute.
This woman bled out. That's how she died.

Speaker 4 So when you first met Jones, he had been convicted. He had served 10 years.
The conviction was overturned, and he had been out for two years. He was about to go to trial a second time.

Speaker 4 What was that like, interviewing a man who you knew had been convicted and was most likely lying to you?

Speaker 3 Well, what was fascinating about Jerry's case is that it became a bit of a media sensation. When he got out, he has two daughters,

Speaker 3 beautiful, intelligent, articulate, and they had been campaigning on television, not only in the state of Washington, but on a talk show called Lisa, where the three of them were on the show and saying, our father is innocent, we're convinced of it.

Speaker 3 And they were so convincing that I thought to myself, could they be right, right?

Speaker 3 Could they be right? And keep in mind, as a journalist, you don't begin an interview with a suspected killer and say, Jerry, look, I know you did it. The evidence is irrefutable.

Speaker 3 You murdered your wife. You tried to manipulate people.
You are a killer. You don't do that.
Right. You want to get into their mind.

Speaker 3 You want to, this is a, this is a journey you're going to take with them. And so the initial parts of these interviews are always friendly.

Speaker 3 I want to hear their story and I do because I want to see, can he convince me?

Speaker 3 And so we met over and over again to talk about his relationship, how they met, their life together, their ups and downs, the evidence. And he was open to any question that I wanted to ask.

Speaker 3 And that's what a journalist dreams of.

Speaker 3 How did you first meet Lee?

Speaker 3 Peter, as I recall it, I was stationed in Vietnam at Benthui Air Base, which was down in the Mekong Delta. And I had been there for several months, it seems.
And

Speaker 3 I'm almost convinced it was on New Year's Day of 1970 that I encountered the most gorgeous creature I'd ever laid eyes on in my life.

Speaker 3 And for me, it was just love at first sight. When you speak of Lee, I mean, your eyes really brighten.
You have a smile on your face.

Speaker 4 Sounds like a Disney movie, but it's more like a Hitchcock film, right?

Speaker 3 Like a Hallmark film. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But again, for our audience listening to this, that gentle manner he has, now he sounds like a romantic.

Speaker 3 And he's in Vietnam. He was serving our country.
And when you see a picture of them back in the day,

Speaker 3 she's beautiful. He's a very handsome man, an authoritative figure to her.
And

Speaker 3 probably seemed like a match made in heaven for the two of them.

Speaker 4 Jerry sounds like a lighthearted teenager in love when he talks about Lee. Do you think that was real or smoke and mirrors?

Speaker 3 A communications professor of mine in college once told me, he said, Peter, words don't have meaning. People have meaning.

Speaker 3 Just the thought of her still warms your heart. Absolutely.
She's still very much a part of my life.

Speaker 3 I don't think there's a day that goes by that I don't think about her and think about her warmly and affectionately.

Speaker 3 You know, I still wish that she was here to be a part of my life and

Speaker 3 me to be a part of hers and to enjoy our grandchildren

Speaker 3 look at our children and how they've grown and developed into such fine young people. So it's been a big loss for us all.
You miss her.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. I'd give anything if I could have her back right now.

Speaker 4 My goodness.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so he thinks about her warmly and affectionately. He didn't even say he missed her until you asked him.

Speaker 3 He's speaking these words, but sitting across from him he doesn't seem in my opinion to mean them he has the soft presentation i do miss her peter and yeah and and but it the the the emotion is not there

Speaker 4 so just before her death how would you describe their relationship

Speaker 3 From outside appearances, here is a very successful pharmaceutical salesman. Lee is the mother of three beautiful children, two girls and a boy.
They live in a lovely suburban neighborhood.

Speaker 3 But according to two of Lee's friends, she was talking about divorcing Jerry. Look, after her death, investigators found legal separation papers in their bedroom, right?

Speaker 3 Friends say that the marriage was near a breaking point. Lee was miserable.
She feared him.

Speaker 3 Lee's friends, she had a couple who testified in the course of these trials,

Speaker 3 said that he was an absolute control freak with her, that he dominated her in this relationship. Every day she had to lay out his socks he was going to wear that day on the bed in a certain way.

