Jane's Journey

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Speaker 3 48 hours. We take you there.

Speaker 3 This 77-year-old grandmother is hot on the trail of a killer.

Speaker 4 Let's put it this way.

Speaker 5 no one intimidates me.

Speaker 3 Jane was leading a wonderful life with a man she loved.

Speaker 7 He was like the man on the white horse that came charging down the road.

Speaker 10 Mom was probably happier than I've ever seen her.

Speaker 3 Then he stole it all away, Bill Lagatuta reports. So he cleaned her out.

Speaker 12 Yes. Cleaned her absolutely out.

Speaker 9 I lost my children's inheritance.

Speaker 13 I lost my home.

Speaker 3 But that's not all she lost.

Speaker 14 Jane was devastated.

Speaker 3 When she suspected Tom of murder, she set out to make him pay.

Speaker 15 She wanted this guy guy hung out to dry.

Speaker 3 With or without the police.

Speaker 10 She's mad, and everybody better get out of her way.

Speaker 11 She'll track him to the ends of the earth if you have to catch him.

Speaker 3 Betraying Jane was his first mistake.

Speaker 16 Tom, old man, got you.

Speaker 3 A 48 Hours Mystery. Citizen Jane.

Speaker 3 What can one person possibly do, one regular citizen, when justice seems to be out of reach and you can't help but feel like a victim?

Speaker 3 She was an average citizen, a little old lady, if you'll pardon the expression. Citizen Jane, we'll call her.
But as you're about to see, Hurricane Jane might be more like it.

Speaker 3 A trusting woman with a good heart who ran into some bad luck and a bad man, and who's soon destined to be a victim forever.

Speaker 3 But don't be fooled, because when this woman finally turns the tables, there is no stopping her.

Speaker 3 Bill Lagatuta reports tonight on one ordinary woman with extraordinary determination and perseverance, rewriting the rules on how to get things done and teaching all of us some valuable lessons.

Speaker 3 She simply wanted justice in her own case, but soon enough, Citizen Jane would be on everybody's case.

Speaker 18 Are they going to hear the bill in committee today?

Speaker 18 If we get a reward from the governor, it will probably be $40,000, $50,000.

Speaker 18 The day we get the guy that killed your mother, that's the day we'll celebrate.

Speaker 3 Jane Alexander is a couple of years shy of 80.

Speaker 9 An inspiration to all of us.

Speaker 19 I'll have to call the detective next week and see. How are you? I'm Jane Alexander.

Speaker 3 But don't bother telling her that.

Speaker 21 You're doing a great job, Jane. Thank you.

Speaker 19 How long ago was the homicide?

Speaker 3 She's too busy being an amateur detective as head of a group that helps families of murder victims solve their cases.

Speaker 22 We'll nail that SOB yet.

Speaker 19 Oh, I know you will.

Speaker 3 It's not exactly how Jane imagined spending her golden years.

Speaker 7 I figured I'd just enjoy my grandchildren, of which I have 12.

Speaker 3 But something happened to Jane Alexander that completely changed her life.

Speaker 4 Let's put it this way.

Speaker 5 No one intimidates me anymore.

Speaker 18 Can't quit. You know, it took me 13 years.

Speaker 19 You just have to stand up for what you believe in.

Speaker 3 And it was that unforeseen event nearly 20 years ago that made Jane Alexander the unstoppable force she is today.

Speaker 3 Back in the early 80s here in Marin County, California.

Speaker 25 Jane's house at the very top up there.

Speaker 3 Life was good for Jane Alexander and her circle of friends.

Speaker 12 Jane's house was sort of like a gathering place. I mean, you go to Jane's house, I mean, there may be two or three other couples just drop in.
It was a really darn near like a clubhouse at Jane's.

Speaker 25 And I went many times and just popped in and said I needed a glass of wine. Lots of fun times.

Speaker 3 That house where Jane, a widow, lived with her boyfriend Tom O'Donnell was the place to be. Tom introduced me to Jack Daniels and that's my

Speaker 3 claim to fame with him is I really like Jack Daniels. I train on Jack Daniels now.

Speaker 10 They were moving and shaking big time and my mom was probably happier than I've ever seen her.

Speaker 27 It was a wonderful life.

Speaker 17 Tom had traveled the world, and so he had all kinds of friends that would come in.

Speaker 7 We always had somebody around.

Speaker 27 People were always there. It was

Speaker 28 a lovely existence.

Speaker 3 And Tom loved to entertain those friends with stories of a truly swashbuckling past as an international businessman. It was never a really

Speaker 3 dull moment. And

Speaker 3 he was a great host.

Speaker 6 He was known as the silver fox, he used to say, from Cape Town to Algiers.

Speaker 3 One of Tom's more interesting ventures was helping people smuggle their personal assets out of unstable countries in Africa.

Speaker 7 So he'd take diamonds, some of them raw diamonds, and take them to Europe, sell them, take a commission, and put the money in a Swiss account.

Speaker 3 Smuggle diamonds out, and I tell you, it was better than going to a movie to listen to him. And he'd tell them for hours.
He sounds like a very interesting guy. Always fascinating.

Speaker 3 Plenty of stories about travel and exotic places.

Speaker 11 He's been everywhere and

Speaker 21 yes, he could entertain anyone.

