Point Blank

1h 21m
After Todd Chance is murdered, police follow a trail of video evidence as they work to track down the killer. Andrea Canning speaks exclusively with Todd’s wife, elementary school principal Jenea Chance. Andrea Canning reports.

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Runtime: 1h 21m

Transcript

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Speaker 6 We had found her husband murdered, and his body was in a field.

Speaker 7 They said that he had been shot. It was unbelievable.
I couldn't comprehend.

Speaker 8 I remember telling my mom, like, I'm going to get you through this. And she looked me in the eyes and said, Jessica, how am I supposed to get through the rest of my life?

Speaker 9 What do you find in his phone?

Speaker 6 Private pictures sent to him.

Speaker 10 Were they his wife?

Speaker 7 They were not his wife. I was not the kind of wife that went through my husband's phone.

Speaker 9 Did you think that maybe this other woman on Todd's phone might have had something to do with this murder?

Speaker 6 We don't rule anyone out.

Speaker 6 We begin to get video from several different locations. We see someone, same clothing, the glasses, the hat, going from place to place with the intent to conceal herself from us.

Speaker 7 They started asking me a lot of questions. Do you recognize the gait? Do you recognize the way she's walking?

Speaker 15 A big twist comes along in this case.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it was a big twist. Whoever this woman is has had this murder planned and very well planned.

Speaker 8 It came as a shock, complete shock.

Speaker 11 Look carefully and ask yourself whether you can trust your own eyes.

Speaker 19 Is this video of a man?

Speaker 20 A woman?

Speaker 21 A murderer?

Speaker 23 Did you think that was the killer in the video?

Speaker 24 I don't know.

Speaker 26 Is it the same person here and And here, and here,

Speaker 27 or not?

Speaker 28 Hard to say, and yet.

Speaker 30 Everything hinged so much on these videos.

Speaker 11 Correct.

Speaker 31 Everything included a murder trial

Speaker 33 that would be years in the making

Speaker 36 and a mystery that began with a body in an almond grove just west of Bakersfield, California.

Speaker 38 Farm workers who found the body of Todd Chance in this almond orchard the morning of August 25th.

Speaker 39 The year was 2013.

Speaker 18 Todd Chance was 45.

Speaker 36 His wife Janae, an elementary school principal, said looking back, nothing stood out about that ordinary Sunday morning.

Speaker 7 August 25th.

Speaker 42 How did the day start out?

Speaker 7 It was a typical day that was after the first week of school and I was working on my school safe plan.

Speaker 7 I had gotten up early that morning, came downstairs, and then I was surprised to hear Todd up and he just said that him and his dad were going to go to the gun show.

Speaker 7 When he walked out the door, I just said later.

Speaker 43 That was around 7.30 or 8, Janae said.

Speaker 11 She turned back to her work and said at some point her two teenage daughters, Sarah, then 15 and Samantha, then 13, came downstairs.

Speaker 7 I was doing laundry and

Speaker 7 I had a delivery coming.

Speaker 7 And between 10 and 12 that day, the girls were down. We all put the groceries up together.

Speaker 44 Later, Janae's oldest daughter from her first marriage, Jessica, stopped by to pick up some old furniture.

Speaker 11 Jessica was there when detectives arrived.

Speaker 8 They had pulled up and I looked at my mom and she was just like, Jessica, wait here, because we all three were outside by my car.

Speaker 8 So I had them stay outside with me and I just remember thinking like, that's not normal.

Speaker 23 You have a difficult notification to make.

Speaker 6 Yes, we do.

Speaker 36 Kern County homicide detective Kevin Brewer headed from the Almond Grove to the Chance house.

Speaker 6 When me and my partner pulled up to the residence, Mrs. Chance was outside.
We asked her to come inside. I had her sit down on a couch.

Speaker 7 I totally assumed it was a car accident.

Speaker 11 But the detective told her Todd's death was no accident.

Speaker 7 They said that he had been shot and that he had been left.

Speaker 11 Shot twice in the chest at point-blank range.

Speaker 23 Janae's husband of 17 years had been murdered.

Speaker 42 That is a shocking piece of news.

Speaker 7 It was unbelievable. I couldn't comprehend why would anyone want to kill him.

Speaker 42 That must have been immediately going through your mind. Right.

Speaker 7 He was such a likable guy. He didn't hang out with a rough crowd.
You know, he wasn't into drugs. He wasn't into, you know, gambling.
It's very baffling.

Speaker 54 Soon, her daughters heard the awful news, too.

Speaker 24 Jessica was just crying the whole time.

Speaker 6 And my mom was just, she was shocked.

Speaker 32 It was a murder investigation.

Speaker 23 The clock was ticking, and the detectives needed information.

Speaker 57 Shock or not, Janae had to help.

Speaker 59 Janae, correct? I should want to say Janine, but Janae.

Speaker 11 One of the detectives recorded the conversation as they asked Janae what Todd had been planning that day.

Speaker 59 7.30 to 8 this morning saw left.

Speaker 11 She said Todd told her he was going to pick up his dad on the way to the gun show.

Speaker 59 And then Todd's cell phone carrier for Ryan.

Speaker 62 Soon, Todd's parents, Travis and Diana, arrived.

Speaker 59 Are you sure that it's Todd?

Speaker 6 I mean, are you sure?

Speaker 63 You got officers with badges and guns saying all of this, and you're looking around at the people in the house, and in the back of your mind, you're thinking, this can't be true. This is a dream.

Speaker 11 Detectives had questions for them, too, trying to establish a timeline. They soon noticed something wasn't right.
The last two heard of these folks go to the gun shows in the morning.

Speaker 11 I haven't talked to him today.

Speaker 11 Travis hadn't talked with his son that morning about the gun show.

Speaker 64 And there was something else.

Speaker 44 Todd's body was found west of town, the opposite direction from the gun show.

Speaker 44 That may not be him

Speaker 44 going through the west side of town. That would have been

Speaker 44 taken

Speaker 44 to that area.

Speaker 23 In other words, maybe whoever killed Todd brought him there.

Speaker 44 Detectives didn't have a lot to go on at this point, so they kept asking questions.

Speaker 65 We know Todd was a gun lover.

Speaker 25 Did you check his guns to see if any of them were missing?

Speaker 51 Just on a hunch?

Speaker 6 We did. My partner asked Janae if there were any guns missing from the house and if she could go check.
And she told us she was sure they were all there, and he asked her again, just please go check.

Speaker 6 And she finally came back and told us that one of the revolvers was missing.

Speaker 59 And one of them's missing. Yes.
And that is the attorney

Speaker 22 reporter.

Speaker 6 Initially, I thought he might have taken the gun with him just for protection, or he may have taken it to the gun show to trade it. That's common.
Or sell it.

Speaker 9 But there's no gun found with his body, correct?

Speaker 6 That's correct. No gun found with his body.

Speaker 68 So this gun is now missing?

Speaker 6 Yes, it is.

Speaker 11 A man who seemed to have no enemies had been shot to death on a bright Sunday morning.

Speaker 70 No idea who did it, or why, or who might be next.

Speaker 42 Are you fearing for yourself or your family with the murderer on the loose?

Speaker 30 Yes.

Speaker 6 Todd's body was right here. His wallet was still in his pocket.
We noticed that the bottom of Todd Chance's tennis shoes had no dirt on them at all.

Speaker 71 A curious set of clues.

Speaker 36 Where would they lead?

Speaker 6 It was my first thought that he had gone someplace and had been carjacked.

Speaker 11 It can be a bucolic spot, this almond grove in Kern County, west of Bakersfield.

Speaker 62 But on Sunday, August 25th, 2013, it was anything but.

Speaker 14 Detectives and medical aid responded, found an obviously deceased male.

Speaker 32 It took Detective Brewer only 15 minutes to get there.

Speaker 6 I get a phone call from our communications center that there's been a body, dead body, located in a field, actually not very far from my house. I was kind of worried that it might be somebody we knew.

Speaker 20 Oh, wow.

Speaker 68 That probably doesn't happen very often.

Speaker 6 No, I don't.

Speaker 9 Does it happen very often at all that you would find a body in an almond grove like that?

Speaker 6 In our county, yes, it's far too often. Far too often.

Speaker 37 There are a lot of almond groves in Kern County, which is known for agriculture. Almonds are one of its biggest crops.

Speaker 54 And the groves, crisscrossed with dirt roads, are a perfect place for a killer to hide a body.

Speaker 6 Todd's body was right here. His sunglasses were

Speaker 75 right up here.

Speaker 44 To Brewer, it wasn't clear at first how Todd died, but there were clues.

Speaker 6 He had obviously not been dead long.

Speaker 6 We could all see that.

Speaker 65 How long did it take to identify who this person was?

Speaker 6 We identified him very quickly because his wallet was still in his pocket with his driver's license.

Speaker 11 And nearly as fast as they found Todd's ID, they found his cell phone.

Speaker 23 Detective Brewer thought that seemed odd.

Speaker 6 Cell phones are typically taken and used

Speaker 6 or discarded away from the body or just left. It was odd that it was just 20 or 30 feet away.

Speaker 71 There was a bullet hole in Todd's hand, apparently a defensive wound.

Speaker 44 And once Todd's shirt was off, Brewer could see he'd been shot twice in the chest.

Speaker 6 No blood at the scene.

Speaker 6 None of the bullets were recovered at the scene.

Speaker 48 And in this dusty place, the soles of Todd's sneakers were clean.