Speaker 3 If she didn't, he got very angry with her. These friends say, according to Lee, he was becoming physically abusive, that he had struck her a number of times.

Speaker 3 They would see her wearing sunglasses and ask her to take them off, and they'd see a black eye or bruising and ask about it. And he'd say, well, I didn't do what what he wanted last night.

Speaker 3 So there's a belief that there was escalating violence toward Lee prior to this terrible, terrible murder.

Speaker 3 And Jerry, you know there are people who are so skeptical of you. They don't think what you just said is genuine.
What do you say to those people?

Speaker 3 It's hard to answer somebody like that because they've come to that belief for reasons that I can't understand or explain myself.

Speaker 3 To the best of my knowledge, everyone who actually knows me, Jerry Jones, as a person, knows that I'm absolutely incapable of murdering anyone and certainly not Lee.

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Speaker 4 This is what Jerry Jones says happened on the night of December 3rd, 1988. He and his wife Lee were home with their four-year-old son Thomas watching television.

Speaker 4 Their oldest daughter Kim had moved out and their middle child Beth was at a party.

Speaker 4 Jerry says Lee put Thomas to sleep in his basement bedroom and then went upstairs to a hallway bathroom to take a bath.

Speaker 4 Jerry says he then went across the hall to their primary bathroom to take a shower. He says the water was running when he heard Lee scream.

Speaker 3 I heard this horrible scream

Speaker 3 and I just, I'd never heard anything like that before in my entire life. I was just, I was petrified just from the scream.
One loud piercing scream. One loud piercing scream.

Speaker 3 And that's what I heard. And I froze for a second or two or three.

Speaker 3 The floor plan of the house where your shower was running and where her bath was running, there's a common wall there. Yes.
She was in the fight of her life. Yes.
She's a strong woman.

Speaker 3 The amount of the just the volume of that battle, the thumping around that was going on in there. Didn't you hear any of that? Peter, I did not.
No.

Speaker 3 Had I heard it, I certainly would have run to her aid sooner than that.

Speaker 3 And you understand how, for some people that's hard to believe. Well,

Speaker 3 you know, I don't know if it's possible.

Speaker 3 I'm going to say this.

Speaker 3 It might be possible to do a reenactment.

Speaker 4 You and your producer, Anthony Batson, actually did do an experiment in that house. Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 I was in one bathroom and Anthony Batson was in the other, right? We could talk to each other.

Speaker 3 As I'm talking to you right now and hear every word, I took out like a dime and I dropped it on the bathtub.

Speaker 3 We could hear it as if we're both in the same room. It is impossible for this battle to have gone on.
Impossible and not hear it.

Speaker 3 I'm telling you, the amount of noise that you could hear through that common wall, it's almost like as we are speaking right now, and his story is just ridiculous.

Speaker 4 But Jones kept insisting to you that he only heard one sound

Speaker 4 and then ran toward the bathroom. And on the way, he bumped into a man with a knife.

Speaker 3 This is happening so quickly, so fast. You start perceiving that something is coming out.
And as I'm moving closer to the doorway, you can see more and more. And it's a knife.

Speaker 3 vision, my focus, my attention was just riveted. It's a knife.
And I'm I'm continuing forward, and this

Speaker 3 person, it's just a figure, is moving.

Speaker 3 And we just more or less meet in the doorway and collide right there in the doorway to the bathroom. I'm not thinking that I need to deflect that knife.
That never entered my mind. It's just

Speaker 3 the fact that it happened was just a reflex action. You see a knife and

Speaker 3 My hand went in the direction of that knife and dislodged it from his hand. And in the process, I suffered some cuts.

Speaker 4 Let's talk about those cuts on Jerry's hand.

Speaker 4 He says he was defending himself, but the prosecutor has a different story, right?

Speaker 3 Absolutely. The prosecution and their forensic experts says the wounds that Jerry has are consistent with cuts while

Speaker 3 you're stabbing or cutting someone with a knife. You've gotten that knife bloody from your victim.
And blood is a very slippery substance.

