Fatality Review (Jenean Chapman)

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Speaker 8 I mean, you couldn't look at those autopsy photos alone, even without the science behind it. And then just how we left her.
I mean, she's half dangling off that bed.

Speaker 8 Everything about it was brutal and violent and offensive and degrading.

Speaker 1 I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

Speaker 10 I'm Anasiga Nicolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

Speaker 1 And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Speaker 10 Why does one homicide make headlines while another one doesn't?

Speaker 10 Maybe there's details from that particular crime that are shocking or some unthinkable violence that can both horrify and fascinate the public.

Speaker 1 Sometimes it isn't just the brutality that grips us, it's where it happens.

Speaker 1 A murder in an upscale neighborhood or the heart of a busy tourist hotspot forces us to lean in to wonder how violence could shatter a place we once thought was safe.

Speaker 10 But we found that one of the most common common reasons that the public responds to a certain case is the connection they feel with the victim.

Speaker 10 Maybe it's a public figure, but more likely, it's just someone who shares the same background, maybe the same dreams, or the same challenges that we face.

Speaker 10 We feel like we know them, making the pain of their death more palpable and the fear that it could one day be one of us more real.

Speaker 1 And that feeling, it's especially resonant when it comes to the case of intimate partner violence, something to which our guest today has dedicated her entire career.

Speaker 8 My name is Brandi Mitchell.

Speaker 8 I am the division chief of the family violence division at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, where we prosecute felony, intimate partner violence cases from third-degree felonies up to murder and capital murder.

Speaker 10 In September of 2023, Brandi was notified of a call that had come in from Dallas PD from a concerned employer at a company located in Colorado that one of their remote employees had not checked checked into work for several days and they were worried that something might be wrong.

Speaker 1 The caller informed police that 46-year-old Janine Chapman was a typically reliable executive at the company and it was totally unlike her not to be online even from her remote office in Dallas.

Speaker 8 I think they were very concerned that she was communicative.

Speaker 8 And I think the type of jobs that she had when they work so remote like this, you have to be communicative and they need to see that you're working and she was not responding to calls or texts.

Speaker 8 And that just was unlike Janine.

Speaker 10 So Janine's employer, a company called Critical Mass, made a call to the Dallas County Police Department requesting a welfare check.

Speaker 10 Could someone please visit Janine Chapman and ensure that she was safe and well? Janine's employer knew that she lived alone in an apartment in downtown Dallas.

Speaker 10 And rather than just hope that everything was okay, she requested that the police conduct a check to be sure.

Speaker 8 This building downtown Dallas is one of the newer ones. It's very swanky.
swanky and has a lot of really cool high-end restaurants in it. So there are people going in and out of that.

Speaker 8 One of those has a hotel and the residences,

Speaker 8 but also these really nice bars and restaurants. So the public's going in and out of this building as well.

Speaker 1 Standing 51 stories high, the national residence was amongst the most sought-after address in Dallas.

Speaker 1 A mix of sprawling apartments, office space, and a luxury hotel on Spa, Janine Chapman was listed on the lease for a one-bedroom apartment overlooking the downtown skyline.

Speaker 10 Accompanied by the building manager, officers knocked on her door, but there was no answer. With one swipe of an electronic keycard, the door swung open.

Speaker 8 They discovered her in her bedroom, and she was laying across the bed with her head sort of down towards the carpet.

Speaker 1 The visible injuries to her head and face were severe. She was only partially dressed.
She was not breathing.

Speaker 8 It was very apparent that they needed to call detectives in at that point. I mean, it was very apparent she was not alive and it looked suspiciously like a homicide.

Speaker 10 Every member of law enforcement knows not to make assumptions about a scene.

Speaker 10 Not everybody winds up being a criminal investigation, but these officers knew immediately that there was likely at least to be foul play.

Speaker 10 What looked like blunt force trauma to her face was just too severe. The positioning of her body too suggestive of a brutal attack.

