Jane's Journey

0:0548 Hours, we take you there.

0:11This 77-year-old grandmother is hot on the trail of a killer. Let's put it this way, no one intimidates me. Jane was leading a wonderful life with a man she loved. He was like the man on the white horse that came charging down the road. Mom was probably happier than I've ever seen her. Then, he stole it all away. Dual Lagatuda reports. He cleaned her out. Yes. Cleaned her absolutely. I lost my children's inheritance. I lost my home. But that's not all she lost. Jane was devastated. When she suspected Tom of murder, she set out to make him pay. She wanted this guy hanging out to dry. With or without the police.

0:50She's mad and everybody better get out of her way. She'll track him through the ends of the earth if she has to be catching. Betraying Jane was his first mistake. I'm old man, gotcha. A 48 Hours Mystery, Citizen James.

1:20What can one person possibly do, one regular citizen, when justice seems to be out of reach and you can't help but feel like a victim. She was an average citizen, a little old lady if you'll pardon the expression. Citizen Jane, we'll call her. But as you're about to see, Hurricane Jane might be more like it. A trusting woman with a good heart who ran into some bad luck and a bad man and who's soon destined to be a victim forever. But don't be fooled because when this woman finally turns the tables, there is no stopping her. Bill Lagatuta reports tonight on one ordinary woman with extraordinary determination and perseverance, rewriting the rules on how to get things done and teaching all of us some valuable lessons.

2:07She simply wanted justice in her own case, but soon enough, Citizen Jane would be on everybody's case.

2:18Are they going to hear the bill in committee today? If we get a reward from the governor, it'll probably be$40 ,000,$50 ,000. The day we get the guy that killed your mother, that's the day we'll celebrate. Jane Alexander is a couple of years shy of 80. An inspiration to all of us. I'll have to call the detective next week and see. How are you? I'm Jane Alexander. But don't bother telling her that. You're doing a great job, Jane. Thank you. How long ago was the homicide? She's too busy being an amateur detective as head of a group that helps families of murder victims solve their cases. We'll nail that SOB.

2:54Oh, I know you will. It's not exactly how Jane imagined spending her golden years. I figured I'd just enjoy my grandchildren, of which I have 12. But something happened to Jane Alexander that completely changed her life. Let's put it this way. No one intimidates me anymore. You can't quit. You know, it took me 13 years. You just have to stand up for what you believe in. And it was that unforeseen event nearly 20 years ago that made Jane Alexander the unstoppable force she is today. Back in the early 80s, here in Marin County, California... Jane's house at the very top up there. Life was good for Jane Alexander and her circle of friends.

3:38Jane's house was sort of like a gathering place. I mean, you go to Jane's house, I mean, there may be two or three other couples just drop in. It was a really darn near like a clubhouse at Jane's. And I went many times and just popped in and said I need a glass of wine. Lots of fun times. That house where Jane, a widow, lived with her boyfriend, Tom O'Donnell, was the place to be. Tom introduced me to Jack Daniels, and that's my claim to fame with him is I really like Jack Daniels. I train on Jack Daniels now. They were moving and shaking big time, and my mom was probably happier than I'd ever seen her.

4:18It was a wonderful life. We had Tom had traveled the world, and so he had all kinds of friends that would come in. We always had somebody around. People were always there. It was a lovely existence. And Tom loved to entertain those friends with stories of a truly swashbuckling past as an international businessman. It was never really a dull moment. And he was a great host. He was known as the silver fox, he used to say, from Cape Town to Algiers. One of Tom's more interesting ventures was helping people smuggle their personal assets out of unstable countries in Africa. So he'd take diamonds, some of them raw diamonds, and take them to Europe, sell them, take a commission and put the money in a Swiss account.

5:08Smuggle diamonds out and I'll tell you it was better than going to a movie to listen to him and he'd tell him for hours. He sounds like a very interesting guy. He was fascinating. Plenty of stories about travel and exotic places. He's been everywhere and yes he could entertain anyone. And he served great drinks. I'll say that for him. But what everyone loved most about Tom was what he had done for Jane. I was alone and and depressed after my husband died, and he was like the man on the white horse that came charging down the road. In 1977, Jane's husband of 34 years and the father of her six children had died of a heart attack.