Speaker 3 And served great drinks. I'll say that for him.
But what everyone loved most about Tom was what he had done for Jane.

Speaker 7 I was alone and depressed after my husband died and he was like the you know the man on the white horse that came charging down the road.

Speaker 3 In 1977, Jane's husband of 34 years and the father of her six children had died of a heart attack.

Speaker 12 Jane was devastated by Al's death. I mean, she went into very, very, very deep depression.

Speaker 3 And it wasn't until Tom O'Donnell showed up in 1980 that Jane was finally able to snap out of her depression.

Speaker 10 He came for a visit and that was it.

Speaker 11 And her whole attitude changed.

Speaker 31 She came out of her shell.

Speaker 11 She woke up again. She woke up again and she's right back at it.

Speaker 3 After dating only a few months, Tom moved in with Jane.

Speaker 10 I don't truly think I ever saw her as joyful.

Speaker 3 I think

Speaker 3 she was really in love with him. Life for Jane and Tom seemed as good as it gets.
That is, until October of 1983, when Jane received news that would change things forever.

Speaker 17 Many of my friends said, thank God you have Tom there, because Tom was a great source of comfort.

Speaker 3 Jane's aunt Gert, Gertrude McCabe, had been brutally murdered in her home.

Speaker 32 I don't know if I can, I just can't tell you.

Speaker 28 I was so angry, and I'm still angry

Speaker 27 when I think that she was a very sweet general.

Speaker 3 Jane's friends, Erin and Jim Rohde, remember that day.

Speaker 14 Jane was devastated.

Speaker 14 She really was. She didn't have a lot of family, so her aunt Gertrude was very important to her.

Speaker 27 She was just a very kind, lovely

Speaker 7 person.

Speaker 12 If you'd known Gert, there's, you know, you'd think, how could this happen? Who in the world would possibly do anything like this to Gert?

Speaker 3 Adding to the mystery were the violent details of her death. Jeff Weime was a detective on the case.

Speaker 11 She was bludgeoned with some kind of blunt instrument. She was stabbed, and she was strangled, and then smothered with a pillow.

Speaker 7 Then he put a bicycle chain around her neck and twisted it like an eternity.

Speaker 3 Why go to all that effort if you're the killer?

Speaker 11 Probably because you're not really

Speaker 11 a killer per se. You're very unsophisticated at doing something like that.

Speaker 3 88 years old.

Speaker 13 88 years old. She put up a fight.
She was a little Irish lady.

Speaker 5 She didn't go down easy.

Speaker 3 A search of Gertrude McCabe's home in San Jose, where she lived alone, raised even more questions.

Speaker 11 Well, the way some of the drawers were pulled out, it's like somebody just pulled them out and threw some clothes around to make it look like a burglary.

Speaker 13 The lieutenant said that it looked like a simulated robbery.

Speaker 11 Number one, there was some jewelry, not really expensive jewelry, but there was jewelry that was visible that wasn't taken. There was some cash in the house that wasn't taken.

Speaker 11 Anything of value basically was not taken.

Speaker 3 In fact, the only thing noticeable police found missing was the register for Gertrude McCabe's checkbook.

Speaker 11 Gertrude McCabe's checkbook was found in her purse, but the register where you list all of your checks and all your deposits and have your balance and everything was not in there.

Speaker 3 So by the end of 1983, police still had no motive. Did you feel at that time that it was incumbent upon you to keep knocking on the door of the police department and saying, what are you doing?

Speaker 7 Well, if I didn't do it, who was going to do it? I mean, I was the only one out there doing it.

Speaker 6 My children kept saying, mom, you've got to get over this.

Speaker 7 You've got to move on with your life. And I kept saying, I hope if somebody murders me, you won't have that attitude.

Speaker 3 But unbeknownst to Jane, police were narrowing in.

Speaker 11 It was discovered that Tom O'Donnell and Jane Alexander were basically broke.

Speaker 11 And at the time of the murder, they had a large house payment due, and they basically had no money in their checking account to pay for it.

Speaker 3 Jane Alexander was one of the main benefactors of Gertrude McCabe's inheritance.

Speaker 11 So that's when the investigation started focusing in their direction.

Speaker 3 But while Jane was technically a suspect, the detectives did have suspicions about someone else. Suspicions that were about to be borne out when, without warning, Tom O'Donnell vanished.

Speaker 35 She called me on the phone and was hysterical.

Speaker 3 Jane was about to learn the dark truth about the love of her life. That's next.

Speaker 10 I just think there was panic for mom.

Speaker 14 She was just panicked.

Speaker 11 She was totally hysterical and crying.

Speaker 35 She wasn't coherent.

Speaker 14 Oh, she was just in tears.

Speaker 3 It was the one thing Jane Alexander never expected when she arrived home the evening of August 7th, 1984.

Speaker 25 She just didn't understand this.

Speaker 3 The man Jane had planned to spend the rest rest of her life with was suddenly out of her life forever.

Speaker 35 She said the love of her life was gone.

Speaker 3 Without any warning, Tom O'Donnell had simply vanished. Poof.
Gone.

Speaker 3 Gone. He'd left behind a letter.

Speaker 24 My dearest love, you are without a doubt the most beautiful person in the world.