Speaker 8 There were no stab wounds and certainly no gunshot wounds, but she was very,

Speaker 8 very beaten up. Swollen eyes shut, and it looks like possible strangulation.
Her mouth was like it had been punched over and over again. So it looked like a physical assault on her had happened.

Speaker 1 When detectives arrived, they made careful note of other critical elements of the crime scene.

Speaker 8 Now, there was a knife on the bed. And so that was sort of confusing to them.

Speaker 10 And also, her underwear was torn and pulled up like in the middle of of her torso so she was completely naked except for underwear that was pulled up and torn so did the crime indicate any sort of a sexual attack that was one theory at the forefront of the detectives minds and what about the idea this was maybe a break-in or some kind of robbery that had turned to brutal violence based on the evidence detectives quickly ruled out both A, you have to kind of fob in and there was no indication that anything had been broken into.

Speaker 8 B, she had like these designer sunglasses and things like that. And I think some contents of her ID, stuff like that.
None of that was messed with. It was a one-bedroom apartment, very nice.

Speaker 8 And then everything looked intact.

Speaker 1 And as we know, no signs of break-in or robbery often means that any potential suspect may have been known to the victim, someone that Janine recognized or knew well enough to let in through the front door.

Speaker 10 And you're probably not going to be surprised to hear that there were signs of a struggle. The bed sheets were pulled from the bed and the bedside bedside table was overturned.

Speaker 10 But there was also confusing elements too. The most glaring, a large number of over-the-counter pills that had been strewn about the apartment.

Speaker 8 There was a whole lot of open

Speaker 8 Benadryl, which was very confusing to everybody. It was the pills, not the liquid.
And just like boxes and boxes of them, they had popped out a bunch of the pills.

Speaker 8 They're just out on the kitchen island. just laying there.

Speaker 8 Having four or five boxes of Benadryl just laid out and open, some of them, I mean, there were still some of the pink pills in it, but a lot of them had been popped out as if someone had been taking them.

Speaker 1 So toxicology reports would answer a lot of questions here. It would hopefully tell detectives if the drugs were self-consumed by Janine, possibly to sedate herself.

Speaker 1 But then why the signs of a struggle? The evidence was carefully collected in hopes that it would eventually lead to some answers.

Speaker 10 Law enforcement also began the task of gathering more information about who may have been in and out of Janine's apartment, finding out if there were surveillance cameras at the building, checking if the apartment key fobs retained data about when they were used, and speaking to neighbors to see if they could find any witnesses.

Speaker 1 But as with any homicide investigation, police also had to learn as much as they could about their victim, Janine Chapman, her background, her love life, and whether she knew anyone that could have possibly wanted her dead.

Speaker 10 So who was Janine Chapman? Well, as we said, she was a successful marketing executive who, by all accounts, was one of life's high achievers.

Speaker 10 She was close with her family, popular, hardworking, smart, and successful.

Speaker 8 She was a daughter to Jamaican immigrants. Janine goes to school at Syracuse, graduates from Syracuse, comes back to New York, and is working sort of like advertising PR, media relations, all of that.

Speaker 8 At some point during this, she is working for the former Duchess of York. I don't know if you call her the former Duchess of York, but I think she is.
That's Sarah Ferguson.

Speaker 1 Janine was polished and poised, often photographed alongside her royal client as they attended glamorous black tie events in New York.

Speaker 10 But no matter how glamorous that life was, as personal assistant to a royal, Janine had higher ambitions and an itch to explore the West Coast.

Speaker 8 And I think at some point she felt like she had sort of conquered New York and, you know, done well in New York, and she wanted to go out to the West Coast. So that's when she moves to San Francisco.

Speaker 8 And again, it's the same kind of type of jobs that she's getting, sort of that media relations, PR, advertising, and she's just really good at it.

Speaker 1 In her new life on the West Coast, Janine found a great job, a close circle of friends, and a new romantic interest by the name of James Michael Patrick.