Speaker 6 What we thought was odd, because of this very powdery dirt that's very common out here.

Speaker 6 We noticed that the bottom of Todd Chance's tennis shoes had no no dirt on them at all.

Speaker 69 Todd hadn't walked in that almond grove, not that day.

Speaker 60 To Brewer, it was clear he was shot somewhere else, driven there, dead or dying, dragged from a car, and just left.

Speaker 79 He was born about 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning. It's ironic that he was killed on a Sunday.

Speaker 28 Todd Chance was a local boy.

Speaker 11 He and his younger brother Scott grew up just outside of Bakersfield in a farming town called Shafter.

Speaker 39 It was here the Chanes learned to love the outdoors, whether on horses or off-roaders or raising pigs.

Speaker 63 They come in from school one day and said, hey, he says,

Speaker 63 we want to buy some pigs and get into the FFA.

Speaker 63 You want a what?

Speaker 25 Diana and Travis got their boys those pigs.

Speaker 23 and a membership in the future farmers of America.

Speaker 71 And that was only the beginning.

Speaker 63 Was todd a country boy his cowboy what was it about that lifestyle that he liked so much the romantic part of it i guess uh being a cowboy he liked the boots and hats didn't he the the boots the hats the the shirts the pants the just the the lifestyle of it

Speaker 63 like his dad travis cowboy todd also loved fast cars mustangs We had a 76 Cobra II when Todd become of age to drive and we just gave it to him. Everybody liked that car.

Speaker 63 It didn't have the big motor in it but it had all the good stuff.

Speaker 63 Disc brakes and air conditioning and power steering.

Speaker 12 What about the girls? Did it do well with the ladies?

Speaker 79 Oh it was a chick magnet. Yes.
Every day there were notes on the windshield of the car from some little girl that wanted to

Speaker 79 have him call her,

Speaker 79 liked his car, thought he was cute.

Speaker 82 It wasn't his car, though, that caught Janae Bowlman's attention.

Speaker 62 It was his cowboy ways.

Speaker 83 They'd met when they'd both worked at a local drugstore.

Speaker 7 I was a cashier, among other things, and he was in asset protection. And then

Speaker 7 casual conversation, I was going to a concert. I walked by and said, I should have invited you.
You're a cowboy.

Speaker 7 Because none of my friends listen to country music, except for I did.

Speaker 11 From that moment, says Janae, Todd was smitten.

Speaker 7 And so then he pursued me.

Speaker 11 But Janae had been burned by her ex who left her while she was pregnant with Jessica.

Speaker 28 So she was cautious with Todd.

Speaker 7 He was very good looking. I kind of thought he was a ladies' man and a player, and I wasn't interested in that at all.

Speaker 7 I had already been married once, and I kind of had come to the conclusion I wanted to find some ugly fat man that would cherish me.

Speaker 28 But Todd surprised her.

Speaker 7 He was, you know, very doting, very, you know, opened the door for me and anything I needed. A gentleman? Yeah, very much so, a gentleman.

Speaker 76 When this gentleman eventually proposed, Janae said yes.

Speaker 45 At the wedding, Todd made sure Jessica knew they were a family.

Speaker 8 I was the manager bride. I had a white gown on with my mom and we had our hair the exact same way.
And I was presented with a bracelet from Todd.

Speaker 28 You kind of hit the jackpot first with stepdads.

Speaker 8 Oh, 100%. 100%.

Speaker 65 The 1976 Cobra was long gone by the time Todd was killed, but not his love for cars.

Speaker 23 By then, he drove a souped-up 2011 Mustang.

Speaker 24 He would love cars, and he was just like, he would always call us when he's a little bit from the house and be like, can you hear my exhaust?

Speaker 58 Was it like, I've arrived?

Speaker 8 Telling everybody the whole neighborhood.

Speaker 12 This was your dad's

Speaker 64 fourth child.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 71 Todd babied his car.

Speaker 11 He had a lot of fun with that car.

Speaker 65 And Detective Brewer thought maybe someone else wanted to have fun with it too.

Speaker 9 Are you starting to think that perhaps someone wanted Todd's car?

Speaker 44 It was a nice car.

Speaker 6 Yes. It was my first thought that he had gone someplace maybe and stopped for gas or food in the morning and had been carjacked.

Speaker 23 So you put a bulletin out?

Speaker 6 Absolutely, yes. A lot of law enforcement looking for that car that morning.

Speaker 71 Soon, detectives got their first big break.

Speaker 6 We get a call from our communications center and we're told that Todd's car has been found.

Speaker 85 We have a car.

Speaker 60 This is a big deal.

Speaker 6 Yes it is.

Speaker 53 A big deal that was about to drive the case in a whole new direction.

Speaker 6 The car is a little dusty, but it's a very, really pristine shape.

Speaker 12 How odd is that that this car was dumped and Todd's gun is right there?

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's very odd.

Speaker 81 Did he ever carry a loaded gun in his car? Never.

Speaker 24 Yeah, never.

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Speaker 53 Todd Chance loved being a dad.

Speaker 7 They were stuck at the hip, him and his girls. I can't imagine him not ever having kids.

Speaker 11 Todd and Janae didn't stay at that drugstore. Todd got work as a truck driver, and as the girls got bigger, he only drove routes that kept him close to home.

Speaker 25 Janae was the ambitious one.

Speaker 53 Even while working as a cashier, she'd been going to college pursuing an education degree.

Speaker 23 After graduation, Janae found work as a teacher.

Speaker 11 She worked her way up and in 2009 was promoted to principal of a big elementary school in Bakersfield.

Speaker 23 Janae's job was demanding, so Todd became the parent who would care for a sick child.

Speaker 24 He would stay home. He would be the one staying home.

Speaker 8 Yeah, he'd always volunteer if there was a sick child.

Speaker 30 Oh, I'll stay home.

Speaker 22 It's me. Yeah.

Speaker 11 Janae said she couldn't have gotten so far in her career without Todd.

Speaker 7 I've had people tell me

Speaker 7 before,

Speaker 7 how do you do what you do? Because I did put in a lot of hours. I'd bring a lot of things home and work on it.
And how do you do that?

Speaker 7 And it's because I have a fantastic husband at home that helps me meet all the needs of my family and be able to do this job.

Speaker 89 That seemed to be just the way Todd wanted it.

Speaker 30 Was he happy being that girl dad?

Speaker 24 I think so.

Speaker 24 He never complained or said that he wanted boys with us. I mean, I did tons of stuff with him like that.

Speaker 66 Like Sarah was his boy.

Speaker 27 Sarah loved shooting and off-roading with her dad.

Speaker 23 Samantha often came along for the ride.

Speaker 11 Usually, Janae worked in the summer, but the summer of 2013, she didn't. And the entire family carved out time for each other.

Speaker 24 We went to the beach, we went to San Francisco, we went to Vegas. It was perfect timing and we had the money and it was

Speaker 24 a really good summer, probably the best summer I've had.

Speaker 11 It was a happy time for the chances.

Speaker 46 Probably felt like it would never end, but it did, that terrible Sunday in August.

Speaker 42 So how is it here in the house now without your rock, without Todd?

Speaker 7 It's very difficult.

Speaker 7 um just different milestones that you come across not even thinking that you're coming across you um

Speaker 7 get in the refrigerator and there's something that you know was only his that he's the only one who eats that and it's still there

Speaker 23 there are so many ways people can react when a loved one is killed

Speaker 31 Some cry uncontrollably.

Speaker 45 Some just can't function.

Speaker 78 But that wasn't Janae.

Speaker 8 In a crisis like that, she'll make a list. That's just how she is.
I think that's her coping mechanism, is just to keep busy.

Speaker 56 On the day her husband was killed, the detectives asked Janae for some help.

Speaker 43 She says that was just what she needed.

Speaker 59 You guys have separate accounts for going to put down a military account.

Speaker 7 They wanted me to go onto my bank account and to see what purchases he had made.

Speaker 7 that day and then also on the like the 24th and then they asked me to pull up his text messages through my

Speaker 7 cell phone provider.

Speaker 7 I felt like they're giving me something to try to, you know, figure out what happened.

Speaker 59 And the debit card has not been used since last night, right? At the Taco Local? Yes.

Speaker 23 Janae gathered phone and bank records for the detectives.

Speaker 59 We have quite a bit of help. Okay, able to crawl stuff off.

Speaker 7 I feel like I should remember something else.

Speaker 20 And I,

Speaker 59 it was just a regular day.

Speaker 22 Same, they won't miss it.

Speaker 27 And then the detectives left to check out the report that someone had found Todd's car.

Speaker 6 What we found here, parked against the curb here and facing this way, was the victim Todd Chance's Black Mustang.

Speaker 60 Todd's car had been left 20 miles from the almond orchard on a residential street called Tiger Flower, but had seen better days.

Speaker 80 Neighbors had called the police to report a parked car that seemed too nice for the area.

Speaker 6 They were worried that someone might steal this car.

Speaker 6 And we're told, just kind of right up front by the neighbors, as soon as we arrive, that it's a location where a lot of the drug addicts and the homeless people gather.

Speaker 15 What is the condition of the car?

Speaker 6 The car is a little dusty. It looks like it's been outside town, but it's in very, very pristine shape.

Speaker 36 Brewer peered in the window.

Speaker 23 He saw a car key on the floor and a gun that fit the description of the one missing from the chance house.

Speaker 65 And he noticed the car was unlocked.

