Hearsay from her sister. My question to Shagnasty about that sister was going to be: How nutty was the sister, or how likely was it that she would say something like that for attention (either media or ‘I knew/loved my sister BEST’). Were Nicole and her sister close? Did the sister not like Jason?
There was ‘evidence’ of sleeping in separate rooms. They have small children, ask anyone with small children whether or not they’ve sent a spouse into a different room so that one could get some sleep while the other took care of the baby.
I didn’t see where it said they had life insurance on the son.
I believe it was Nicole’ sister-in-law, i.e., her brother’s wife, who gave that hearsay testimony.
Jason told the investigator that Nicole was sleeping in the other room for some temporary reason like she was sick, I can’t recall exactly.
There was insurance on the step-son, but it was only a rider that would basically cover funeral expenses. The Court of Appeals didn’t find the insurance evidence to be powerful. Jason had come into a large settlement from a car crash a while before the crime, and had used the money to buy their house outright, pay off vehicles, and buy the life insurance on Nicole and Austin. There was evidence that he planned to add himself at a later date, and that he could have gotten a lot higher insurance coverage for not much more money.
Hi, I ran across this on the web trying to find help for someone I know who has just been convicted on capital murder charges in small hick town usa. Lufkin texas. Circumstancial evidence is there plain as day, alot of hear say, she said, the blind lady said, and there is reasonable doubt all over the place. It was a big company fortune 500 that accused her and used her as a scapegoat for their bad company procedures and way of doing business. Five people died… The verdict was read today and shock waves are flying all over the place. Everyone is stunned. This girl was branded guilty the day they arrested her and posted her face all over the news media and local papers in this southern town. Big media event. It even went on Nancy Grace and she took her pot shots for awhile, but then dropped it, cause even the big shot attorneys she had on there said it was all just circumstancial evidence.
She did not get a fair trial in this town, not at all. Tensions are HIGH! Out of control. Southern way, it seems. Took jury less than 12 hours to rule, …guess supper was ready and they had to get home so they just picked it out of the hat. It seems like it anyway. I have never seen such a case convict someone on such circumstancial evidence. It’s ridiculous. Even the forensic autopsies expert testified that their was no evidence of bleach on the people that died and they died of natural causes! HELLOOO!!! What the hell? But the jury convicted her of Capital murder? On what evidence? circumstancial…a blind womans testimony that she seen her inject it? seriously? DOUBT…DOUBT…DOUBT. They are either going to rule for life in prison or the death penalty. She was accused of injecting bleach into dialysis patients at a Davita Clinic. She DID NOT do this. It’s just another Fortune 500 company pinning their crap on an innocent nurse, a scapegoat. She is a victim and someone needs to help her. Is there anything in Texas? The case actually should have been taken out of this town to begin with…even the jurors were tainted with the initial news reports, media coverage and whoop-tee-doo that it caused in this small texas town. I reckon its the southern way and all. Southern mentality. Any help out there? Any connections to this innocence project? What could they do? Any other help ? suggestions? Dear God…there has to be some justice somewhere for innocent people being taken out like this…small town southern good ole boy BS! HELP PLEASE!
I’m always suspicious of husbands who buy life insurance on a wife’s life, with themselves as beneficiaries. Husbands usually buy it for themselves with their wives as beneficiaries. The ‘going to add himself later’ biz doesn’t quite hack it.
The “blind lady” says she only needed reading glasses at the time she was testifying about. Does she have a motive to give false testimony? And wasn’t she one of two witnesses who claimed to have seen Saenz filling syringes with bleach? What about the former co-workers who testified they didn’t use syringes to measure bleach? I’m sure you’re going to say they were “bought off” by the “Fortune 500” company, but I’d like to know what percentage of people can be induced to perjure themselves by giving false testimony in a death penalty case, particularly against a co-worker or carer.
Update : The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) handed down their decision today and reversed the decision by the 12th District Court of Appeals and remanded Jason’s case to the Wood County Trial Court for a 2nd trial.
Whoo Hoo! I wish the appeals court just let him go for good but a 2nd trial should work too. There has been a lot more evidence that surfaced since the first trial that shows he is innocent. He will have a real defense team this time as well.
I hope you now realize why many, including myself, are pretty much against the death penalty. I mean, unless there is actual video footage of someone committing murder, or they are caught in the act of committing murder, there will always be that slight chance the person is innocent. At one point, the Governor of Illinois stopped all executions in the State of Illinois, due to so many cases being less than air-tight. (Not sure if that ban still exits?)
Hopefully this personal example will be enough for you too to jump to the “liberal” side and agree that the death penalty is something that should not be used lightly.
I concur. I don’t think I could fully remove the death penalty - but there have been too many injustices over the years for me to have full faith in the idea that someone should be put to death over reasonable doubt - it should be absolutely no doubt. Video evidence or it’s equal.
To the OP congratulations on the appeal. As an aside, no snark or anything intended, if the retrial ends in conviction again how would this make you feel? Would you be able to accept that perhaps your friend was indeed guilty or would it cement in your mind the injustice of the system?
He’s not guilty. I am as sure as any person who wasn’t there when it happened could be. I honestly believe the new trial will end well this time.