Speaker 3 And this is something that has occurred in a number of cases that I have covered where someone has used a knife, particularly in murders of rage where they stab multiple times, is that the hand will slide down the handle onto the blade.

Speaker 3 And so if you're holding it like, you know, try to imagine now you're holding a knife handle with the blade below your fist and it slides down where you get the cut is on the inside of the upper parts of your fingers.

Speaker 3 That's where his cuts were.

Speaker 4 Right. So he gets cut.
He bumps into the sky. This is what Jones says happened next.

Speaker 3 In the process of the collision, I was forced back, and I bumped my head against the wall and fell to the floor.

Speaker 3 I saw stars. I'm convinced that I did not lose consciousness, but I saw stars and I was dazed.
And

Speaker 3 I think I was not down for more than a second or two. And when I got up,

Speaker 3 there was nobody in the hallway any longer.

Speaker 4 He saw stars.

Speaker 4 Was there any evidence that he had been knocked out?

Speaker 3 No. And if he saw stars, that was only because he stepped outside and looked up into the night sky.

Speaker 3 That, again, is another ridiculous story. There's no evidence of any concussion.
There was was no bump on his head, no bruise, nothing whatsoever to support this. This is someone who is

Speaker 3 making a story up. I immediately went into the bathroom

Speaker 3 and I encountered the most horrible situation I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 3 I could see blood. on her body

Speaker 3 and she is struggling. She's trying to push with her feet back into the corner of the bathtub.

Speaker 3 She's throwing her hands about in front of her as if fighting off an attacker.

Speaker 3 The closer I got to her,

Speaker 3 I reached the side of the tub and I reached in almost immediately and I said, my god, Lee, what happened?

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 in the process of doing that, I was reaching in to try to lift her to me. And

Speaker 3 my feet literally just flew out from under me.

Speaker 3 Did she speak to you?

Speaker 3 She was trying to speak. I'm convinced of that.

Speaker 3 Her jaw would fall open as if she was trying to speak, and then it would snap shut.

Speaker 3 just repeatedly like that. I can recall this chattering sound of her teeth.

Speaker 3 It's the most

Speaker 3 under the circumstances. I mean, it's just like it's a crescendo of noise, and yet it's just the chattering of teeth.

Speaker 4 That chattering sound he makes with his teeth made me think of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Do you recall what you were thinking in that moment?

Speaker 3 It takes a lot to shock me and freak me out. I was completely freaked out.
It sent a chill down my spine and it takes a lot to do that.

Speaker 3 Carrie, help me out here because this is where a lot of people, it doesn't make sense. You're a bright, articulate man.
You've had military training.

Speaker 3 Why haven't you gone to that phone and dialed 911?

Speaker 3 I don't have a good answer for you, Peter. Had I to do it over again and had I been completely in control of my faculties, that certainly is what I would have done first and foremost.

Speaker 3 Did you just lose it? Yes.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 That's what happened. That's the truth.
That's the way it happened. Had you come to my door that day and had you said, Jerry,

Speaker 3 there's going to be an emergency in the neighborhood tonight. And we need somebody who can

Speaker 3 do the right thing under pressure. I would have said, Peter, I'm your man.
I can do it.

Speaker 3 When it happened in my own home

Speaker 3 and when my

Speaker 3 wife needed me the most,

Speaker 3 I couldn't do it. I couldn't help her.

Speaker 4 Watching this clip, I literally leaned into the monitor to see if there were any tears coming out of his eyes. There was not a single tear.
He's crying. It's so dramatic.
Not a single tear.

Speaker 3 Completely manipulative.

Speaker 3 Completely disingenuous.

Speaker 3 Disgusting.

Speaker 4 Jerry Jones says that instead of calling 911, he decided to take matters into his own hands and tried to wrestle his bloody wife out of the bathtub.

Speaker 4 Then things got even more complicated, he says, when their four-year-old son Thomas woke up, climbed the stairs, and walked in on what must have been a terrifying scene.

Speaker 3 And Thomas comes into the room. And Thomas, you've got to go back to bed.
Your mom's hurt. I'm trying to help her.

Speaker 3 I've got to call 911. Please go back to bed.