Speaker 6 We found the gun in the car and not just in the car, it was in the driver's floorboard, half of it sticking out from the floor mat where it was just really visible.

Speaker 12 How odd is that that this car is dumped and Todd's gun is right there?

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's very odd. Usually the gun If it's not taken by the suspect, it's at least concealed or attempted to be destroyed.

Speaker 23 Here's the thing according to todd's daughters he was really careful with his guns and kept them secured did he ever carry a loaded gun in his car never

Speaker 24 yeah never he would always load them once we got there and then take them out when we're like finished yeah they're always in the back this was all about his safety yes yeah

Speaker 23 the car in pristine condition with its key on the floor a gun that could be the murder weapon left in plain sight.

Speaker 60 To Brewer, the scene didn't add up.

Speaker 6 Well, our carjacking theory now is showing less and less evidence, especially with the car being left open and the gun left inside it.

Speaker 6 That was just so rare and unheard of that

Speaker 6 carjacking now is not in my mind anymore. It's something else.

Speaker 11 The detective thought it looked like part of a plan, as if someone left the car and the gun in that spot on purpose, hoping they'd get stolen.

Speaker 23 And now you're thinking Todd might actually have been targeted.

Speaker 6 Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 12 The plot really thickens with this turn of events.

Speaker 6 Yes, it does.

Speaker 11 His family had assured the detectives Todd had no enemies, but it was starting to look like they were wrong.

Speaker 9 What do you find in his phone?

Speaker 6 It appeared to be private pictures sent to him of nude and partially nude females.

Speaker 68 Were they his wife?

Speaker 6 They were not his wife.

Speaker 77 A mystery woman in Todd's phone and another on camera.

Speaker 6 See a middle-aged woman get out of this car and walk around the corner.

Speaker 18 The first night after Todd Chance was found dead was a hard one for his family.

Speaker 7 And of course, all my girls that we all slept in bed together and I couldn't sleep.

Speaker 23 Janae wasn't the only one losing sleep over her husband's death.

Speaker 25 At the Sheriff's Department, Detective Brewer and his team were working overtime to figure out who killed Todd. They needed to turn over every rock and consider every scenario.

Speaker 11 For example, according to Janae, Todd said he was going to the gun show with his dad, but Todd's dad hadn't heard from him.

Speaker 12 Do you think that it was possible that Todd

Speaker 30 had lied to Janae?

Speaker 50 and was actually going somewhere else and used that as an excuse?

Speaker 6 Yes, I thought that might be a possibility possibility also.

Speaker 6 I try not to rule anything out. I can't rule that out, that Todd's maybe got another destination he's headed to and it's not his father's.

Speaker 23 That he's not sharing with his wife?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 11 If Todd was hiding something from his wife, what was it?

Speaker 23 Soon enough, Todd's cell phone, which police found not too far from his body in the almond grove, revealed a clue.

Speaker 9 What do you find?

Speaker 10 in his phone.

Speaker 6 We find a lot of just general text messages between him and his wife and him and his children. There's their normal vacation pictures and pictures of the daughters.

Speaker 6 And then near the end of the camera roll, we find some very odd pictures.

Speaker 20 What were they?

Speaker 6 It appeared to be private pictures sent to him of nude and partially nude female.

Speaker 68 Were they his wife?

Speaker 6 They were not his wife.

Speaker 53 What does that tell you right there?

Speaker 61 Things weren't so perfect in the chance household?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 13 Do you immediately suspect that Todd is having an affair?

Speaker 6 I think it's possible at this point. We need, of course, to identify who she is.

Speaker 80 Detectives needed to track down that unknown woman, and soon there was another clue about who may have parked Todd's car.

Speaker 6 Some neighbors across the street see a middle-aged woman get out of this car and walk around the corner.

Speaker 65 They said the woman was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, carrying something.

Speaker 23 The neighbor said around 9 a.m., she scurried off on foot, heading south on a street called Denin.

Speaker 50 So this becomes another piece of your timeline.

Speaker 6 Yes, it does.

Speaker 23 As you start to put these pieces together, where do you go about looking for video?

Speaker 6 Everywhere.

Speaker 41 Right away, they found a house with two security cameras and more clues.

Speaker 11 Here, at 9.03 a.m., the day Todd was killed, you can see a person heading south at a good clip from the direction of Todd's car.

Speaker 37 Hard to tell if it's a man or a woman, but based on the eyewitness accounts of a woman leaving Todd's car, the fact that few people walk in Bakersfield, and this person was walking in the right direction at just the right time, Brewer believed it had to be her.

Speaker 81 Anything identifiable on the woman?

Speaker 6 The videos are

Speaker 6 taken from across the street, and it's difficult to make a facial identification, but she's got kind of a distinctive very fast-paced walk. It's kind of like the arm swing

Speaker 6 was up and away from the waist.

Speaker 44 Aside from that distinctive walk, it was hard to see much.

Speaker 11 But this person seems to be carrying a plastic bag and backpack.

Speaker 6 When we leave the video on and you don't see her walk back, then we know that she's gone, at this case it was south, and the street she's on is going to dead end into a major thoroughfare.

Speaker 62 Denon Street dead ends at Panama Lane, which goes on for miles in two directions.

Speaker 6 She's either got to go east or west. So detectives are sent out both directions.

Speaker 27 They found security video from a gas station to the west shortly after 9 a.m., but no mystery woman.

Speaker 6 So the attention now is moved to the east.

Speaker 6 And that's over the overpass of Highway 99 and down into a pretty good sight shopping center

Speaker 11 where they found lots of security cameras and lots of video.

Speaker 6 We begin to get video from several different locations in that shopping center, which included a Starbucks, a Lowe's, and the Walmart.

Speaker 62 Do you see anyone fitting that description in the video that you obtained?

Speaker 6 We do. We begin to see someone, same clothing, the glasses, the hat.

Speaker 11 There's the plastic bag and the backpack.

Speaker 6 And then she does something, of course, in Starbucks. It's just extremely bizarre.

Speaker 37 What did she do?

Speaker 6 She goes to the bathroom. and then she comes out wearing different clothes with dark colored colored sweats over the top of them with the same backpack and the same white bag.

Speaker 36 Look behind the woman paying.

Speaker 41 That's their suspect.

Speaker 6 And she's changed shoes also.

Speaker 81 Wow, what is going through your mind as you're watching this video unfold?

Speaker 6 Once I saw that she did not make a purchase, that it's now very obvious to me that this woman went in with the intent to change clothes and conceal herself from us or anyone else that would see her leave in that area.

Speaker 54 Is this a hot day in Bakersfield?

Speaker 6 August is extremely hot, yes. Even people that jog usually don't wear sweats in this weather in our town.
Long clothing and especially clothing, overclothing, very, very unordinary.

Speaker 12 That stood out to you?

Speaker 6 Yes, it did.

Speaker 51 But there were more subtle clues that took the detective some time to see.

Speaker 6 We of course viewed the video, me and my partner and other detectives over and over.

Speaker 6 And we all kind of key in on what looks like a yellow round lid that's visible through the light-colored white plastic bag she's carrying.

Speaker 25 Detective Brewer believed that was a canister of disinfecting wipes.

Speaker 6 And if you're leaving a crime scene, I know what you did with those. You're wiping your crime scene behind you.

Speaker 7 I was not the kind of wife that went through my husband's phone.

Speaker 34 Todd's mystery woman revealed.

Speaker 26 And that woman on camera, what's she up to now?

Speaker 6 Whoever this woman is has had this murder planned and very well planned.

Speaker 77 Diana and Travis Chance had just lost their oldest son, Todd.

Speaker 48 In those first days, it was hard to know what to do.

Speaker 33 So they just tried to be there for Janae and their granddaughters.

Speaker 79 Every night after the murder, we were at their house as much as we could be there. And just, you know, to be with the girls and console her and the girls

Speaker 63 and just for ourselves, too.

Speaker 11 Meanwhile, the investigation was moving fast.

Speaker 23 Detectives found video from a gas station near the almond grove of a car that looked like Todd's Mustang.

Speaker 12 Can you see who's driving the the car?

Speaker 6 You cannot.

Speaker 6 The windows are up and the cameras are just not clear enough to see.

Speaker 11 It's barely clear enough to make out the car, but just at the right time, 8 a.m., it's heading toward the almond grove.

Speaker 11 And then, 26 minutes later, the car is seen heading back toward town.

Speaker 53 Another 30 minutes go by.

Speaker 32 It's 8.57 a.m., just about the time Todd's body was found.

Speaker 39 Here's his car again, passing a gas station around the corner from the spot where it was abandoned.

Speaker 11 The more detectives looked, the more video they found. Here's their suspect after leaving Starbucks in different clothing, crossing the parking lot and heading toward a nearby Lowe's.

Speaker 28 It's hard to make out until the suspect gets closer to the store. Now, the dark shirt, baseball cap, backpack, and plastic bag that Brewer believe held the disinfecting wipes can all be seen.

Speaker 9 They're not perfect, but they certainly are telling you a story.

Speaker 6 Yes, they are. And they're giving us a very good timeline as to what happened after this car was dropped off in a neighborhood.

Speaker 50 To Brewer, it seemed his suspect knew her steps ahead of time.

Speaker 6 This woman is going from place to place. She's doing something everywhere she goes that we get video.

Speaker 6 She's changing clothes at Starbucks.

Speaker 6 She's what appears to be discarding items in front of the Lowe's. She's putting her purse inside the backpack at Lowe's, bent over behind a bunch of crates of manure.