Speaker 7 And I love you so much, so very much, that have to write this letter is killing me inside. It was page after page after page, 12 pages.

Speaker 29 He had to leave.

Speaker 3 Because?

Speaker 5 Because of his past was catching up to him.

Speaker 26 You know most but not all of my past activities in Africa.

Speaker 3 According to his letter, Tom had to leave because his and Jane's lives were in danger.

Speaker 26 They have been watching us for some time.

Speaker 3 He said partners of his in a shady diamond transaction had been caught and thrown in some foreign prison.

Speaker 7 These people spent five or six years in jail that got blamed for this thing.

Speaker 3 And they believe Tom had been the informant.

Speaker 7 Now they're out of jail and now they found him.

Speaker 3 And they have to go.

Speaker 29 Yes, or they're going to kill me.

Speaker 29 First, they're going to kill the dog, and then they're going to kill me.

Speaker 3 That evening.

Speaker 14 Jane met us at the door.

Speaker 3 Jane's friends rushed to her side.

Speaker 25 We tried to make sense of it.

Speaker 17 Everybody is yelling and talking, and I'm crying.

Speaker 3 And in the confusion, they got some more upsetting news. Tom had disappeared, leaving Jane nearly broke.
So he cleaned her out.

Speaker 12 Yes, cleaned her absolutely out.

Speaker 3 Tom had been handling Jane's finances for years.

Speaker 9 I left it all to him.

Speaker 8 You have to remember I was married to a banker for 34 years, and money is really not my thing.

Speaker 3 So it was easy for Tom to persuade Jane to take out a second mortgage on her home in Marin County for $200,000.

Speaker 12 Jane had no means of ever repaying that loan.

Speaker 3 Jane's friend and attorney, Jim Rohde, was outraged.

Speaker 12 I said, why in the hell didn't you discuss it with me, Jane?

Speaker 3 Especially when he heard that Jane had handed most of that loan over to Tom, who then spent it.

Speaker 12 He'd used a lot of it on commodities trading and lost it.

Speaker 3 But Jane still thought there was nothing to worry about.

Speaker 28 Of course, he would repay it.

Speaker 13 There was no problem.

Speaker 3 Because, Tom told her, he was coming into money of his own.

Speaker 7 Because we're looking at the 1.2 million.

Speaker 3 The trust fund.

Speaker 14 The trust. Tom had convinced her that there indeed was this trust.

Speaker 3 As soon as his trust fund in Switzerland matured. Oh, yeah, he's a

Speaker 3 millions in Switzerland. He'd be a rich man.
The bottom line on the trust was what? There wasn't. There was no trust.

Speaker 14 There was nothing.

Speaker 3 Tom O'Donnell's stories didn't end there. In fact, Tom was conning Jane right up until the day he left.

Speaker 3 That afternoon, he convinced her to withdraw $10,000 from this bank, $5,000 in cash, which she gave to Tom to pay some of their bills.

Speaker 3 The other five was in a cashier's check, and Tom knew a place he'd have no trouble cashing that. another bank where Jane's friend Sandy Sullivan was working as the manager.

Speaker 25 I said, you're going to cash the whole thing?

Speaker 25 And he said, yes, and I'd like it all in hundreds. And I said, you want the whole 5,000 in hundreds? And he said, yes, sweets.

Speaker 3 And in case that money ran out, Tom made sure he would have access to even more.

Speaker 35 He had all my dad's credit cards that my mother had never canceled.

Speaker 30 Something like eight or nine Visa cards, everything, and they were all maxed out.

Speaker 14 Despite what some of her friends thought, the letter sounded totally unreal.

Speaker 12 It was just a con.

Speaker 3 Jane's faith was unshaken.

Speaker 7 Did I believe it?

Speaker 13 Of course I believed.

Speaker 3 In her diary that week, she spoke of her worries for Tom.

Speaker 23 Why, how can Tom put me through this agony? He must be in such trouble.

Speaker 14 She truly loved this man and was buying into everything that he had written.

Speaker 3 The police, according to Detective Jeff Weime, weren't buying any of it.

Speaker 11 The San Jose Police and the FBI checked into his story, and in fact, there was nothing to it. It was all made up.

Speaker 3 Tom's disappearance only confirmed what they had already suspected. That six months earlier, Tom O'Donnell had murdered Jane's aunt, Gertrude McCabe.

Speaker 11 His motive was money. He thought that she was worth several hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 12 If Gert was no longer alive, that Jane would inherit from Gert.

Speaker 3 Police now thought they had their motive for murder, but Tom O'Donnell had an alibi. It was all in Jane's diary.

Speaker 33 This is Thursday the 20th.

Speaker 30 Tom to L.A. at 2 o'clock.

Speaker 16 Harry to pick him up, and he will spend the night with him.

Speaker 3 Thursday, the day before the murder, Tom told Jane he was flying to Burbank, near Los Angeles to stay with a friend.

Speaker 16 Saturday, the 22nd.

Speaker 3 On Saturday morning, the day after the murder, Tom returned home to Jane's.

Speaker 30 Tom home at 10.30 a.m., tired.

Speaker 11 He's got to have an alibi. His alibi is to fly to his friend's house in Burbank and be in Burbank during the time of the murder.
That's his alibi.