Speaker 8 They were very social. They had no children.
They were a little bit older when they met, like in their 30s, and they liked to go out. They liked to party.

Speaker 8 And so that was a big part of their relationship.

Speaker 10 But according to her friends, Janine's relationship with James was not always a smooth one, and their careers complicated a longer commitment.

Speaker 8 They kind of have this on and off again sort of relationship.

Speaker 8 He ends up coming back to Dallas to work, and he's kind of does the same thing that she does, more sales than I would say, media relations and PR and all that, but it's more sales job.

Speaker 1 But despite their sometimes rocky romance, Janine eventually moved to Dallas. And in June of 2023, Janine and James were married.
And shortly after, James moved into the apartment at the national.

Speaker 10 But if they were married, where was James now?

Speaker 10 Well, police soon found out less than three months after the wedding, James had already moved out, and no one seemed to know where he was.

Speaker 1 He was an ex-husband, someone with likely access to the apartment, and now he was nowhere to be found. In Dallas or anywhere else, there is a name for that: a suspect.

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Speaker 10 In Dallas, Texas, the battered body of 46-year-old Janine Chapman was found in her high-rise apartment.

Speaker 10 The post-mortem exam had revealed a host of traumatic injuries, although the exact cause of death was difficult to determine.

Speaker 8 Homicidal violence with strangulation and suffocation could not be ruled out. So that means homicidal violence is going to be the blunt force trauma and the strangulation.

Speaker 8 That was the finding of the ME.

Speaker 1 A successful marketing executive who had once worked alongside the Duchess of York, Janine had lived what seemed like a charmed life until she found herself the victim of extreme violence.

Speaker 10 And now investigators wanted to know if her recent breakup with a man named James Patrick could have been the motive for her murder.

Speaker 1 Now, that's a question that easily could have been answered if James had been at the scene. But James Patrick was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 10 So obviously, tracking him down became a priority for investigators.

Speaker 10 But let's take a second to learn a bit more about their relationship because as we know, sometimes what appears to be a storybook romance, there can lie some pretty dark secrets underneath.

Speaker 1 According to Janine's friends, the two had met back in San Francisco and for a while seemed made for each other. But soon their whirlwind romance showed signs of stress.

Speaker 8 They're fighting more and more. You know, whether it's the partying or what, but they're definitely fighting more and more.
It doesn't take too long for the relationship to become somewhat rocky.

Speaker 10 Janine and James' on-again, off-again relationship was complicated when James moved down to Dallas. But the most dramatic turn came on a night in February of 2023 when Janine had gone to see him.

Speaker 8 They get into an argument. There was accusations of cheating, particularly by James Patrick, that she was cheating on him all the time.
He just wasn't as successful as his job as she was at hers.

Speaker 10 Eventually, the police were called to defuse the escalating argument.

Speaker 8 He waits down in the lobby. The police get there.
They go up and talk to her. He says that she assaulted him by, I think, slapping him.
I think he calls it punching, but slapping.

Speaker 8 I believe she did admit to, you know, maybe getting him away from her. But based on what he said and based on what she said, they arrested her for a misdemeanor assault.

Speaker 1 It was a minor assault, but one which would have a devastating impact on Janine's work life. From a jail cell waiting to be bonded out, Janine reached out to her employer.

Speaker 8 I believe she does tell her job out in California or asks her sister to say that she was in a car accident because here she is sitting in jail. She can't log back on.
She can't work.

Speaker 10 But eventually, Janine came clean with her work about the arrest.

Speaker 10 But she also seemed to be more honest with herself about how her toxic relationship with James was starting to allow her life to spin a bit out of control.

Speaker 8 I believe she resigned. She didn't even wait to get fired.
She just resigned from that job.

Speaker 1 But this argument that ended with Janine getting arrested and losing her job, that wasn't the last straw in her and James's relationship. In fact, it may have even drew them closer together.