Speaker 62 Then at 9:22, the suspect leaves Lowe's and heads toward Walmart.

Speaker 6 Then she walks into the side door of the Walmart and straight to the payphone.

Speaker 23 And pulls out a piece of paper.

Speaker 6 She's already got numbers wrote down indicating that whoever this woman is has had this murder planned for some time and very well planned.

Speaker 11 She then discards evidence.

Speaker 6 She goes outside past the store and she walks someplace there's no cameras.

Speaker 6 And a few seconds later, she comes back and we no longer see the bleach white bottle.

Speaker 6 So we're thinking that she's gone to a trash can.

Speaker 11 Her next step seemed to have been planned out too.

Speaker 58 23 minutes after she made that phone call, a taxi arrived and whisked her away.

Speaker 60 Now Brewer needed to figure out where.

Speaker 58 Back at the chance home, Janae said she tried to keep track of the fast-moving investigation.

Speaker 42 Are you asking them, do you have any leads? Do you have any suspects?

Speaker 7 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 42 And what are answers every day?

Speaker 81 Are you getting? Nothing. We're working on it.

Speaker 7 Nothing. We're working on it.
They were very, I mean, it was very consistent. Nothing.
We're working on it. We'll let you know.
And that's all I could get.

Speaker 60 It's not unusual for detectives to play their cards close to the vest.

Speaker 36 All the while they were uncovering more information, like the identity of the woman who'd sent the racy photos to Todd's phone.

Speaker 36 It was his old girlfriend, a woman named Carrie, whom he'd met in the early 90s while cruising in that 76 Cobra.

Speaker 48 She became his first big love.

Speaker 79 He really fell for her, I think,

Speaker 79 harder than I thought he did, because the first thing I

Speaker 79 realized was they were going to get an apartment together. And I said,

Speaker 20 okay.

Speaker 58 But it wasn't okay.

Speaker 36 You didn't want him to leave yet.

Speaker 79 No, I didn't want him to leave yet.

Speaker 41 Todd and Carrie were together for five years and then in 1995, it was over.

Speaker 78 By 96, Janae and Todd were getting married.

Speaker 42 Was he, to your knowledge, having any communication with this woman?

Speaker 7 No. No, it was just a name that I had known for many, many years before.
What did he tell you about her?

Speaker 7 We would only talk about her like at the beginning of our relationship, talking about past relationships.

Speaker 7 But it was someone that he, you know, he was involved with, but they broke up.

Speaker 62 But now police told Janae based on their investigation, Todd had recently been in touch with Carrie.

Speaker 52 And it wasn't just a, hey, how are you?

Speaker 56 It was rated R.

Speaker 7 I was not the kind of wife that went through my husband's phone. I didn't.
In my mind, I was thinking he could have hid stuff from me because I never paid attention.

Speaker 7 I was never looking for anything like that because I was so secure in my relationship.

Speaker 32 But then, Janae said she started to wonder.

Speaker 23 Did you believe, though, maybe there was a chance he was living some kind of double life?

Speaker 7 I was contemplating it, but it was terrible because I'm thinking, why do I need to know all this, you know?

Speaker 7 Do I want to wake up with a memory of my husband that I had on the 25th when I woke up that morning, you know?

Speaker 35 Maybe she didn't know her husband as well as she thought.

Speaker 13 Did you think that maybe this other woman might have had something to do with his murder?

Speaker 6 Absolutely. If there's some kind of an affair actually going on, there could be a reason why Carrie would kill him.

Speaker 7 At this point, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she did it.

Speaker 47 Hey, everybody.

Speaker 92 It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 93 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

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Speaker 51 Investigators believe the prime suspect in Todd Chance's murder had been caught on video.

Speaker 64 But who was it?

Speaker 28 And where was their suspect going?

Speaker 11 His widow Janae thought she might know the answer.

Speaker 7 At this point, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she did it.

Speaker 69 She, meaning Todd's ex, Carrie.

Speaker 11 To Janae, it was the only person she could think of who might have a grudge against him.

Speaker 51 Todd's parents knew there had been issues in the past.

Speaker 31 It had been an ugly breakup.

Speaker 13 Things didn't turn out so well for Todd and Carrie.

Speaker 22 I don't want to get into that.

Speaker 79 They parted ways. We don't really know exactly what the circumstances were.
We would ask Todd and he just didn't want to talk about it.

Speaker 23 But detectives needed to know.

Speaker 13 Did you think that maybe this other woman that you found on Todd's phone might have had something to do with his murder?

Speaker 6 Absolutely. We don't rule anyone out until we have an absolute suspect.
And we absolutely couldn't rule Carrie out.

Speaker 11 Detective Brewer learned that after years of not talking, in May of 2012, Carrie, now a dental assistant and single mom, connected with Todd on social media.

Speaker 11 As the detective looked through their exchanges, he noticed they started off innocently enough, but then something caught his attention from April 2013.

Speaker 27 Todd asked Carrie, want to play?

Speaker 53 She responded, no way, married man.

Speaker 50 But remember, Carrie had sent those racy photos detectives found on Todd's phone.

Speaker 65 Do you kind of just run through what a a possible motive could be for someone like that?

Speaker 6 Oh, absolutely. If there's some kind of an affair actually going on between Carrie and Todd, that there could be a reason why Carrie would kill him.

Speaker 53 So Detective Brewer went to talk to Carrie.

Speaker 11 And as his investigation continued, he called Janae to the Sheriff's Department with some news.

Speaker 42 And the police asked you to come in.

Speaker 7 Yes, actually they asked me to come in to pick the car up. They said they were releasing the car.
And so so I called my father-in-law and I said, because it's a stick and I don't drive it.

Speaker 7 I never drove his car.

Speaker 7 After all this, I really didn't want to drive his car either.

Speaker 63 And she called me and said,

Speaker 63 they're going to release Todd's car. Will you go with me to pick it up? She said, take it to your house.
I don't want to ever see it again. So we went over to the house.

Speaker 63 Diane stayed there.

Speaker 63 And I went with her.

Speaker 53 Janae and Travis drove together.

Speaker 63 We walked in and they put us in this little concrete room.

Speaker 11 Though Travis and Janae both sensed something was off, they didn't have much choice, so they waited.

Speaker 67 Doesn't seem like we're picking up a car.

Speaker 23 If the police did know something, they weren't sharing.

Speaker 58 But Janae offered her own theory about why her husband might have been killed.

Speaker 67 It was like gang-related. They'll have these little 14 year olds that'll come and say they did it all to take the heat because they don't get in as much trouble.
I can't imagine

Speaker 67 something happening like that to God.

Speaker 21 It was four days after the murder and Travis was still visibly shaken.

Speaker 67 I lay down at night thinking about it.

Speaker 67 Wake up in the morning

Speaker 67 in the middle of the night.

Speaker 63 Everything's kind of a blur, but detective walked in and said, we're going to have you guys look at at videos and Mr. Chance, we want you to look first.

Speaker 23 Investigators wanted him to look at all the security camera footage they had gathered. What did you see in the video?

Speaker 63 Saw a lady walking down the street,

Speaker 63 different things.

Speaker 63 They're just saying,

Speaker 63 do you recognize her?

Speaker 23 Travis told them he didn't.

Speaker 44 They also asked Janae.

Speaker 7 The videos from up overhead and

Speaker 7 just walking back and forth. And they kept telling me, they go, Ken, do you recognize the gait? Do you recognize the way she's walking?

Speaker 11 That distinctive walk Brewer had noticed.

Speaker 65 But Janae says she didn't recognize it or anything about the person in the video.

Speaker 7 I was totally thinking when I was watching that, I was looking for the other woman.

Speaker 69 The other woman, meaning Todd's ex, Carrie.

Speaker 23 But if Janae thought they were asking her to help ID Carrie in the video, she was dead wrong.

Speaker 57 Detectives have their eyes on someone else. Someone much closer to home.

Speaker 29 Are you joking?

Speaker 8 It came as a shock.

Speaker 16 Complete shock.

Speaker 50 Todd Chance had been murdered, and his family was trying to understand life without him.

Speaker 7 I mean, he's everywhere in this house.

Speaker 42 What do you miss most about him?

Speaker 7 Just having him to talk to. That was like when we went to bed at night, that was our

Speaker 7 downtime, no kids around, and just talk about, you know, what was going on for the next day and

Speaker 7 our plans.

Speaker 7 That's what I miss.

Speaker 11 Four days after Todd's murder, Janae and her father-in-law had gone down to the sheriff's office to pick up Todd's car.

Speaker 36 That's what they thought anyway.

Speaker 67 That's what I was asking him.

Speaker 10 I said, when am I going to get his phone back?

Speaker 67 Because I feel like if I had his phone and I can look at all his text messages and things.

Speaker 67 I guess they've got his phone.

Speaker 20 They're going to get that back to you today or something.

Speaker 78 Travis and Janae had both said they didn't recognize the woman in the videos.

Speaker 51 But detectives kept asking Janae questions.

Speaker 7 I really thought, they're still trying to help me out. They're trying to solve this for me.

Speaker 76 As Janae sat there watching video of the person detectives believed killed her husband, she says it gradually began to dawn on her.

Speaker 44 Todd's ex-girlfriend wasn't the suspect at all.

Speaker 7 And I realized, oh my goodness, they think it's me.

Speaker 60 She was right.

Speaker 58 Detectives told her flat out they thought she was the woman in the videos.