If he is somehow found guilty again, I guess I will have to accept that but it won’t be right. There was never any evidence that he did it in the first place. There was plenty of evidence that his stepson committed a murder-suicide and it was obvious to the police when they responded to the call. The theory that it was a double-murder was made up months later with the help of a corrupt forensics “expert” and somehow the original jury was dumb enough to buy it. The new defense team will be much better prepared this time.
Point taken. I am not against the death penalty philosophically because some people really deserve it and I believe you need to have a step up from the usual life in prison for some rare and heinous crimes but I do understand how the justice system can go horribly wrong now.
This is a true My Cousin Vinnie case. I know a few other people with life sentences for various violent crimes including murder and the rest of them are all guilty as hell no matter how they want to spin it. This is a rare type of case that most defense attorneys only see a handful of times in their career. Jason just took his kids to school and came home to find his wife and stepson dead. He called the police while dealing with the tragedy of just losing two family members. The police determined it was a murder-suicide by the stepson who had a history psychological problems and the stepson even had the gun in his dead hands when they found him.
Somehow, months later, that got twisted a plot line no rational person would believe yet a Texas jury was dumb enough to buy it because the defense did not put up much of a fight because they never thought a conviction was possible.
It must be hell on earth to be convicted of something like that when you weren’t even there but it could theoretically be any of us including you. Even when he does win his 2nd trial, he already lost years off of his kid’s lives and has to deal with the economic and social ramifications for being in a maximum security prison no matter how unjust it was. A Hollywood type scene with clapping at the closing credits won’t fix it all.
I’m not offering an opinion one way or the other but from the first article you linked to it looks like there were a lot of suspicious facts surrounding the case and that it’s not quite as cut and dry in his favor as you made it seem. I’m looking specifically at this portion:
The gun powder issue, the body heat issue, his emotions/body language outside the house, the fresh laundry, and the holes that were dug up are all very suspicious, especially when taken as a whole. One or two of these facts would be easy to brush off but taken together it starts to paint a picture.
ETA:
This comment under the article by a family member of the deceased is also interesting:
The garage was unheated and it was cold at the time of death. It gets cold even in Texas in the early morning. That accounts for the discrepancy in the temperature of the bodies.
I don’t know how much experience with firearms you have but scents disperse much more slowly in an enclosed and insulated space than they do in garage. Garages can’t be tightly sealed because of what they are and what is used in them. Try firing a gun in your house and see how long the smell of gunpowder lasts. I have done it myself because my father was firearms dealer and I used to open up the sliding glass doors of our living room to fire into one of our pistol ranges outside. The smell lasts for a long time and my mother made me stop doing that only because of the lingering smell. Fire one from a garage, the smell lasts just a few minutes.
They had a large property and liked to dig for things like all of us did as kids. It is pretty sick to think people are only making holes for potential graves. In any case, those were never used so they are irrelevant. When I was growing up with him, we made large holes all over the place to find whatever cool thing we could or just to build something. I dug a crawfish pond by hand once and we always excavated for Native American relics as a hobby and found lots of them. People from urban areas may not understand that but country people dig holes on their property for lots of reasons. He was teaching his kids to do the same thing.
How do you think you would react if took your kids to school and came home to find your wife and stepson dead in a murder-suicide? I think pacing and crying would be the least I would do and I would not appreciate anyone saying after the fact that I didn’t act the ‘right way’ when I was in shock? Have you ever been through anything similar? How did you react or what do you think the most appropriate reaction would be?
In any case, all of everything you posted is circumstantial and overwhelmed by other evidence that it was a simple murder suicide. He wasn’t even at the house at the time. They might as well said one of us did it. Where were you that morning?
I agree that the issues Bob brought up are circumstantial. I also don’t have a sense of this case one way or another but I am curious about the bit above. How do you know he wasn’t there? If you know he wasn’t, did you testify at his trial as an alibi witness?
I agree it’s circumstantial evidence, which is why I mentioned that on their own they could be explained away. However, when circumstantial evidence begins to accumulate, it becomes corroborating evidence;.
Most trials are decided on corroborating evidence, since most criminals try to do their best to hide any direct evidence. Timothy McVeigh was convicted using mostly circumstantial evidence, and a University of Michigan law professor said about that case: “Circumstantial evidence can be, and often is much more powerful than direct evidence.”
Who knows though, I’m very interested to see how this turns out.
Wow, that’s some real crack detective work. Did this ace dick note a temperature difference between the garage and the house in the report or was she too busy trying to interpret the guy’s grief? Was the garage door opened at any point allowing odor to disperse? Did Detective Misty offer any suggestions on why she thought the guy’s grief was faked? Laundry:dubious:? So not only did he wash and dry his murder clothes, he started another load, too? Was it only the murder clothes in the laundry or did he collect enough for a full load? And the icing on the cake, comments posted for an internet news article.
Bloody hell that is some weak sauce. I am surprised you wrote that with a straight face. Some cop thought that the guy pacing and crying outside was not crying in grief? Freshly laundered clothes in the washing machine of all places? Behave yourself.
I’m just playing devil’s advocate here and was very clear that I don’t have a strong opinion on this case either way.
Obviously none of us were there to see what the guy’s emotions/demeanor were like. The cop was, and even though they noted that he was pacing and crying - it did not seem to be from grief in that person’s viewpoint. Cops are trained to know what to look for for that sort of thing.
Look, I hope that if the guy is innocent that they figure it out and they let him go. But from everything we’ve been shown/told, none of us have any way of knowing and it’s all speculation.