Speaker 10 Shortly afterwards, things seemed to be back on track for the couple. Janine moved to Dallas, found a new job, and by the summer of 2023, she and James were back together.

Speaker 8 I think they really did enjoy each other's company. And again, you know, they were a little bit older.
They had some money. There's some change in their pocket.
They were having a good time.

Speaker 8 It was a good time.

Speaker 1 In June, they were married, only to break up again three months later.

Speaker 1 To say their relationship was turbulent was an understatement, something that the staff at Janine's apartment building knew all too well.

Speaker 8 They did know that James Patrick was living with her. They knew he had moved out recently.

Speaker 8 They knew there had been some problems, so they weren't completely privy to them, but he had moved out and they had seen him. He had been there trying to get some stuff.

Speaker 8 And also that she had called and said, please don't, you know, allow him into the building up to these residences anymore. So, you know, that's already piqued their interest.

Speaker 10 And it wasn't just the building staff that had expressed concern about the man Janine had recently kicked out. Several of Janine's friends soon reached out to share some disturbing information.

Speaker 8 She has two really good friends from Syracuse, Laurel from Critical Mass, and then some friends from out in California, and then, of course, her sister sister Shireen, with whom she was very close.

Speaker 8 But that's how we're getting her side of the relationship, is through text messages from them.

Speaker 8 And what you are seeing is a lot of manipulation, things like, I can't be friends with you anymore, or please change my number or block my number.

Speaker 1 Her friends also shared some screenshots of texts from James to Janine that clearly demonstrated his increasingly unbalanced and erratic behavior. Some from just days before her murder.

Speaker 8 It was a lot of, I'm going to kill myself, you know, that kind of level of manipulation. So I do believe they would get back together with each other.

Speaker 8 I do believe she did love him or want a relationship to work, but it did seem that he was hell-bent on making sure that she stayed with him at all costs.

Speaker 8 He was sending her videos at the end of him, you know, miming, putting a gun to his head and killing himself, crying.

Speaker 10 The relationship between Janine and James was obviously volatile and showing itself also to be manipulative, with James going so far as to threaten Janine if she ever tried to leave him.

Speaker 8 Her sister would be like, this is enough, Janine, enough. Like, you are so beautiful, talented.
Stop putting up with this. Things that we all say to our best girlfriends or our family members.

Speaker 8 And she knew it to her core, she knew it. But then she would help him or she would forgive him.

Speaker 1 So in any homicide investigation, an intimate partner is usually one of the very first people that police want to talk to.

Speaker 1 Obviously, one to make a compassionate death notification and the other to clear him or her as a suspect. And thankfully, in the majority of all homicide cases, that is exactly what happens.

Speaker 1 They get cleared.

Speaker 10 But when you consider that James had not been in contact with police or Janine's family, and also that police now had all this information about their unhealthy relationship, clearly James was going to be someone that investigators wanted to track down and speak with.

Speaker 8 So, their first thing is: where is this guy named James Michael Patrick? So, they're getting, you know, identification of him. What does he look like? Getting a driver's license of him.

Speaker 8 And where did he go? And they're also calling, I believe Detective Aldez is calling his mother, trying to figure out where he went. They knew he didn't leave by a car.
I don't believe they had a car.

Speaker 8 So, he also started looking at Greyhound stations.

Speaker 8 Boom, he had left by a Greyhound down to Austin.

Speaker 1 Skipping town by bus just a few days after your wife's murder, not a good look and you know scott obviously they have to also think about could there be an innocent explanation like or is it maybe just coincidence right now not so likely obviously but as we know speculation isn't evidence at least not yet yeah true it's a threat it's something to follow up on and determine you know why did he leave town if he has a very good reason and he has somebody to corroborate that reason then great but if not that's sort of a head tilt moment where you say, okay, I need to really dig in deeper.

Speaker 1 And so with nearly 200 miles between Austin and Dallas, James did have a healthy head start.

Speaker 1 But just as Dallas detectives prepared to launch a statewide manhunt, the phone rang.