Speaker 25 They thought she was the one who killed Todd.

Speaker 23 Suddenly, Janae was in the hot seat.

Speaker 28 She said they began pressing her.

Speaker 7 They were getting gruff with me,

Speaker 7 but I handle gruff well.

Speaker 7 I'm a principal of an elementary school.

Speaker 7 I get parents that come in and they are mad as anything.

Speaker 7 That's fine. They're not mad at me.
They're mad at the situation. I can handle that.

Speaker 71 But Janae said detectives kept at her.

Speaker 7 I've never been talked to like the way he was yelling at me. And then I just, I did ask him to stop yelling at me and he wouldn't.
And so then I said I want an attorney. And then they arrested me.

Speaker 23 Janae was charged with Todd's murder.

Speaker 48 It turned out when detectives asked her to come pick up her husband's car, they had other plans all along.

Speaker 12 So, this was a bit of a ruse to get to get her in.

Speaker 91 Yes.

Speaker 51 It may have seemed like a sudden turn of events, but the thing was, Detective Brewer had suspicions about Janae from the very beginning.

Speaker 48 He thought her reaction to the news of her husband's murder didn't seem quite right.

Speaker 65 That's why investigators decided to secretly turn on an audio recorder as they talked to her on that first day.

Speaker 59 Have you guys had any nerd problems later?

Speaker 22 No.

Speaker 58 No.

Speaker 22 Get along. Okay.

Speaker 59 Yes, we always do.

Speaker 11 Later, as Brewer watched and re-watched those videos, he became convinced that the woman who'd been caught on camera was Janae.

Speaker 23 When he confronted her with the videos at the police station, her reaction only confirmed his suspicion.

Speaker 6 Usually, if it's not you in the video, I get an outburst of anger, like, who is that woman? You think that's me?

Speaker 6 And what I get at one point from her is,

Speaker 6 well, that can't be me. That woman's too heavy.

Speaker 12 Are you convinced at this point that Janae is your killer?

Speaker 6 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 23 While Janae was being booked for murder, her house was getting turned upside down by detectives looking for evidence.

Speaker 34 Todd's mom was there.

Speaker 79 I think it dawned on me then when they did the search warrant because they were taking all the computers and all the cell phones, all the electronic

Speaker 79 stuff.

Speaker 64 And I thought,

Speaker 63 oh my gosh. They suspect her.

Speaker 61 That's gotta be a huge blow.

Speaker 79 It was.

Speaker 36 Now, along with mourning their son's death, Diana and Travis had to stomach the idea that their daughter-in-law might be involved in his murder.

Speaker 45 But Janae's daughters weren't having it.

Speaker 29 Are you joking?

Speaker 8 It came as a shock.

Speaker 16 Complete shock.

Speaker 22 Oh, I know.

Speaker 36 The girls were in danger of losing the only parent they had left.

Speaker 50 It was hard.

Speaker 66 Everything was just being thrown at us. and just, it was crazy.
I just wanted to see her in hunger.

Speaker 24 Like that was it. That was all I was thinking about.

Speaker 48 The case was soon the talk of Bakersfield.

Speaker 38 Deputies arrested Chance's wife, Leslie Janae, the principal at Fairview Elementary School.

Speaker 42 What was it like for you being in jail?

Speaker 7 It was the worst,

Speaker 7 worst experience. I'm thinking, how can this happen in America? And then I was so worried because of what was going on at my house with my girls.

Speaker 23 There was nothing Janae could do but wait for her arraignment.

Speaker 49 She figured Jessica would be in court and was anxious about being able to see her.

Speaker 7 I know she's going to want me to look at her and I can't see because I didn't have my contacts and I didn't have my glasses were taken away from me and they wouldn't let me take them to court.

Speaker 7 I wanted to look at my daughter. I wanted to look at a familiar face.

Speaker 98 But that didn't happen because Janae never made it inside that courtroom.

Speaker 15 So you arrest Janae, you have her in custody, and then four days later, a big twist comes along in this case.

Speaker 6 It was for me, yeah, it was a big twist.

Speaker 42 Are you capable of murdering someone? No.

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 42 Did you plan the murder of your husband? No.

Speaker 73 A turn in the case. Did detectives jump the gun?

Speaker 7 What they did, I believe, it's arrest now and investigate later.

Speaker 47 Hey, everybody.

Speaker 92 It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 93 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 92 Fox.

Speaker 47 There are new episodes out every Thursday.

Speaker 4 So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 97 Congrats.

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Speaker 78 How much did you miss him?

Speaker 24 Oh, tons. I still miss him.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 28 After Todd Chance's murder, his daughters were consumed by their loss.

Speaker 8 Stuff that pops up, and you're like, God,

Speaker 8 he would have loved that.

Speaker 24 I would see something and be like, and my immediate thought was, oh, I got to tell my dad. And I can't.

Speaker 23 Then, just four days after losing their dad, their mom was taken away, too.

Speaker 57 She was under arrest, charged with Todd's murder.

Speaker 25 But just as Janae's daughters prepared themselves for her court appearance, they got some good news.

Speaker 11 The DA decided not to file charges against Janae.

Speaker 23 Prosecutors thought the blurry videos wouldn't be enough to convince a jury and told the detectives to go back to the drawing board.

Speaker 48 People who knew Janae as a principal told her affiliate KGET in Bakersfield there was no way she was a killer.

Speaker 6 She's well-respected. She's hardworking, beloved by her students and staff.

Speaker 37 After four nights in jail, Janae was free to go.

Speaker 49 We sat down with her three months later in November of 2013.

Speaker 33 She talked about the moment her lawyer broke the news to her.

Speaker 7 He said he'll be going home. And

Speaker 7 the weight just lifted off me.

Speaker 23 She was relieved, but also annoyed that police wasted precious time on her instead of following other leads.

Speaker 7 What they did is,

Speaker 7 I believe, it's arrest now and investigate later. They always look at the spouse.

Speaker 20 They have to. Right.

Speaker 7 That was perfectly fine with me. Get me out of the way so you can get on to bigger and better things.
I had no problem with that because I had nothing to hide. They're looking at me like crazy.

Speaker 7 Look at me. I'm the most boring person in the world.

Speaker 44 Detectives weren't buying it.

Speaker 53 They believed Janae knew months before Todd was killed that he had connected with his ex, Carrie.

Speaker 42 Is it possible that you were seeking revenge on your husband?

Speaker 81 That you were angry was not possible because I didn't know.

Speaker 7 I would have talked to Todd about it. I mean, that's no ifs, ands, or buts.
You know, I've been married before. I've been in that situation before.

Speaker 7 And I walked away. We separated, and

Speaker 7 that's what happened.

Speaker 60 Are you capable of murdering someone?

Speaker 7 No, no.

Speaker 42 Did you plan the murder of your husband? Did you kill your husband? No.

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 7 I love my husband very much.

Speaker 28 She says her daughters were eyewitnesses who could prove her innocence because they were home with her the morning Todd was killed.

Speaker 42 What time did your daughter wake up or what time can you be placed here by someone?

Speaker 7 That I know of. I believe my daughter

Speaker 7 saw me around 10, but I believe my other daughter She told my attorney that she came down at 9.30 and just came down the stairs and saw me working over on the table and then went up and went back to bed.

Speaker 7 And I didn't even know she came downstairs.

Speaker 17 The support of her girls never wavered.

Speaker 83 But her in-laws, that was another story.

Speaker 7 Do they think you're guilty? I think they do. I think the police officers or the investigators have told them such that there's, I think they've just told them no, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Speaker 7 We know it's her. And they've believed that, which is tough.

Speaker 69 Diana and Travis did indeed believe that their daughter-in-law, who vowed to love, honor, and cherish their oldest son, had done the unthinkable.

Speaker 63 When it it first started, I didn't want to think it was her. I got all these thoughts running through my head.

Speaker 63 I didn't want to think that she could kill my son.

Speaker 23 But Travis, who had initially not identified the woman in the videos as Janae, had come to a painful conclusion.

Speaker 34 He now believed it was her.

Speaker 44 Is this a shock?

Speaker 63 Well, it's coming pretty fast. It's just like them telling you your son's dead.
You don't want to believe that. And then they tell you that his wife is the one that did it.

Speaker 63 You don't want to believe that either. It's just kind of like a nightmare.
You keep wanting somebody to slap you and wake you up.

Speaker 62 While her in-laws suspected her, Janae still wondered about Todd's ex, Carrie.

Speaker 65 But detectives had already gotten past her.

Speaker 11 Carrie and Todd had stopped communicating months before his murder.

Speaker 40 They never had an affair or even met in person.

Speaker 49 And the mystery woman in the video, Brewer said, didn't look like Carrie.

Speaker 6 There was just some things about Carrie and the way Carrie walked, carried herself, and her physical features that told me that this is not the same woman on these videos.

Speaker 11 Most importantly, she was with her daughter and some friends several hours away near the mission San Juan Capistrano when Todd was killed.

Speaker 6 And combine that with her car getting a parking ticket because she parks somewhere she shouldn't have. We were also able to confirm the parking ticket with the date and time.

Speaker 50 As far as police were concerned, Carrie was in the clear.

Speaker 40 But Janae was more determined than ever to clear her own name and find her husband's killer.

Speaker 7 As much as I

Speaker 7 have brought up my girls on, it doesn't matter what other people think.

Speaker 7 This, it matters what other people think. You know, it does.
It matters,

Speaker 7 you know, for

Speaker 7 my family and my community to know.