Speaker 3 And he very dutifully turns and leaves.

Speaker 3 What happens then?

Speaker 3 Well, I resume my efforts to get Lee out of the tub. And again, every time I reach in and grasp her, she slips out of my hands.

Speaker 3 And after two or three additional attempts in this direction,

Speaker 3 I'm just so frustrated.

Speaker 3 I don't give up, but I hear Thomas calling for me downstairs. He's scared.
He knows something has happened. He's apprehensive.

Speaker 3 I run down to him.

Speaker 4 Jerry says he decided to put on his boots and take Thomas to a neighbor's house.

Speaker 3 The thought that enters my mind and controls what I do next is: I've got to get Thomas to a safe place.

Speaker 3 At this point, is Lee still alive?

Speaker 3 At this point, I think she is

Speaker 3 completely non-animated,

Speaker 3 probably

Speaker 3 alive,

Speaker 3 but

Speaker 3 her last breath

Speaker 3 is in her at this point in time.

Speaker 3 This is several minutes later, three, five minutes.

Speaker 3 And life is, I mean, when I first encountered her, she's still struggling. And

Speaker 3 this quickly, within three to five minutes, she's at the point where if she's breathing at all, it's very shallow, very sporadic.

Speaker 3 Not much life left.

Speaker 4 That just takes my breath away every time I hear it. He is calmly sitting there telling you that with precious minutes ticking by, he has decided to leave his dying wife and take his son next door.

Speaker 4 Why didn't he just call the neighbor and ask him to come get Thomas and then call 911?

Speaker 3 You know, the thought is, is that that would have made covering up this murder much harder. If the neighbor had come over to get Thomas, he might have insisted on entering the house

Speaker 3 and calling 911 from there. Maybe he would have spoken to Lee.
Maybe she would have cried out if she realized another man was in the house.

Speaker 3 And maybe he would have attempted to try to help save her. It would just mess up what he had set in motion and likely lead to his arrest.
Right. Right.

Speaker 4 This next clip really stood out to me. You pushed him hard and he just smiled and once again calmly said some of the most shocking things I have ever heard.

Speaker 3 You know, there are some who believe you took your son over to your neighbor so you could go back and finish off late.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 that has never been expressed in those exact words.

Speaker 3 I would say this, that

Speaker 3 While I've, in the Air Force, I was never really trained to kill anybody.

Speaker 3 I have had some training in self-defense techniques. And there was a brief period when I went to a school in Florida prior to going to Vietnam where

Speaker 3 they taught us some rudimentary techniques for attacking another person. Some basic training.

Speaker 3 With a knife, some basic training.

Speaker 3 If I were going to kill Lee or you or anyone else and I had an opportunity to pick my time and my place,

Speaker 3 I'd just cut your throat.

Speaker 3 I know that there is a jugular vein there. I know approximately where it's located.

Speaker 3 And that would be very silent. There wouldn't be a screen.

Speaker 3 If you did get that jugular vein, the fight would be out of the individual within seconds.

Speaker 3 The allegation is this was a crime of passion, of hatred, and that if you did it, that these wolves were done in such anger to punish, to inflict a cruel death.

Speaker 3 But there was no anger, and there was

Speaker 3 none of that. At best, your behavior at this point has been bizarre.
Do you agree with that? I would agree with that.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 And your explanation

Speaker 3 for this bizarre behavior is what?

Speaker 3 I was in shock. I was scared.

Speaker 3 I'd never encountered anything like that before in my entire life.

Speaker 3 I wish I had done

Speaker 3 the right thing. I wish I'd done the things that would have been in Lee's best interest.

Speaker 3 I look back.

Speaker 3 Had I called immediately, immediately, it could have made a difference. Others, though, who medical experts who have

Speaker 3 examined the autopsy report have told me that it probably wouldn't have made a difference.

Speaker 3 Those of us who've been through military-style first aid training, and I've done that twice now, pack, wrap, elevate.

Speaker 3 You pack these wounds quickly in that room with toilet paper, if if there's Kleenex in there. You put them inside all the wounds.
It stops the bleeding. You use your clothing, use towels to wrap.