Speaker 8 Detective Valdez gets a call from the Del Seton Hospital down in Austin. They're part of the UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Speaker 8 And so University of Texas police officers get in touch with Detective Valdez about this guy being down here.

Speaker 10 A man calling himself James Patrick had been rushed into the hospital after having some sort of seizure, at least that's what was expected.

Speaker 10 He'd been sitting on a park bench when he'd had some type of medical episode that passerbys were concerned that he'd been suffering from heat stroke, dehydration, and for whatever else they thought might be going on that they had decided at that point to call him an ambulance.

Speaker 8 Was he seizing? Was it a drug overdose? What was going on with him? And because of that, they had called in

Speaker 8 a social worker because they didn't know if this was sort of a suicide thing or what. And so the social worker starts talking to James Patrick, who has now gotten his fluids.

Speaker 8 He's sort of stabilized and he's now talking. And he says, you can call my wife.
He gives them the number and she calls and it's just dead. It doesn't go anywhere.

Speaker 1 But when John asked hospital workers to call Janine's employer, alarm bells started to sound.

Speaker 8 So then he says, well, you can call her job. And he gives the number of critical mass, which is what they Google, and they get to critical mass.

Speaker 8 Critical mass is then like, oh my gosh, we had just called Dallas Police Department to do a welfare check on her.

Speaker 1 It was at that point that the staff at the hospital decided to make another call. That one was to police.

Speaker 8 And that's when John Valdez had, you know, done some of his investigation on his end, but he wanted to go ahead, get the warrant, and get him detained.

Speaker 10 But James Patrick was not only showing strange medical symptoms, he was also showing no sign that he knew anything about what had happened to his wife, Janine.

Speaker 1 And so as Dallas detectives rushed to the hospital in Austin looking for answers, those would not come easy.

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Speaker 10 When James Patrick was brought in for questioning, officers also took pictures of his body.

Speaker 10 There were no signs of any struggle or injury aside from a badly bruised finger, which he told doctors was a recent injury.

Speaker 8 He had had a fight with his wife, and that's how he said he had a really, really bruised tip of his forefinger. And that it was his wife who had, I guess, they got into a fight and she bit his finger.

Speaker 8 And that's when he says, I just came down to Austin to get away. I have had a fight with my wife and she bit my finger, I think he said, but doesn't elaborate any more than that.

Speaker 1 Admission of a fight with Janine wasn't proof that he killed her and James wasn't admitting to anything else. So the detectives needed to build a picture which could disprove James' story of a fight.

Speaker 1 And by now, friends and family of James were also beginning to talk.

Speaker 8 Then he finds out from James's ex-wife that he had reached out janine had kicked him out that he didn't have any money that he didn't have anywhere to go so that's where detective aldez is figuring out okay so we know he got kicked out and then this is leading him to narrow down you know when is the last time that anyone is talking to janine chapman and i think that's when he starts figuring out that there were some local people in dallas that they were hanging out with According to friends, on the Wednesday evening before her murder, Janine Chapman had agreed to meet up with a male friend named Willie at a local barn near her apartment building.

Speaker 8 But unbeknownst to her, Willie is also speaking to James, and Willie tells them where they're going to be.

Speaker 8 And this becomes a big deal because when Willie and his other two friends meet up, it's just them and Janine and they hang out.

Speaker 8 And at some point,

Speaker 8 James shows up. The three friends of Janine's know that this is not going well, that she's kicked him out.
And so it gets sort of uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 Janine and her friends moved on to another bar, but James Patrick followed them. Trouble was obviously brewing.

Speaker 8 So they go to the second bar and I believe it was a rodeo bar at a hotel down downtown Dallas. He does show up there by downstairs.
I mean, it's just like a four or five stairs down.

Speaker 8 And according to the witnesses, they do get into an argument. Janine and James are getting into an argument.