Speaker 7 You know, plus we deserve to know the answers. What happened to this great man?

Speaker 80 Janae told us a cold case wasn't an option, and it wasn't for Detective Brewer either.

Speaker 61 He kept digging.

Speaker 6 We found after searching her home that there was several life insurance policies that had been taken out for Todd.

Speaker 97 Several?

Speaker 6 Several.

Speaker 78 Totaling how much money?

Speaker 6 We totaled, I think, three or four of them at close to a half a million dollars.

Speaker 23 As suspicious as that sounds, Janae said she and her husband had each taken out policies naming the other as beneficiary.

Speaker 7 They were taken out eight and ten years ago. All her policies are very old.

Speaker 23 Janae was also the main breadwinner of the family. She said she didn't need the money.

Speaker 42 Did you receive or are you going to receive any life insurance money?

Speaker 7 I have not received any life insurance money, and that's because the investigators have put a halt to that. I wish I could get my insurance policies just to hire an investigator and do this right.

Speaker 7 But I am frustrated at this point, extremely frustrated.

Speaker 23 She wasn't the only one.

Speaker 33 It would be three years before anything changed with Todd's case.

Speaker 82 But a whole lot would change with Janae.

Speaker 37 Just wait until you see her.

Speaker 37 How much do you miss him?

Speaker 53 I miss him.

Speaker 82 When we spoke to Janae Chance in 2013, she was out of jail, but still the prime suspect in the murder of her husband, Todd.

Speaker 42 Does your gut tell you that they're going to arrest you again?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 7 It does it, but I still have that uneasiness.

Speaker 44 I feel confident in

Speaker 7 my innocence that I think there's no way. They can't.

Speaker 32 And she was right.

Speaker 61 They hadn't.

Speaker 27 Years passed.

Speaker 46 Todd's murder remained unsolved.

Speaker 23 And Janae began to collect on his life insurance policies.

Speaker 81 Except for one policy that Todd's parents found out about and thought they could contest.

Speaker 63 We paid a lawyer to tell us how to take that away from Janae and give it to the girls.

Speaker 63 And we went to court.

Speaker 37 We did too.

Speaker 28 It was 2016, three years after we first met Janae.

Speaker 33 When she arrived at court, we barely recognized her.

Speaker 11 That slim woman in dark pants and a polka dot top is Janae.

Speaker 57 She shed nearly 100 pounds from lap band surgery.

Speaker 62 A woman transformed.

Speaker 23 She strode confidently into court.

Speaker 43 But once inside, she agreed to a settlement.

Speaker 23 Travis and Diana got what they wanted. The money went to their grandkids, not Janae.

Speaker 79 All in all, it was a good day.

Speaker 58 We accomplished

Speaker 79 what we've been trying to do for over a year. So

Speaker 63 trying to keep her from getting the money.

Speaker 79 To keep her from being rewarded for

Speaker 63 what we think she's done.

Speaker 82 They hadn't seen Janae in a while either.

Speaker 56 Were you shocked at her weight loss?

Speaker 63 Yeah.

Speaker 79 Yeah. We saw her at some Sarah's softball games and we were standing about

Speaker 79 50 feet from her and didn't recognize her. And I said, she's less than half the person that she was before.

Speaker 53 Janae's daughters say the weight loss brought their mother obvious joy.

Speaker 23 Did you notice a change in your mom's?

Speaker 22 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Yeah. You know, a skip in her step?

Speaker 22 Yeah.

Speaker 41 She was a lot happier.

Speaker 24 You can just see she was more herself. Like she wasn't holding back at all.
She would dance and like just

Speaker 66 more confident.

Speaker 24 Yeah, more. Yeah, exactly.
More confident.

Speaker 18 Three years after Todd's death, Janae seemed to be moving on.

Speaker 56 But Detective Brewer wasn't.

Speaker 23 Months turned into years as he slowly gathered evidence, trying to nail down every detail.

Speaker 6 I would get up and think of, do we think of this? Did we think of that? And about every two or three months, something else would pop up that we didn't notice right up front.

Speaker 23 Like the time he was looking through photos from the search of the chance house and something caught his eye.

Speaker 6 It's a picture of Todd and Janae and their two girls. They're in some type of a crime scene dress-up.
So as I go through the financial records, I notice an expenditure to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Speaker 11 It was from that great summer before Todd died when the Chances took all those vacations.

Speaker 6 And I see CSI the experience, and I've never heard of it.

Speaker 41 It's based on the popular TV crime drama, Brewer raced to Las Vegas to see it for himself.

Speaker 6 It was a huge exhibit with three different scenarios. And of course, one of them is a woman who murders her husband and dumps his body in the desert.

Speaker 22 Wow.

Speaker 6 Yes, that's exactly what I said.

Speaker 86 Wow.

Speaker 44 Brewer saw parallels to his real investigation.

Speaker 11 The CSI exhibit showed how detectives can track a suspect's cell phone.

Speaker 23 The suspect in the video used a payphone at the Walmart.

Speaker 45 Another display showcased shoe prints at a crime scene.

Speaker 23 Remember how the suspect in the video changed her shoes at the Starbucks?

Speaker 61 Was it almost like the principal had gone to some form of like murder school?

Speaker 6 Exactly.

Speaker 62 If Janae had learned how to wipe down a crime scene, it might explain why investigators were only able to get one fingerprint off Todd's Mustang.

Speaker 57 Whose fingerprint was it?

Speaker 6 Janae's.

Speaker 23 What made it suspicious was that it was on the driver's side door.

Speaker 50 Did she ever drive Todd's car?

Speaker 6 She told us she hadn't.

Speaker 53 Something she told me, too.

Speaker 7 Because it's a stick and I don't drive it.

Speaker 58 But the evidence inside the car told investigators something different.

Speaker 78 They found Janae's DNA on both the steering wheel and the gear shift knob.

Speaker 6 Places that it should not be if you're not the driver.

Speaker 23 She also told everyone she hated guns.

Speaker 11 Yet that summer of fun included a family shooting trip just weeks before Todd died.

Speaker 30 Here's Janae with the very gun found inside Todd's Mustang.

Speaker 23 The gun police proved was the murder weapon.

Speaker 11 All of this evidence was circumstantial, of course, but some evidence was harder to explain away.

Speaker 23 Investigators had found more security videos.

Speaker 41 This one showed where the taxi took their suspect after it left Walmart.

Speaker 6 She gets dropped off at a Sam's Club in the front. And she walks away from there.

Speaker 65 That location was key because it was only a mile away from Todd and Janae's house.

Speaker 11 The next camera captures the suspect even closer to their house.

Speaker 51 It's 10.10 a.m.

Speaker 69 on the day Todd was killed.

Speaker 23 The figure is in different clothes and appears to be running.

Speaker 46 And in the suspect's hand, you can see a piece of paper.

Speaker 6 I'm thinking that's probably the numbers for the taxicab that she's going to discard. She doesn't want to be caught with that.

Speaker 36 Here, just around the corner from the chance house, a few minutes later, another fleeting image.

Speaker 23 Brewer thought that was Janae racing to get home and that she had to be the killer.

Speaker 53 The videos alone hadn't been enough for the DA before, so Brewer kept digging.

Speaker 45 He discovered that three weeks before the murder, Janae made a purchase at a Walmart she never otherwise shopped at, the one where the suspect had used the payphone.

Speaker 6 So we went back to Walmart, of course, and pulled the video for that transaction.

Speaker 37 The video clearly showed Janae at the Walmart.

Speaker 6 And we find something that just really, really bizarre. And for me, it was the absolute turning point of the case.

Speaker 68 What was it?

Speaker 6 She walks up to the greeter and she begins to talk to him. And she raises her hand up to her ear,

Speaker 6 like this.

Speaker 53 What do you think she was doing?

Speaker 6 I believe she asked that greeter where the payphone was.

Speaker 62 The detective knew Janae had a work cell and a personal cell, so he believed there was only one reason she would need a payphone to make her plan work.

Speaker 69 And then he got the last piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 11 Her laptop had been sent to the FBI lab for analysis, the one she'd said she'd been using when Todd was killed.

Speaker 80 Finally, the results came back.

Speaker 6 No one had been manually manipulating that computer until about 11 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 50 No one's typing on keys or searching.

Speaker 6 No one's moving the mouse. No one's typing keys.

Speaker 50 But that was her story that she was on the computer.

Speaker 6 That's correct. The alibi is now gone.

Speaker 60 December 1st, 2016, more than three years after Todd's murder, they had enough to arrest Janae.

Speaker 19 Again,

Speaker 21 how did it go down?

Speaker 6 We had a team follow her back from her office and she was stopped by a patrol car.

Speaker 6 The officer told her that she was stopped for a traffic violation, and then I just walked up as he got her out of the car and told her that she was under arrest for the murder of her husband.

Speaker 62 And what was her reaction?

Speaker 6 She said,

Speaker 6 Are you kidding me? And I said, No, ma'am, we are not kidding you.

Speaker 6 You like crazy?

Speaker 48 Janae's daughter, Jessica.

Speaker 73 Detectives have some questions to ask and some video to show.

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Speaker 21 Janae Chance was under arrest again for the murder of her husband Todd.

Speaker 26 She sat down with me in early 2020.

Speaker 81 Tell us about that moment.

Speaker 7 Surprised, dumbfounded. I thought this will all be corrected.
It will all be corrected and I'll be home.

Speaker 30 So let's talk a little bit about how things have changed since 2013.