Speaker 3 But when police checked it out, they discovered Tom had logged 669 miles on his rental car in just one day.

Speaker 11 What he didn't realize is that the police were going to find out that he rented a car and that the mileage on the rental car was dead on from Burbank to the murder scene and back.

Speaker 11 To me and the other investigators, it shows that, you know, he was a perpetrator.

Speaker 3 Despite their big break, police still needed more than that to charge him with murder.

Speaker 3 But in the meantime, Marin County's Josh Thomas was more than willing to prosecute Tom O'Donnell on charges of fraud.

Speaker 15 To me, it was really a no-brainer as far as the evidence was concerned.

Speaker 3 But first, they had to convince a very stubborn Jane Alexander to file charges.

Speaker 15 Even with all the evidence staring her in the face, she was unable to believe that this guy had betrayed her the way that he had.

Speaker 35 She didn't listen to anybody.

Speaker 25 Nobody could get through to her.

Speaker 13 I was hysterical at that point.

Speaker 29 You see, you can't cry and think.

Speaker 3 And then they got just what they needed to get Jane Alexander on board from none other than Tom himself.

Speaker 28 And then I got this letter, and I did apply a little logic to it.

Speaker 3 Five months after he vanished, Tom sent Jane a second letter.

Speaker 23 I just had a gut feeling.

Speaker 13 You see, he was running away from these people, supposedly.

Speaker 20 Now he's going to go back and work for them.

Speaker 3 And this time...

Speaker 32 It was not logical.

Speaker 3 Jane didn't fall for it.

Speaker 27 I just knew when I read the letter that the whole thing was ridiculous.

Speaker 3 And for Jane Alexander.

Speaker 4 Then I was upset.

Speaker 3 That was the turning point.

Speaker 7 It's something I've never felt before in my life.

Speaker 13 I was so angry.

Speaker 23 He planned it down to the last detail.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 7 obviously have been planning it for weeks or maybe months and uh

Speaker 27 and all the time i'm living with him i mean how would you like this horror to face i'm sleeping with this man and he's so comforting and so kind and so solicitous and uh

Speaker 3 how could i be so dumb finally about six months after tom disappeared with her money jane alexander filed felony fraud charges against him anything they want they get any cooperation but her real mission i was going to nail him for the murder.

Speaker 26 That's what I was doing.

Speaker 11 And she'll track him to the ends of the earth if she asks me to catch him.

Speaker 3 So, where on earth was this globe-trotting con man to be found? If anyone was going to catch him, it was going to be Jane herself.

Speaker 20 I turned around and looked at him, and he saw me,

Speaker 20 and he moved in hat.

Speaker 3 That's next.

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Speaker 22 I could have killed him.

Speaker 8 That's how I felt.

Speaker 22 I could have killed him.

Speaker 7 If I weren't a law-abiding citizen, I could have killed him.

Speaker 3 Now that Jane was convinced Tom O'Donnell had killed her aunt Gertrude, it was very difficult to accept.

Speaker 3 And now that there was a warrant out for his arrest on fraud charges, I couldn't believe I had been such a fool. Jane was determined to find him.

Speaker 10 She's mad, and everybody better get out of her way.

Speaker 3 Jane started thinking of all the places Tom could be and then she remembered he had a good friend in Las Vegas.

Speaker 3 She was hot to try

Speaker 15 and she wanted this guy hung out to dry.

Speaker 3 But when she called around looking for that friend's phone number, she got the runaround. And you put two and two together and you figure that Tom is hiding out with them in Vegas? I knew it.

Speaker 26 I knew it.

Speaker 20 Don't ask me how, but I just knew it.

Speaker 3 And sure enough, when police went to arrest Tom, he was right where Jane predicted.

Speaker 7 Sitting there watching television with no shoes on.

Speaker 3 Six months after vanishing from Jane Alexander's life, Tom O'Donnell was finally brought to court, about to face charges of fraud.

Speaker 8 I turned around and looked at him, and he saw me,

Speaker 5 and he knew he'd been had.

Speaker 3 The good news was Jane Alexander had Tom O'Donnell right where she wanted him, behind bars. The bad news was he had her in debt.
At this point, are you broke?

Speaker 28 Oh, I'm totally broke.

Speaker 21 I filed bankruptcy to wipe out Tom's debt, and they foreclosed on the house.

Speaker 3 What was it like to lose the house?

Speaker 7 Next to Gert's death, it was probably the most traumatic thing in my life.

Speaker 24 I moved out on Mother's Day.

Speaker 11 She went from a huge house to a little room in somebody's home. She doesn't have any heat.

Speaker 3 Jane's children worried about her.

Speaker 6 It got to be 30 degrees in the winter. There are no rugs on the floor.

Speaker 9 I went to the Goodwill and bought rugs.

Speaker 28 It was a little lifestyle change.

Speaker 3 At the age, most of her friends were enjoying their golden years.

Speaker 8 I have to go to work for the first time in my life to support myself.

Speaker 6 That was kind of a cultural shock.

Speaker 3 Jane got her first job.

Speaker 24 Good afternoon, may I help you?

Speaker 3 Ironically, at a retirement home.

Speaker 7 All I had to learn to do was run a switchboard and be nice and yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 3 For Jane, it was more than just a lifestyle change.