Speaker 10 According to these witnesses, the latest chapter in the turbulent relationship between Janine and James ended with Janine walking back to the national with two of her pals, leaving James back at the bar.

Speaker 8 She was texting with one of the other guys that was there, and she was very apologetic as to how that happened.

Speaker 8 And she understands that was uncomfortable for everybody, does not want to be, doesn't want that to happen again, and, you know, really kind of said, I'm sorry, you guys had to even be a part of that.

Speaker 8 I'm just done. I'm done with him.
I'm done.

Speaker 1 The following day, Janine texted her boss in Colorado, and that conversation became another important piece of the timeline leading up to her murder because it hinted at the fact that Janine felt threatened by James.

Speaker 8 And Janine had been telling her that there were some issues going on between her and James Patrick and that she was going to need to be offline for a while and that she was going to need to take some time.

Speaker 8 And also, she started talking to Laurel about, is there any possibility that she could leave the Dallas area and relocate.

Speaker 10 James, meanwhile, was at his friend Willie's house. Yes, the same Willie that had originally gone out with Janine.
And James was there drinking heavily.

Speaker 10 His friends finally put him in a car and sent him back to his own apartment. But had James gone home or not? Detectives in Dallas were determined to find out.

Speaker 8 Detective Valdez does not have their phones, but he has their phone numbers. So then he does the warrants to get the cell data records and then the cellular tower records.

Speaker 8 That is when Detective Valdez figures out: okay, his phone is moving, not to the soba, but his phone is going to the national.

Speaker 1 His cell phone had placed James Patrick at the scene of the crime within hours of Janine's estimated time of death.

Speaker 10 Detective Valdez had already requested all of the surveillance footage from around the national to see if James or anyone else might be seen coming or going.

Speaker 10 But so far, the footage had not offered any conclusive evidence of his arrival.

Speaker 10 But James Patrick was familiar with the building's layout and he was used to accessing the building through the delivery entrance, avoiding the normal access points, which could explain his ability to avoid the cameras.

Speaker 1 Data from the key fob system at Janine's apartment had also been analyzed. It showed the door being opened on the Thursday night and again on the Friday.

Speaker 1 That last action appeared to be someone leaving the apartment on Saturday morning.

Speaker 8 It looks like Saturday, around 1138 a.m., it was closed and no deadbolt. So it was just closed, which means presumably just somebody left because they couldn't deadbolt it from the inside.

Speaker 1 A grim timeline of Janine's murder was coming into focus.

Speaker 8 Even without the cameras, you know, you have sort of tumultuous relationship. You have her kicking him out.
She is getting increasingly upset about his behavior.

Speaker 8 And then what happened to the Wednesday night going into Thursday morning, the phone going to the national.

Speaker 10 Officers suspected that Janine had been killed on Thursday in the early morning hours.

Speaker 10 If James Patrick entered the apartment on Thursday, as his phone indicated, he could have killed her inside and then not left until Saturday, the 23rd, almost 48 hours after her murder.

Speaker 8 Or that door is closed on the 23rd. On the 24th, he has got his greyhound ticket and is going down to Austin.
And on the 25th, he is found at Del Seton Hospital.

Speaker 8 We felt good about it circumstantially.

Speaker 1 A circumstantial case is tough. What you're looking for is a smoking gun, something which undeniably places a person at the scene when that crime happens.
But that's not always possible.

Speaker 1 And sometimes it's the best you can get. But Anasega, you've always said circumstantial case is a-okay with you.

Speaker 10 Because it's all the little pieces that sometimes only add up to one thing. You know, in this case, you have their history.
You have his threats that she kicked him out.

Speaker 10 You know, he shows up when she is out with friends. You have his phone going to her apartment and she's never seen alive again.

Speaker 10 So again, each one in of itself, Scott, and you and I have had these conversations a lot, like it's not going to prove anything and certainly not be dispositive.

Speaker 10 But when you put it all together, and obviously there's other pieces here too, do those pieces paint one firm picture?