Speaker 57 She'd had the lap band surgery before Todd's death, but if Janae was hoping to start a new life, now it was shattered.

Speaker 46 On the day of her arrest, detectives questioned her daughters.

Speaker 23 Detective Brewer asked Jessica about Janae's behavior the day Todd was murdered.

Speaker 26 How about your mom?

Speaker 6 Was she reacting the way you would think

Speaker 22 a wife would react when she's got told that her husband was murdered?

Speaker 28 Jessica stood by her mom.

Speaker 11 Then Detective Brewer showed her those security videos.

Speaker 39 It was the first time Jessica had ever seen them.

Speaker 78 And right away, something jumped out at her.

Speaker 7 Can you like freeze it?

Speaker 28 Remember the backpack the suspect was carrying? In most of the videos, the color is hard to see.

Speaker 41 But here, it sort of looks red.

Speaker 62 Jessica thought she recognized it.

Speaker 66 Do you have that backpack?

Speaker 89 Because I'm telling you, if it was the backpack, then I think it is very distinctive.

Speaker 11 When she saw the backpack, something seemed to click.

Speaker 91 That's your mother.

Speaker 78 Jessica, who had been one of her mom's most ardent supporters, appeared to come all at once to a terrible realization.

Speaker 6 Is that your mother?

Speaker 6 I think we will go all the way.

Speaker 6 Is that your mother in all the videos? I do believe so.

Speaker 11 And she went a step further, much further, when Detective Brewer asked her about the video from Walmart.

Speaker 6 Do you think the reason why she got sent me out with a payphone is?

Speaker 11 It seemed that Jessica had done a 180 and now believed her mom had killed her stepdad.

Speaker 36 That day, anyway, by the time we interviewed her four years later, Jessica had done another about face.

Speaker 23 She now says investigators duped her by showing her the Walmart video along with all the others.

Speaker 8 They show me a video that is very clearly of my mother.

Speaker 8 And I thought, well, yeah, that's her.

Speaker 8 And then I just started bawling because I was like, well, if that's her and the last one, it's her and all of them because I thought they were all the same day.

Speaker 60 If Jessica ever doubted her mother's innocence, she says she doesn't anymore.

Speaker 23 Did part of you worry or think maybe this could be my mom?

Speaker 8 I mean, your mind goes there, but when you look at it, it's just it's not her and everything that's transpired from everything,

Speaker 8 and there's no way. No way.

Speaker 21 All three of Janae's daughters told me the person in the videos was not their mom, and that despite what Detective Brewer says, maybe not even a woman.

Speaker 20 There's no way to know.

Speaker 24 Especially the last one when the guy's like running across the street, it looks like a male.

Speaker 81 You also say that your mom

Speaker 24 would never run. Never ran.
Or jaywalked. Never jaywalked.
That was a big deal. Like, she would walk forever just to go across on a crosswalk.

Speaker 30 As for the backpack, you even recognized the red backpack?

Speaker 8 Yeah, growing up, there was a red backpack around, but I hadn't seen it in years prior to that.

Speaker 23 Janae couldn't believe police still thought she killed her husband.

Speaker 7 So I'm an elementary school principal, and, you know, for anyone to believe that I would do this, I understand the investigators don't know the relationship between my husband and myself, but they are investigators.

Speaker 7 They should have researched and known this.

Speaker 55 I'm going to go through at least some of the evidence in this case.

Speaker 23 Janae's trial began on December 9th, 2019.

Speaker 11 Kern County prosecutors Andrea Kohler and Art Norris told the jury that the elementary school principal had not only killed her husband, she'd enrolled herself in murder 101.

Speaker 55 Leslie Janae Chance, through her actions, prepared a very involved and detailed lesson plan on how to kill her husband, how to murder him, how to murder Todd Chance. And in fact, on August 25th, 2013,

Speaker 77 that's exactly what she did.

Speaker 83 The prosecutors believe there were multiple motives.

Speaker 48 Jealousy.

Speaker 55 You're going to hear, ladies and gentlemen, that those photos were sent to the cell phone of Todd Chance.

Speaker 34 Money.

Speaker 55 You're going to hear about some life insurance policies and something more complicated.

Speaker 99 We both think that her love for Todd had died long before that trigger was pulled. She had plenty of photographs in her office of her kids and everything else, but not one single photo anywhere.

Speaker 99 of her husband.

Speaker 98 You're going to hear that they told the jurors about the videos, the gun, how Todd's shoes had had no dust.

Speaker 19 And then the prosecution called a key witness, a woman who had been visiting Todd and Janae's neighbor the morning of the murder.

Speaker 27 She testified that she saw the Mustang pull out of the garage with Todd driving.

Speaker 23 But he wasn't alone.

Speaker 69 Next to him was a woman wearing a cap and large sunglasses.

Speaker 100 I just happened to glance into the car, and it was a male and a female, and the female glanced my way, and then that's when I turned away.

Speaker 99 I would say that she was the single most

Speaker 99 important witness we had because quite frankly, if you believe her, we're done. There's no other explanation.

Speaker 65 According to Brewer and the prosecutors, it all added up to murder.

Speaker 6 What I believe happened is that she at some point had confronted Todd about the photographs and probably told him we're not going to be able to argue out this inside the house with the kids.

Speaker 6 So let's go for a drive.

Speaker 99 They left the house together, clearly. They drove out to the almond grove.

Speaker 6 As soon as he pulled over, I think she shot him.

Speaker 6 He had raised one arm up as he seized the gun in a defensive manner, shot through the hand and then into the chest, and then a second shot into the chest.

Speaker 99 Pulled his body out of the car, laid his body in the dirt with his wallet there so that he would be identified.

Speaker 99 and that's important so that they could then go to the house and notify her and she would be at home.

Speaker 6 And then she'd roll somewhere and clean the car up with the bleach wipes.

Speaker 99 She then left that location and parked her car in front of essentially a drug house with the gun and the car key clearly visible so that a person possibly leaving this drug house would see it and think, hey, I've just basically won the lottery.

Speaker 6 And then

Speaker 6 the location to location begins. It's just trying to keep us from ever finding out who she is.

Speaker 55 It was a great example of a case where all of the evidence just fit together.

Speaker 91 Many court hearings.

Speaker 89 Not so fast, said the defense.

Speaker 91 Janae has been wanting her day in court, and here it is.

Speaker 43 Janae's attorney said he had actual proof she was innocent.

Speaker 71 And his store witness, no surprise, was Janae herself.

Speaker 81 You brought into question the credibility of the detective.

Speaker 15 We did.

Speaker 91 Within four days, Detective Brewer was convinced that it was her.

Speaker 32 Was this a rush to judgment?

Speaker 23 All eyes would be on the stand.

Speaker 45 And Janae Chance.

Speaker 7 I spoke the truth. I spoke my truth.

Speaker 55 There is a body.

Speaker 57 Murder cases are often circumstantial.

Speaker 10 The prosecution tries to assemble a bunch of small puzzle pieces into one big picture.

Speaker 23 And the defense, its job is to tear it apart.

Speaker 37 That's exactly what Janae's attorney, Tony Lidgett, aimed to do.

Speaker 91 I believe if any married person

Speaker 6 gets killed,

Speaker 91 the spouse is number one suspect, no matter what. Within four days, Detective Brewer was convinced that it was her.

Speaker 45 That's true.

Speaker 60 Brewer had arrested Janae just four days after the murder and had to release her because there wasn't enough evidence.

Speaker 71 You brought into question the credibility of the detective. We did.

Speaker 58 The defense said Detective Brewer had tunnel vision and ignored key evidence, like the fact that Janae had an alibi.

Speaker 11 Daughter Sarah said she saw her mom working at home around the time Todd was killed.

Speaker 91 And she stated that when she woke up, she saw her mom. Her mom was downstairs doing what she always does

Speaker 91 every Sunday, which is laundry. She was watching TV, doing laundry, and looked like she was doing work at the same time.

Speaker 71 Not only that, the defense accused the detective of hiding evidence.

Speaker 62 Detective Brewer had interviewed friends and colleagues of Janae's who watched the security videos and couldn't identify her.

Speaker 91 It was never checked into evidence.

Speaker 23 Of them looking at the surveillance video

Speaker 65 and saying.

Speaker 91 Saying that it wasn't her.

Speaker 11 And, said the defense, the prosecution's key eyewitness was wrong.

Speaker 23 There was no way Janae could have been in the passenger seat of Todd's car as it was backing out of the garage.

Speaker 58 The defense said Todd wouldn't let anyone get in the car in the garage because the door was too close to the wall.

Speaker 91 You can't get in the passenger side where the car is parked. You actually have to back out and people have to get in.
There's just not enough room. Janae was way too big.

Speaker 23 Then Janae herself made what may have been the most critical decision of the trial.

Speaker 71 You decided to take the stand.

Speaker 81 Yes. Why did you feel so strongly about that?

Speaker 7 Because I know my truth.

Speaker 23 Janae spent days on the witness stand and told the jury her side.

Speaker 53 That she loved her husband, that she had no idea there were naked photos on his phone, so she had nothing to be jealous of.

Speaker 36 That as the breadwinner in her family, she didn't need a life insurance payout and perhaps most important she had proof that the woman in the video could not be her the reason was very simple to understand her attorney said even though she had to wear glasses or she was

Speaker 28 virtually blind janae chance was extremely nearsighted no way she could have navigated the streets of bakersfield without her glasses And since Janae didn't wear contacts and didn't own prescription sunglasses, the defense said the woman in the big sunglasses was not Janae.