Speaker 33 When he left me and took everything I possessed, that involved my ego because I never really thought I was stupid.

Speaker 28 And I learned that, yes, I was.

Speaker 9 I lost my children's inheritance. I lost my home.

Speaker 19 How could I be so dumb?

Speaker 3 And then, about a year and a half after he disappeared from her life, Jane finally had the chance to hear from Tom himself when he took the stand during his fraud trial.

Speaker 15 He took off like a deer and he started launching into this incomprehensible, absurd story, so I just stood there and let him go.

Speaker 15 And he went and he went and went.

Speaker 3 Josh Thomas was the Marin County prosecutor on the case.

Speaker 32 Josh Thomas Thomas did a marvelous job.

Speaker 23 He threw the book at him, and the judge did the same.

Speaker 3 Tom O'Donnell was found guilty on four counts of fraud.

Speaker 15 I think the jury picked up on the fact that this guy was a ball-faced liar

Speaker 3 and sentenced to just under four years in prison.

Speaker 15 I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew if that guy walked out of the

Speaker 15 court and we'd never see him again.

Speaker 3 Tom O'Donnell was finally behind bars for stealing Jane's money. Now, she wanted to put him in prison for murder, but to do that that would be a race against the clock.

Speaker 3 She and detectives had to come up with the evidence before Tom could finish serving his sentence for fraud and be free to disappear again.

Speaker 7 We've got him in jail.

Speaker 32 Now, let's put the noose around his neck.

Speaker 3 He's in jail for fraud. Let's nail him for the murder.
Right.

Speaker 11 Once she believed it,

Speaker 11 then, you know, full speed ahead, she's going to get him.

Speaker 33 First of all, I saved everything. I have files and files and files.

Speaker 9 I made a flyer once. I ran all the phone numbers for a year.

Speaker 3 This was the new Jane, amateur detective.

Speaker 33 I called the paper, tried to get publicity.

Speaker 3 Relentless.

Speaker 9 I called Homicide on a weekly basis.

Speaker 24 There's a picture of Tom and Duke.

Speaker 19 Once she's on board, Ben, back off. She's going.

Speaker 27 He's beautiful.

Speaker 33 The dog.

Speaker 3 The dog. After months of digging, Jane finally hit paydirk.
She found two important clues. Both of them, in fact, were mistakes made by Tom O'Donnell himself.

Speaker 13 He was great at con, but not at murder.

Speaker 8 Amateur.

Speaker 3 Tom's first mistake was a phone call he made the day after the murder.

Speaker 38 It was a Saturday morning, about 10 o'clock.

Speaker 3 Tom had called his relatives in Montana to tell them he would finally be able to repay the $10,000 he owed them.

Speaker 38 The reason was that Jane's aunt had passed away, and she was going to inherit a lot of money, and he was going to be able to take care of that debt now.

Speaker 3 The problem was, according to Detective Jeff Weime, Gertrude McCabe's body wasn't even found until the next day.

Speaker 11 Nobody in the world, except for the killer, knew that Gertrude McCabe was dead.

Speaker 3 Well, that's a pretty important piece of evidence.

Speaker 11 That was a very important piece of evidence.

Speaker 3 After reporting her findings to detectives, Jane Alexander kept on digging. Her next break came from her daughter-in-law, Rocky Alexander.

Speaker 20 Jane is a fantastic detective.

Speaker 3 Tom had called Rocky on Monday, the day after Gert's body had been found.

Speaker 34 He said she'd been stabbed numerous times and that she'd been bludgeoned and there was blood all over over and that she had been garretted.

Speaker 11 He says she was garretted to death. Not strangled, but garretted.

Speaker 34 That word stuck out. Yes, because I didn't know what it meant.

Speaker 11 So she wrote that down on a notepad and had to look it up later. She didn't know what the word garrett meant.

Speaker 34 A method of capital punishment in which an iron collar is tightened around a condemned man's neck.

Speaker 11 That's what happened in this case.

Speaker 11 A bicycle cable was put around her neck and twisted until it got so tight that it killed her.

Speaker 3 Now, isn't that information that the police might have told him?

Speaker 11 No, that information was not released. The only thing that was released was that she was strangled.

Speaker 3 And mentioning that gruesome detail was Tom O'Donnell's second mistake.

Speaker 11 That was withheld specifically because we did not want anybody to know the means of strangulation. In fact, nobody did know but the killer.

Speaker 3 These two phone calls were just what detectives were looking for. But were they too little, too late?

Speaker 24 Tom is out.

Speaker 30 I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 3 After serving just 18 months in prison.

Speaker 5 Because he got off on good behavior, which naturally he would be good.

Speaker 3 Tom was free to disappear again.

Speaker 23 I just couldn't stop crying.

Speaker 19 It was such a shock.

Speaker 3 But it wasn't long before Jane was right back to being her pesky self.

Speaker 11 She'd call me daily and then weekly and then daily again, finding out what's going on with the case and what else can we do.

Speaker 3 And finally, all of their hard work paid off when Detective Weime found the final clue and Tom O'Donnell's third mistake.

Speaker 7 And he said, tell me again about the check registry.

Speaker 9 So I went through the whole thing with him.