Speaker 10 And then, as we've said, sometimes it is much stronger than just one person pointing the finger and saying, I saw X do that.

Speaker 1 And he was talkative. I mean, he did give direct evidence of what he was doing and where he was during his initial conversation with cops.

Speaker 1 So at this point, point, it was more than enough to proceed to trial. And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 In January of 2025, a court in Dallas County convened to hear the case which Detective Aldez had built. And it was Brandi Mitchell, our guest today, who led the evidence.

Speaker 8 So my opening statement was, you're going to hear a lot about a toxic relationship or on and off again relationship, but this is what I'm going to bring you.

Speaker 8 And at the end, I believe that you're going to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he did this murder.

Speaker 10 But James Patrick did put on a defense and it took everyone by surprise.

Speaker 8 The defense stood up and basically said, you know, he's going to testify and that he's going to say what happened.

Speaker 8 He chose in his opening statement to say that he was at the apartment that early morning on Thursday, that they did get into an argument, basically a form of self-defense, and that he left and fled to Austin.

Speaker 1 James Patrick was arguing self-defense.

Speaker 1 He didn't deny being at the National, and he admitted that there had been a fight, but he claimed that it was Janine who was the aggressor and that he just defended himself from the violence.

Speaker 1 But as for how she died, James Patrick claimed it was entirely self-inflicted.

Speaker 8 He brought an expert medical examiner from another county to testify it wasn't strangulation.

Speaker 8 I think in his opening statement, he also said that because of her drug use, their drug use and her drug use, particularly cocaine, that it was basically her heart that killed her.

Speaker 8 So it wasn't a murder. They didn't get into a fight.
He was there, but it was not a murder.

Speaker 10 And it was reported that a small amount of narcotics had been found in Janine's system, so there was likely some recreational drug use going on.

Speaker 10 But the medical examiner concluded that her death was in no way the result of narcotics.

Speaker 10 The violence, the injuries to her head and neck, while they couldn't conclusively say which one, they did determine that it was those injuries that were the cause of her death.

Speaker 1 But James Patrick doubled down on his claims in court. He then suggested that he panicked, staying in the apartment until the following morning, the Friday, where he'd gone out to do some shopping.

Speaker 8 And then the next morning, he leaves, he goes back to his hotel, he takes a bunch of the Byzanix. That doesn't do anything.

Speaker 8 He goes to a 7-Eleven all the way back to the National, buys a bunch of this Benadryl, goes back to the National where her body has been laying for, you know, 24 hours at this point a little longer and he's crushing the Benadryl taking it along with I think that Nyquolt and then when that didn't work and he didn't overdose on that one that's when he leaves that Sunday it does look like there's some vomit around where he maybe he was puking some stuff up what appears to be vomit in the apartment at the national From there, James Patrick admitted fleeing Dallas and getting the Greyhound to Austin, but under cross-examination, his story began to fall apart.

Speaker 10 He admitted that he disposed of Janine's phone in a downtown trash can, and Brandy kept pressing with her cross from there.

Speaker 8 I think my point was, yes, it just, this doesn't make sense. Or explain to me again how this is self-defense, how you have zero injuries whatsoever.
Why you made no move whatsoever to call any help.

Speaker 8 I mean, you're in the national. You were the person that could have gotten her help and tell your story, I guess, at that time.
But you didn't and you left.

Speaker 8 But he wanted to bring it back to, no, no, no, this was her heart and this wasn't me. But I mean, you couldn't look at those autopsy photos alone, even without the science behind it.
The photos alone.

Speaker 8 And then just how we left her. I mean, she's half dangling off that bed.
I mean, it was just everything about it was brutal and violent and offensive and degrading.

Speaker 10 But for prosecutors, even when the defendant is clearly lying, you still have to prove your case and prove it beyond any reasonable doubt so that no juror has that doubt.

Speaker 10 Thinking, I think this is what it is, but I'm not sure. Well, that just doesn't cut it in court.