Speaker 3 If he was,

Speaker 3 and she had none of that on her, when the authorities arrived, she didn't have evidence that

Speaker 3 he was trying to stop the bleeding.

Speaker 4 Oh, that's so interesting.

Speaker 3 And that's the part of his story that just drives me. crazy is that there should have been evidence of him doing everything he could to stop this bleeding and there was none.

Speaker 3 And the truth is, is that through their investigation, authorities believe that he took at least six minutes from the time he discovered, put quotes around that, her body, before he called 911.

Speaker 3 Six minutes passed.

Speaker 4 I did not realize that. That is truly stunning.
And speaking of stunning evidence, let's get to that 911 call.

Speaker 4 911, what are you here? Hurry. My wife,

Speaker 3 let me give you a dispatch.

Speaker 3 Yes, my wife. What's the address?

Speaker 3 6015

Speaker 3 169th place, Southeast. Hurry, please.
Okay, what 6015169th place?

Speaker 3 Say again? No, you repeat it to me, sir.

Speaker 3 60151169. Hurry.

Speaker 3 He's given this operator in the course of this two different addresses. They can't find the house.

Speaker 3 This is,

Speaker 3 I've never heard of this. You know, I've covered, Judy, you too, we've covered dozens and dozens of murder cases.
How many 911 calls I've heard?

Speaker 3 I've never heard of somebody not knowing where they live and making this kind of mistake. That just feels

Speaker 3 like a manipulation.

Speaker 4 The dispatchers were confused because because they couldn't find Jerry in the phone book. The ambulance was having trouble finding his house, and he kept walking away from the phone.

Speaker 4 And in that time, the dispatchers realized that he had given them the wrong address.

Speaker 4 Mail, all right, sir.

Speaker 3 You're gonna have to down the road. You're gonna have to help me because we have a conflict with your address.
Please give me your address again.

Speaker 3 What is your address? Let me go look. All right, uh,

Speaker 3 you're gonna go look.

Speaker 7 This is the most uncooperative trauma victim I've ever had.

Speaker 4 The most uncooperative trauma victim I've ever had. Jerry walked away from the phone a fourth time for about 20 seconds and then returned with a new address.

Speaker 4 Okay, Peter, all I can say is what the fudge.

Speaker 3 I don't buy it.

Speaker 4 The prosecutor said he believed that Jerry was stalling to make sure that Lee was dead. Let's listen to you

Speaker 4 ask him about that.

Speaker 3 The prosecution alleges that this was part of your diabolical plot, that you were letting Lee bleed to death. You didn't want the aid car to get there right away.

Speaker 3 And if that were the case, I would have just waited and waited. And I might still be waiting.
I may never have called 911, and I would have just,

Speaker 3 I would have made up a story. Well, I didn't think about calling 911 or

Speaker 3 I don't know what I would have done. I'm not good at making up these stories, unfortunately, or fortunately, whatever the case might be.

Speaker 4 He's right about one thing. He is not good at making up stories.

Speaker 3 He could have transported her body somewhere, but the fact that Thomas walked in on the scene screwed up, if that was his plan, screwed everything up, he then had to call 911 because, or eliminate his own son, and he'd made a decision, obviously, not to do that.

Speaker 3 And so this to me is a meticulous plan by someone who has this controlling personality that goes awry. And then he tried to, tried to compensate with, with delaying tactics and everything else.

Speaker 3 But Thomas walking in on that scene, I believe just messed everything up.

Speaker 4 So a little over 14 minutes have elapsed from the time Jerry dialed 911 to the moment help arrived.

Speaker 4 Lee was pronounced dead on the scene with no CPR even attempted, and Jerry was arrested that very night.

Speaker 4 In 1989, Jerry Jones faced a jury of his peers. They found him guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Speaker 4 In 1998, just over 10 years after Lee was murdered, a judge set aside Jerry's conviction, ruling that in the first trial, Jerry's lawyer should have been able to present evidence about a possible alternate suspect, a 15-year-old boy who lived in the neighborhood named Daniel Busby.

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Speaker 3 Who is Daniel Busby?