Speaker 3 Remember, the first day police searched Aunt Gert's house, the only thing they couldn't find find was her checkbook register.

Speaker 3 So the thinking was that the killer might want to check the balance and find out how much money was there.

Speaker 11 Basically, that's correct.

Speaker 3 At some point, that check register, what, suddenly appears?

Speaker 11 What happened is when Jane Alexander and Tom O'Donnell were given custody of the house, they went through various items, and O'Donnell told Jane Alexander that he had found the checkbook register, and he showed her exactly where he had found it, which was in a bedroom drawer.

Speaker 3 Detective Weime found that suspicious, so he went back and reviewed the crime scene photos.

Speaker 11 And there was a picture of the drawer, and there was no checkbook register in there. Somebody had to put it there after the police left the house.

Speaker 3 So how did the checkbook register get in the drawer? Tom O'Donnell put it there. Why would he put the check registry back?

Speaker 29 Well, he knew they were looking for it.

Speaker 4 You know, he was an inexperienced murderer, too, so obviously he made a few mistakes.

Speaker 5 He would have been better off just to burn it.

Speaker 3 With that final clue.

Speaker 11 Just one more nail in the coffin to prosecute him.

Speaker 3 Jane's nearly nine-year quest was about to to pay off. Tom O'Donnell was finally charged with killing Gertrude McCabe.

Speaker 30 Jane, I have a $1 million warrant in my hand for Thomas D.

Speaker 24 O'Donnell.

Speaker 8 Just be careful who you tell. We don't want him to run.

Speaker 3 Coming up, police move in to arrest Tom O'Donnell, and you won't believe where they find him. Here we go again.

Speaker 11 Here we go again.

Speaker 3 For 77-year-old Jane Alexander, it has been an all-consuming effort to get back at the man she once trusted more than anyone else, Tom O'Donnell.

Speaker 3 She took the lead, hounding the police until her ex-boyfriend was finally arrested and convicted for embezzling her every last cent.

Speaker 3 He did a year and a half in prison for that, but she's not done, not by a long shot.

Speaker 3 After nearly a decade, she uncovered critical clues that now find the police closing in on O'Donnell for the murder of Jane's aunt, an alleged plot to get the inheritance.

Speaker 3 You'll see how that pursuit plays out. But first, along the way, Citizen Jane's personal crusade for justice was becoming a career.
Here again is Bill Lagatuto.

Speaker 19 And the only thing I can say is that if you've had a homicide in your family, don't give up.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 21 the squeaky wheel does get to grease.

Speaker 3 In years of dogging the system to get justice for her murdered aunt.

Speaker 8 This is Jane Alexander.

Speaker 3 Jane Alexander met a lot of people just as frustrated as her. One of them was Lee Sansom.

Speaker 39 And Jane was another source of hope because,

Speaker 3 well, you can't.

Speaker 39 really become too depressed when you work with Jane. She won't let you.

Speaker 3 Lee Sansom's younger sister, Abigail Niebauer.

Speaker 39 This is the last picture we have of her.

Speaker 3 Had been killed.

Speaker 3 It was 1985, Palo Alto, California. Abby's husband of 26 years, James Niebauer, said he was cleaning an old shotgun in their kitchen when it accidentally went off.

Speaker 39 The shotgun had been held by Jim.

Speaker 39 And I instantly felt that she'd been murdered.

Speaker 3 Why did you think that?

Speaker 39 I knew that there was some marital trouble, but I also knew that the estates of my parents had just been settled about two weeks before.

Speaker 3 Palo Alto police didn't see it that way.

Speaker 39 This is how I found out that my sister's death was declared an accident by the police.

Speaker 3 Husband may have accidentally shot Palo Alto woman. After months of investigating and finding no evidence to the contrary, they closed the case, labeling it an accidental shooting.

Speaker 39 It was infuriating because I didn't believe a word of it, and I couldn't believe that the police were going to walk away from the case.

Speaker 19 I knew exactly how he felt.

Speaker 3 Please Sansom heard about Jane through a victim support group and he wrote her a letter.

Speaker 33 After all these years of struggle, it finally appears that I have found someone who knows the ins and outs of the system.

Speaker 3 Jane's answer was just what he wanted to hear.

Speaker 30 I went to the police department and I found a detective and he had really never heard of the case.

Speaker 3 She was able to convince me to take a look at the case. Homicide detective Mike Yore saw the the case as dead.

Speaker 31 There's nothing that certainly that I could do with this case.

Speaker 3 His own department, the DA's office, and even the state's attorney general agreed. Okay.

Speaker 31 And that's where Jane Alexander came in and said, you know, not willing to accept that.

Speaker 33 And I called him the next day.

Speaker 4 He said, you're here again.

Speaker 21 That's right, Mike, and forever until we get whatever we need.

Speaker 33 And so finally he found it was easier just to talk to me and just do whatever we had to do.

Speaker 27 He's a great cop.

Speaker 3 You warmed down.

Speaker 7 Well, I guess, yeah.

Speaker 3 Mike Yore surrendered and began reviewing James Niebauer's story. His version of events is he's pointing the gun pretty much directly at her.
Right.

Speaker 3 He says she reaches for it to take a look at the gun and it goes off. Right.