Speaker 1 And while the case seems strong, dare I say even solid you never know what a jury is going to do until their verdict is read and one of the things in the prosecution's advantage here are the photographs taken of james patrick when he was first brought into custody They show that apart from the bite injury to his finger, there are no other wounds.

Speaker 1 Now, you might expect if he was fighting for his life and obviously fighting to the point where it was his self-defense, that he probably would have suffered some type of abrasion or bruising or even fractures right but the photographs they proved otherwise and the case for the prosecution really grew stronger and after four hours of deliberations the jury returned with their verdict james patrick was found guilty of janine chapman's murder the jury believed he had intentionally taken her life likely because she'd ended their relationship.

Speaker 8 I believe he was mad. He was at the end of everything and he wasn't the James James Patrick that he wanted.
It's not the lifestyle that he wanted.

Speaker 8 Everything was in his mind being ripped away from him, and it was her fault. And he firmly blamed her for it.

Speaker 1 A judge decided that James Patrick would need to serve 72 years in prison before he could be eligible for release.

Speaker 10 For Janine's family, the verdict brought some relief.

Speaker 1 But for Brandi Mitchell, who has spent 22 years prosecuting cases of domestic violence, it served as yet another example of these types of tragedies.

Speaker 1 She's been involved in a study to try to understand just how many homicides could potentially be avoided if warning signs had been spotted sooner.

Speaker 8 We in Texas do have, or at least in Dallas, I'm working with some of the shelters, do have a fatality review team, and we are looking at, you know, where there could have been intervention before the murder.

Speaker 8 And too often, there is almost no intervention whatsoever. No documented police calls, no CPS.
Maybe a trip to a hospital that could be connected, could not be connected.

Speaker 8 But I would guess over half of our murder cases, there is no previous intervention from most sort of social service agencies, including the police.

Speaker 10 And while Janine was surrounded with friends, co-workers, and family that loved her, she also was boxed into that feeling of being utterly alone, alone in a toxic relationship with a man she couldn't seem to get away from.

Speaker 8 When she finally says, Enough, I'm done with this. It's a hugely dangerous time.
She was alone in Dallas.

Speaker 8 And then the three people that she was with that night, besides James, I mean, they were just acquaintances. I mean, she knew Willie the best, and he was still basically an acquaintance.

Speaker 8 She was on her own. And I think she's a strong woman, and that was okay.

Speaker 8 But if you look back at it now, it is amazing that all of this love and support was around her, but she was alone there.

Speaker 1 Janine Chapman's death is a grim reminder that domestic violence crosses all social and economic boundaries.

Speaker 1 Her case shows the critical importance of noticing and acting on warning signs, the role employers and communities can play in safeguarding individuals, and the ongoing need for robust support systems for those at risk.

Speaker 1 As we honor her memory, let's commit to listening, intervening, and advocating for anyone who may be suffering in silence.

Speaker 10 I prosecuted intimate partner violence cases towards the beginning of my career. And beyond the crimes, the control, and the violence, there are so many other things wrapped into these cases.

Speaker 10 Finances, family, emotions, and feelings of self-worth or lack thereof. The cycle is extremely hard to break, and it can be anyone.
It doesn't depend on your status, education, wealth, or brains.

Speaker 10 Janine Chapman is the reminder that this type of toxicity can happen to anyone. And it seems to me that she would want part of her legacy to be one of support and strength.

Speaker 10 Let us all look for signs with our friends and family.

Speaker 10 If they're in danger, if we see warning signs, give us all the strength to say something and be that support needed if someone is able to make that choice to walk away.

Speaker 10 Community is the backbone I wish we could rely on more because supporting and helping one another benefits us all.

Speaker 10 Janine Chapman, the life you lived, the love you gave to those those close to you, and the successes you had are remembered today by this AOM community.

Speaker 10 Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an audio chuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

Speaker 1 Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

Speaker 10 This episode was written and produced by Daryl Brown, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Phil Jean-Grande.

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