Speaker 3 My knowledge of him on a first-hand basis is of an obnoxious teenage boy who lived in our neighborhood. I think I first heard his name mentioned probably in the spring of 1988.

Speaker 3 As the year progressed, I heard the name mentioned more and more frequently, usually in a negative

Speaker 3 connotation.

Speaker 3 Lee particularly didn't like him.

Speaker 3 And saying that of Lee is saying a lot because I don't think

Speaker 3 I would have to really, really search my memory to give you the name of anyone else that Lee did not like.

Speaker 4 So a 15-year-old snuck into his house and sliced up his wife. What evidence is there of that?

Speaker 3 There's no evidence whatsoever of that. There's no evidence of an intruder.
There's There's no fingerprints in that bathroom. There is no DNA.

Speaker 3 There are no eyewitnesses.

Speaker 3 It's simply he would have had to have levitated into that house and committed this murder. And think about this.

Speaker 3 A 15-year-old comes in.

Speaker 3 to do this murder, but he would have been aware of Jerry in the other,

Speaker 3 because of that common wall that you can hear anything, that Jerry was in the house, in the other other room, and he's committing this vicious, horrible physical battle.

Speaker 3 It's just simply ridiculous. And this poor kid,

Speaker 3 Busby,

Speaker 3 endured these accusations over the years. He gets reported over and over in the papers, just destroyed his life.
No evidence whatsoever. And

Speaker 3 I find that story preposterous.

Speaker 4 Yes, preposterous is a good word. Busby also had an alibi.
His mother said he was at home with her that night. So what evidence was there to justify a second trial?

Speaker 3 Well, there are letters. First off, it seems that Busby was obsessed with Jerry and Lee's youngest daughter, Beth.
And it seems he may have also been obsessed with Lee.

Speaker 3 And he would be a bit of a pest around the house. He liked to drop by.
And I know that Lee had expressed to a friend that

Speaker 3 he kind of creeped her out a bit, the way he would stare at her in a in sort of a longing way.

Speaker 4 And then there's this crazy story about the fact that the four-year-old Thomas, who was in bed downstairs from where the murder was, that he heard somebody growl.

Speaker 4 And that woke him up. And apparently the only person who ever growled at four-year-old Thomas was this Busby character.

Speaker 4 So it's the letters, the obsession with Lee and Beth, and this one growl that Thomas heard. That's the evidence that he has.

Speaker 4 So, as we know, Jerry was found guilty a second time. His conviction was reinstated, and his sentence remained the same.
So, they didn't re-sentence him.

Speaker 4 And just when you thought this case was over, you get a call that a judge decided Jerry still hadn't gotten a fair trial, so he was getting a third.

Speaker 4 And he was once again released and wanted to talk to you.

Speaker 3 And this third trial, what are you going to be able to bring in to this courtroom that you haven't been able to do in the past?

Speaker 3 Well, we'll be allowed to bring in the fact that Danny Busby has a 16-year history of violence against women, both psychological and physical attacks on every woman he's ever had a relationship with.

Speaker 3 I think we're going to be allowed to paint him as the monster that he is, and I believe the evidence will convince the jury that he indeed is the person responsible for Lee's death.

Speaker 3 Why is Danny Busby's conduct after Lee's murder relevant to the murder itself?

Speaker 3 Because it's a pattern of behavior.

Speaker 4 So Jerry, acting as his own attorney, actually called Daniel Busby to the witness stand and questioned him about all that same stuff that they went over in the second trial, the letters to Lee, the growl, whatever, but also about his record with women, what he did to women as an adult.

Speaker 3 Well, Busby was not a cooperating witness. He was annoyed.

Speaker 3 This is the man who had ruined his life in many ways by getting his name into the public for a crime that authorities believed he did not commit or have anything to do with it.

Speaker 3 The police and the prosecutor says there's no evidence against Danny Busby. The jury set aside Danny Busby in their deliberations immediately, saying there's no evidence he did the crime.

Speaker 3 If he didn't do it and you didn't do it, who had the motive, the reason, to murder Lee? Well, it's no third mysterious person. Either I did it or Danny Busby did it.