Speaker 3 But Mike Yore, an expert on firearms, thought there was an important clue in the powder burns left on Abigail Niebauer's clothes.

Speaker 3 Is there a light bulb kind of moment where you look at it and say, absolutely. What was that?

Speaker 3 There was no powder on the on the cuff there's no powder above it it was specifically printed here same with the left hand just prop it back with barrel which means Abigail Niebauer couldn't have been reaching for the gun when it went off

Speaker 3 today we're going to be duplicating a shooting incident that occurred in 1985 to prove his theory Detective Yore set up a ballistics test.

Speaker 31 This is a weapon that was used during the homicide. Look at the firing range here, and what we've got is roughly the exact same measurements for a woman that Abigail was at the time of the shooting.

Speaker 31 The height of the victim is five foot six.

Speaker 3 So you're trying it from different distances and different arm positions.

Speaker 31 What we're trying to arrive at is an exact replication of the powder stipling on the sleeves, size, diameter, and such.

Speaker 31 You could not get that powder stipling on those sleeves with the arms in any other position.

Speaker 3 Other than the defensive position. Correct.
So she's not holding her hands out like this to look at the gun. She's holding her hands in front of her face because he's about to shoot her.

Speaker 31 She's in this position here when she's shot.

Speaker 3 Mike Yord's tests proved James Niebauer murdered his wife, but he still needed something he could take to court. You want to present this material to a renowned forensic expert

Speaker 3 so that he can corroborate your theory. Correct.
And the department says...

Speaker 31 says this is kind of an old case and you certainly have enough things going and it looks rather expensive.

Speaker 3 What does Jane say when you tell her the department doesn't have the money to send you down to Florida?

Speaker 33 I finally called the captain and I said, we'll send him.

Speaker 3 You'll pay for the trip to Florida?

Speaker 33 Absolutely. How much does it cost? Who will we make the checkout to? And he talked to the expert.
He spent three days there with him, and he absolutely collaborated everything Mike said.

Speaker 3 Finally, 13 years after the death of Abigail Niebauer, James Niebauer was arrested, tried, and found guilty of his wife's murder. Mike Yore proved his case, and Lee Sansom

Speaker 3 could finally move on.

Speaker 39 And they brought back a guilty verdict. It was just

Speaker 39 incredible.

Speaker 3 Lee Sansom knows one thing. It wouldn't have happened without Jane.

Speaker 33 Getting justice for Abby was just as much a goal as it was for getting justice for Aunt Kurt.

Speaker 3 And coming up, Jane Alexander is just about to close in on Tom O'Donnell.

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Speaker 33 Tuesday, March 17th.

Speaker 14 Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Speaker 23 Hard to believe such a special day to arrest Tom.

Speaker 17 I'm still in shock.

Speaker 3 Finally, nearly a decade after the brutal slaying of Jane Alexander's beloved Aunt Gertrude, police were ready to arrest Tom O'Donnell for first-degree murder.

Speaker 9 I always felt that eventually I would get him.

Speaker 3 So just where did they find him?

Speaker 11 When Tom was arrested for the murder, he was living with a wealthy woman in a very nice area of L.A. County.

Speaker 3 Jeff Weime was a key detective in the investigation.

Speaker 11 He'd found a woman. a widowed woman.

Speaker 28 She is 60 years old and lives in a million-dollar home.

Speaker 11 And it was the same old thing. He was going to take her for everything she had and then move on to the next one.

Speaker 3 But then, just as Jane Alexander had hoped.

Speaker 16 Tom, old man, got you.

Speaker 20 Gotcha.

Speaker 24 See, I cry for nothing.

Speaker 3 Tom O'Donnell was taken into police custody as he stood in his new girlfriend's front yard.

Speaker 33 They arrested him and all the way to the station he was talking about Jane Alexander.

Speaker 32 He was really pissed off about this woman from Marin County.

Speaker 3 At his murder trial, O'Donnell never took the stand in his own defense, but Jane Alexander was the prosecution's lead witness and had a lot to tell the jury.

Speaker 3 What was your impression of Jane when you first saw her in the middle of the day initially?

Speaker 44 Yes. I thought, how could the woman be so stupid?

Speaker 3 And with no physical evidence directly linking Tom O'Donnell to the murder, the case against him was anything but open and shut. The case against Tom was based on circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 9 Complete circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 3 Did that worry you?

Speaker 29 You take 100 facts and you just you know, pile up everything you can and the jury say they can throw away 95.

Speaker 3 Those five left they still stick and as it turns out that's how the jury saw it the mileage was was a big thing didn't match running out of money borrowing from everybody you didn't believe his defense what defense

Speaker 44 to me he had no defense

Speaker 3 after three days of deliberations the jury came back with a verdict And the diary says, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.

Speaker 8 Exclamation point, point, point, point.

Speaker 3 When he was convicted, finally, what was your reaction?

Speaker 4 It's just, it's so hard to describe.

Speaker 27 I mean, 13 years it took me.

Speaker 19 I can hardly, you know, I can really not even talk about it.

Speaker 4 It was

Speaker 27 very emotional.

Speaker 19 I couldn't really believe those 12 people really saw it the way it was, you know.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 33 it was just,

Speaker 20 I can't even tell you the satisfaction.

Speaker 7 I mean, I just sort of sat there and said, you know,

Speaker 29 I did it.