Speaker 23 Detective Brewer had been on the case for more than six years.

Speaker 25 He even delayed his retirement to see it through.

Speaker 34 Now, seeing Janae testify, he felt the need to pray.

Speaker 6 There are certain things that the Lord is just going to have to take control of, and that's what this is. We're going to need some real help here.

Speaker 76 You specifically hoped that she would be caught in a lie, and you turned to God for that.

Speaker 6 I did, and she was.

Speaker 33 The lie lie involved that very specific and critical detail in Janae's testimony.

Speaker 55 She had made such a big deal about the fact that she could not see without glasses, that she did not like contact lenses.

Speaker 55 It had been years since she had tried contact lenses and they really played that. Never.

Speaker 48 Janae's defense attorney even brought records from her eye doctor.

Speaker 44 They proved she had bad eyesight and never bought prescription sunglasses.

Speaker 45 But then the prosecutor looked through the same records and found something else, something big.

Speaker 55 Sure enough, it showed that in fact in July of 2013, a month before the murder, that she had obtained two boxes of contact lenses.

Speaker 46 On cross-examination, Kohler confronted Janae with Janae's own medical records.

Speaker 11 Watching in the courtroom, Detective Brewer knew this was the moment he'd prayed for.

Speaker 6 It was an absolute lie,

Speaker 6 and she was just absolutely caught in it and right in front of the jury.

Speaker 23 Cameras weren't allowed during testimony, so the moment wasn't captured on video.

Speaker 78 But I asked Janae about it.

Speaker 40 What was your vision like at the time of the murder?

Speaker 50 Are you still wearing glasses, contacts?

Speaker 86 Oh, glasses. Don't answer that question.

Speaker 22 Oh.

Speaker 27 That's Janae's attorney off-camera counseling her not to respond.

Speaker 82 She ignored him.

Speaker 7 I spoke the truth. I spoke my truth there.
And I know I was never wearing contacts during 2013.

Speaker 53 But remember, Janae talked to us in 2013.

Speaker 81 You were not wearing glasses in our interview, which was just

Speaker 30 not too long after you got out of jail.

Speaker 36 Were you wearing contacts?

Speaker 7 I know, no, absolutely not. I do know that there was a time that I would take my glasses off for pictures because I thought I looked better without the glasses.

Speaker 23 But it wasn't just the interview.

Speaker 81 You didn't seem to be struggling, or even in our walk in the yard, you seemed fine without the glasses.

Speaker 7 I just don't recall that.

Speaker 11 But you might recall another thing she told us back then about wanting to see her daughter, Jessica, in court.

Speaker 7 I know she's going to want me to look at her, and I can't see because I didn't have my contacts, and I didn't have my glasses.

Speaker 82 Did you catch that?

Speaker 32 Let's play it again.

Speaker 7 And I can't see because I didn't have my contacts and I didn't have my glasses.

Speaker 61 The big lie about her contacts undercut Janae's credibility.

Speaker 39 And prosecutors said there was something else Janae couldn't hide.

Speaker 62 Her unmistakable walk.

Speaker 55 The defendant had a very distinct walk, a very distinct gait. She swung her arms, she walked very forcefully, kind of a large step walk.

Speaker 11 Much like the suspect in those security videos, said the prosecution.

Speaker 6 The body appearance is very similar, and absolutely, the walk was absolutely similar.

Speaker 62 The jury, of course, didn't hear about our experience with Janae, but they had heard plenty.

Speaker 41 After Janae was caught in that lie about the contacts by the prosecution, her lawyer tried to repair the damage in closing arguments.

Speaker 91 We brought in the records. There were no prescription sunglasses, but yeah, there were contacts that were purchased.

Speaker 91 But there are 10,000 photos, and every photo has her with glasses. She always wore glasses.
She didn't like contacts.

Speaker 55 I was on that.

Speaker 11 The prosecution told the jury it wasn't just the contacts. Janae Chance was lying about everything.

Speaker 55 So ladies and gentlemen, based on all of the evidence in this case, I would ask you to find the defendant, Leslie Janae Chance, guilty of the first-degree premeditated and deliberated murder of Todd Chance.

Speaker 37 Now, six years after Todd's murder, the case was in the hands of the jury.

Speaker 7 I thought, my goodness, they're not only going to stand up and say she's not guilty, they're going to say she's innocent and this was a ridiculous

Speaker 7 case.

Speaker 60 Eight days of deliberation later?

Speaker 74 Would they?

Speaker 6 When it gets past three days, I begin to worry. When it gets past four or five, I'm really worried.

Speaker 23 Janae Chance had spent three years in jail awaiting trial for the murder of her husband Todd.

Speaker 32 By the time the case went to the jury, it looked like the odds were against her.

Speaker 62 But Janae didn't think so.

Speaker 11 She could almost taste freedom. How were you feeling?

Speaker 7 I was very confident. I expected to go back the next day and it'd be done.

Speaker 7 Actually, when I would lay in bed at night, I thought, my goodness, they're not only going to stand up and say she's not guilty, they're going to say she's innocent and this was a ridiculous, you know, case.

Speaker 11 Todd and Janae's daughters, who visited their mother twice a week, couldn't wait to get her home.

Speaker 24 Yeah, we even have her favorite ice cream. This is the thing that she really wanted when she got out.

Speaker 41 So it's here waiting for her.

Speaker 75 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 19 They got her room ready and hung her clothes in the closet.

Speaker 23 Meanwhile, the jury deliberated. How nervous were you waiting for the verdict?

Speaker 6 More than normal. When it gets past three days, I begin to worry.
When it gets past four or five, I'm really worried.

Speaker 36 After eight days, the call finally came in. Everyone headed to court.

Speaker 13 The jury comes back from deliberating.

Speaker 82 How are you two holding up?

Speaker 79 Oh, I am squeezing the hand of the DA's victim's advocate. I looked at each one of the jury members and I thought,

Speaker 79 is it going to be

Speaker 79 guilty or hung jury or what?

Speaker 7 When the verdict came in, I thought I heard it wrong. I seriously thought I heard it wrong.
We, the jury, find the defendant, Leslie Janae Chance, guilty of a felony.

Speaker 49 The jury convicted Janae of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 23 This is the moment you've been waiting for for years.

Speaker 97 How are you feeling?

Speaker 63 Mixed emotions, because we're thinking about the girls. The justice for Todd was good, but nobody really won.
Everybody lost because of what she did.

Speaker 23 For a while, Travis and Diana felt like they had lost their granddaughters too.

Speaker 35 That's got to be heartbreaking.

Speaker 99 Oh,

Speaker 79 it's very heartbreaking.

Speaker 61 Is there anything you would say to them if they're listening?

Speaker 65 I love them very much.

Speaker 7 We love them unconditionally.

Speaker 42 Your grandparents, Todd's parents, have not supported your mom.

Speaker 28 How has that affected your relationship?

Speaker 61 We try to keep a relationship with them.

Speaker 24 They are my grandparents. I'm always gonna love them, have love for them.

Speaker 24 But

Speaker 24 the way that they see how things are with this,

Speaker 24 it makes it very difficult sometimes.

Speaker 78 They told us they miss you.

Speaker 42 Do you have any reaction to that?

Speaker 24 I don't know. I don't know what to say.

Speaker 81 It's complicated.

Speaker 24 It really is. It's gonna take time.

Speaker 22 Yeah.

Speaker 41 Jessica blames herself.

Speaker 11 She thinks she sealed her mom's fate when she told detectives the woman in the videos was Janae.

Speaker 6 First of all, because that's your mother.

Speaker 6 I think we both know that.

Speaker 8 I carry around this enormous amount of guilt. If I wasn't stupid in 2016 and said that comment, maybe mom would be home.

Speaker 24 This isn't because of you.

Speaker 11 I don't think it was just that comment.

Speaker 24 I feel like they've been getting

Speaker 24 for years.

Speaker 77 You know, she's been through a lot.

Speaker 77 And I don't want my

Speaker 77 dad.

Speaker 77 Did she do something wrong?

Speaker 77 Yeah.

Speaker 41 You all were forced to endure a lot in a really short amount of time.

Speaker 24 It's still not over. We're still fighting.
Yeah.

Speaker 26 Janae was sentenced to 50 years to life.

Speaker 17 She'll be eligible for a parole hearing after serving just 20 years under California's elderly parole program.

Speaker 11 Our second interview with her happened in jail.

Speaker 7 After the verdict, I would go to bed thinking I'm going to wake up and it's all, it's, it's, this was all a bad dream. It was, it truly has been a bad dream.

Speaker 42 What do you say to anyone who might say, well, she's crying now because she was found guilty, not because of her husband?

Speaker 54 I cried then.

Speaker 7 I just didn't cry out in front of everybody.

Speaker 58 You know,

Speaker 58 I did.

Speaker 7 I mourn my husband.

Speaker 51 For Diana and Travis, the fight is over.

Speaker 61 They finally got the justice they wanted.

Speaker 28 But the loss of their son, Todd, remains.

Speaker 79 This last seven years has been really hard, and I hope he

Speaker 79 understands that

Speaker 79 we did everything we could to make sure that

Speaker 79 he got justice.

Speaker 27 His dad does find comfort in one thing.

Speaker 63 Well, I got to tell him I loved him

Speaker 63 many times.

Speaker 63 Love you too, Dad.

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