Speaker 3 Obviously, 36 jurors have come to the conclusion for reasons I can't explain that I did it, but I can look you or anyone else in the eye and tell you I did not murder my wife.

Speaker 3 And all I can ask you or these jurors,

Speaker 3 they saw the evidence in the courtroom, but

Speaker 3 I don't know, look at it in a little more depth. What on earth is required to prove reasonable doubt?

Speaker 4 You know, what's interesting, the judge even scolded him after he was convicted and sentenced for dragging Daniel Busby repeatedly through the mud for nearly 17 years.

Speaker 4 And the jury felt he owed Daniel Busby an apology.

Speaker 3 Do you owe Danny Busby an apology? No. Danny Busby cannot look me in the eye and ask me for an apology.
He knows what he did. He knows who he is.

Speaker 3 He knows that he murdered Lee Jones.

Speaker 3 Following the second trial, he became emboldened and he has told several people,

Speaker 3 I did it and I'll do it again.

Speaker 3 He has told several people,

Speaker 3 you know they have the wrong guy in prison because I did it.

Speaker 3 He thinks, and I believe he knows in his mind that he has gotten away with murder and that he can say whatever he wants to say, and he has told people that he murdered my wife.

Speaker 4 Okay, so for the record, that is absolutely untrue. Daniel Busby testified under oath that he never told anyone that he killed Lee, and no one has ever testified that he did tell them he killed Lee.

Speaker 3 When you listen to him,

Speaker 3 He has a gentle sound. When you look at him when you're talking to him, he has a gentle face.
But behind that, to me, it's a mask. Behind that

Speaker 3 is a cold-hearted

Speaker 3 killer and one who deserved

Speaker 3 this verdict of guilt. I think justice was served.
It took three bites of the apple to have it happen, but he is a man who murdered his wife. I have no doubt of that.

Speaker 4 No doubt. So I love that you asked Jerry at the end of the interview if he was going to try for a fourth trial.
And his answer just made me laugh out loud.

Speaker 3 I'm not interested in a fourth trial. I'll do the ballots of the three years I have on my sentence.

Speaker 3 When I'm released, I will move to Southeast Asia.

Speaker 3 I will work with orphans.

Speaker 3 I will do what I can to keep young ladies out of the sex trade, and I will work with those who are disabled as a result of the Vietnam War.

Speaker 4 Oh my God, I can't take it. I will work with orphans, keep ladies out of sex trade, save the whales, feed the hungry.
Holy cow.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and he lives off of a country road near Arlington, Washington today

Speaker 3 in a small house. He never went to Southeast Asia.
He never helped ladies out of the sex trade. He didn't do any of those things.

Speaker 4 Well, Peter, this case is so fascinating from start to finish, and your interviews are just a masterclass in how to question a killer.

Speaker 4 I am so grateful that you took the time to join us on this podcast.

Speaker 3 Well, this was your idea, this wonderful podcast, and I think it's fascinating to try to get into the minds of these killers. It's just a very frightening place to be.

Speaker 4 On the next episode of Killer Conversation, Aaron Moriarty will join me to discuss Brian Stewart, also known as Rick Valentini, my first killer.

Speaker 4 He's a guy who changed his name illegally, lied about who he was, and murdered his 32-year-old girlfriend, Jamie Laity.

Speaker 4 You're not really Brian Stewart at all, are you?

Speaker 4 To me, I am.

Speaker 3 But not legally, are you?

Speaker 4 Well, legally, I'm not anything.

Speaker 3 That's a a problem. You're Rick Valentini.

Speaker 4 48 Hours Killer Conversation is hosted and produced by me, Judy Ryback. Our story editor is Maura Walls.
Alan Pang oversees recording, mixing, and sound design.

Speaker 4 fact-checking and additional production support from Rebecca LaFlum. And special thanks to 48 Hours executive producer Judy Tygard and and Paramount Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus.

Speaker 4 Follow and listen to Killer Conversation on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. If you liked this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Speaker 4 Tune in next Tuesday for an all-new episode of Killer Conversation. Follow Killer Conversation on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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