Speaker 5 Freya Kirk.

Speaker 45 I admire her that she had the courage of her convictions to stick with San Jose Police Department and DA's office to get a conviction.

Speaker 33 As I went out into the hall, there stood the whole jury.

Speaker 30 They hugged me, were crying, so damn emotional.

Speaker 33 It was hard to believe.

Speaker 44 I think as far as the jurors were concerned, I think it was a sense of relief that finally we made closure on this for all of us.

Speaker 3 What was the sentence?

Speaker 32 25 to life, but as long as I'm alive, he'll never get out.

Speaker 3 73-year-old Tom O'Donnell won't be eligible for parole until 2007.

Speaker 9 I still feel wonderful every time I think about him rotting in jail.

Speaker 3 With Tom locked away, you'd think Jane would take a break.

Speaker 9 I've got a stack of files there that I'm working on.

Speaker 3 Tell that to Jane.

Speaker 18 The day we get the guy that killed your mother, that's the day we'll celebrate.

Speaker 3 That's next.

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Speaker 7 Jane, I dearly love you and thousands of others. Thank you.

Speaker 3 Jane Alexander is finally enjoying the golden years of her life. No, she's not retired.

Speaker 18 The day we get the guy that killed your mother, that's the day we'll celebrate.

Speaker 3 In fact, at the age of 77, she got herself a new job. You're doing a great job, Jane.
Helping families who are struggling with their own unsolved murders.

Speaker 22 We'll nail that SOB yet.

Speaker 3 She founded Citizens Against Homicide, and today they're rallying for victims' rights. She started the group with her friend Jan Miller, whose own daughter was murdered.

Speaker 27 I'm Jan Miller.

Speaker 14 I'm the president of Citizens Against Homicide.

Speaker 18 Thank you all for coming.

Speaker 8 The purpose of this group is to help families get through the quagmire of the criminal justice system when they get involved in a homicide like I did.

Speaker 27 My best friend was murdered in Richmond in April 1997.

Speaker 28 You need two elements to solve a crime.

Speaker 9 You need a dedicated police officer detective, but you also have to be persistent yourself.

Speaker 3 Jane says it's like teaching basic government. Civics 101.

Speaker 27 I've had victims that didn't want to contact the district attorney's office because they were afraid they'd get a bill.

Speaker 33 Most people just don't know what to do. They don't understand the role the DA has.
They don't understand the role the homicide detective has.

Speaker 13 These are all foreign concepts to the average American unless it touches them personally.

Speaker 5 I always tell them to go down and meet the detective face to face.

Speaker 27 Just be a presence in that office.

Speaker 26 If you give up and you quit, then no one else is really going to care.

Speaker 28 I always say, you know, get in their face and stay there.

Speaker 30 Good morning, Detective. This is Jane Alexander.

Speaker 3 Jane and her group are currently working about 40 cases.

Speaker 33 Here's two days' phone calls.

Speaker 26 We return them all, you know, eventually.

Speaker 3 I can't listen to that.

Speaker 33 Every one of these is a homicide case.

Speaker 3 Number one on the list.

Speaker 16 Ronnie Parati.

Speaker 7 This is Jan Miller's daughter.

Speaker 3 Murdered 16 years ago.

Speaker 33 I think the sad thing about Ronnie's case is the fact that we are two witnesses that have never come forth.

Speaker 3 So they appealed to the public by putting up billboards offering rewards.

Speaker 24 Laura, this is Jane Alexander in California.

Speaker 28 Where are my billboards?

Speaker 33 This case here, Ivan Goebel, we've just put this billboard up.

Speaker 19 This is up right now.

Speaker 30 This was a home invasion case.

Speaker 7 He was 81 years old.

Speaker 33 His wife was 75.

Speaker 29 They grabbed her, bludgeoned her, walked into the house, shot him, and hopefully that'll bring in some reward.

Speaker 3 And it did. Police made an arrest in this four-year-old case.

Speaker 21 It's very satisfying to be able to help people.

Speaker 24 This one is solved.

Speaker 27 This one is a very tragic case, not solved.

Speaker 7 Don't be hysterical.

Speaker 26 Get mad. Just get mad.

Speaker 3 Besides putting murderers behind bars, Jane and her crew work to keep them from getting out.

Speaker 27 We ask our readers to please write to the different parole boards.

Speaker 30 No one that we've ever featured in our newsletter has ever been allowed out of jail.

Speaker 33 You do the crime, you do the time.

Speaker 3 And there's no parole hearing Jane cares about more than Tom O'Donnell's.

Speaker 24 I'm just not going to sit around and do nothing.

Speaker 21 I mean, I have to be at that parole here to make damn sure he doesn't,

Speaker 21 you know, in any way get out.

Speaker 3 Hello. Jane's children say their mother has found a new purpose in life.

Speaker 35 She does work on this tirelessly every single day. She's dedicated to her.

Speaker 3 She's dedicated to helping people.

Speaker 35 She'll go on as long as she's alive.

Speaker 13 She won't stop. She won't stop.

Speaker 23 I don't see any end to it.

Speaker 3 For now, Citizen Jane will never rest.

Speaker 11 Tom O'Donnell was denied parole in 2007 and died in prison in 2010.

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