5:50Jane was devastated by Al's death. I mean, she went into very, very, very deep depression. And it wasn't until Tom O'Donnell showed up in 1980 that Jane was finally able to snap out of her depression. He came for a visit and that was it. Her whole attitude changed. She came out of her shell. She woke up again. She woke up again and she's right back at it. After dating only a few months, Tom moved in with Jane. I don't truly think I ever saw her as joyful. I think she was really in love with him. Life for Jane and Tom seemed as good as it gets. That is until October of 1983, when Jane received news that would change things forever.

6:31Many of my friends said, thank God you have Tom there. because Tom was a great source of comfort. Jane's Aunt Gert, Gertrude McCabe, had been brutally murdered in her home. I don't know if I can, I just can't tell you. I was so angry, and I'm still angry, when I think that she was a very sweet, gentle soul. Jane's friends, Erin and Jim Rohde, remember that day. Jane was devastated. She really was. She didn't have a lot of family, so her aunt Gertrude was very important to her. She was just a very kind, lovely person. If you'd known Gert, you'd think, how could this happen? Who in the world would possibly do anything like this to Gert?

7:20Adding to the mystery were the violent details of her death. Jeff Wieme was a detective on the case. She was bludgeoned with some kind of blunt instrument. She was stabbed and she was strangled. and then smothered with a pillow. Then he put a bicycle chain around her neck and twisted it like an eternity. Why go to all that effort if you're the killer? Probably because you're not really a killer per se. You're very unsophisticated at doing something like that. 88 years old. 88 years old, she put up a fight. She was a little Irish lady. She didn't go down easy. A search of Gertrude McCabe's home in San Jose, where she lived alone, raised even more questions.

8:00Well, the way some of the drawers were pulled out, it's like somebody just pulled them out and put some clothes around to make it look like a burglary. The lieutenant said that it looked like a simulated robbery. Number one, there was some jewelry, not really expensive jewelry, but there was jewelry that was visible that wasn't taken. There was some cash in the house that wasn't taken. Anything of value basically was not taken. In fact, the only thing noticeable police found missing was the register for Gertrude McCabe's checkbook. Gertrude McCabe's checkbook was found in her purse, but the register where you list all of your checks and all your deposits and have your balance and everything was not in there.

8:37So by the end of 1983, police still had no motive. Did you feel at that time that it was incumbent upon you to keep knocking on the door of the police department and saying, what are you doing? Well, if I didn't do it, who was going to do it? I mean, I was the only one out there doing it. My children kept saying, Mom, you've got to get over this. You've got to move on with your life. And I kept saying, I hope if somebody murders me, you won't have that attitude. But unbeknownst to Jane, police were narrowing in. It was discovered that Tom O'Donnell and Jane Alexander were basically broke. And at the time of the murder, they had a large house payment due, and they basically had no money in their checking account to pay for it.

9:15Jane Alexander was one of the main benefactors of Gertrude McCabe's inheritance. So that's when the investigation started focusing in their direction. But while Jane was technically a suspect, the detectives did have suspicions about someone else. Suspicions that were about to be borne out when, without warning, Tom O'Donnell vanished. She called me on the phone and was hysterical. Jane was about to learn the dark truth about the love of her life. That's next.

9:55I just think there was panic for mom. She was just panicked. She was totally hysterical and crying. She wasn't coherent. She was just in tears. It was the one thing Jane Alexander never expected when she arrived home the evening of August 7th, 1984. She just didn't understand this. The man Jane had planned to spend the rest of her life with was suddenly out of her life forever. She said the love of her life was gone. Without any warning, Tom O'Donnell had simply vanished. Plouf! Gone. Gone. He'd left behind a letter. My dearest love, you are without a doubt the most beautiful person in the world, and I love you so much, so very much, that half to write this letter is killing me inside.

10:42It was page after page after page, 12 pages. He had to leave. Because? Because of his past was catching up to him. You know most but not all of my past activities in Africa. According to his letter, Tom had to leave because his and Jane's lives were in danger. They had been watching us for some time. He said partners of his in a shady diamond transaction had been caught and thrown in some foreign prison. These people spent five or six years in jail that got blamed for this thing. And they believed Tom had been the informant. Now they're out of jail and now they've found him. and they have to go yes or they're gonna kill me as first they're gonna kill the dog and then they're gonna kill me that evening Jane met us at the door Jane's friends rushed to her side we tried to make sense of it everybody is yelling and talking and I'm crying and in the confusion they got some more upsetting news Tom had disappeared leaving Jane nearly broke so he cleaned her out.

11:44Tom had been handling Jane's finances for years. I left it all to him. You have to remember I was married to a banker for 34 years and money is really not my thing. So it was easy for Tom to persuade Jane to take out a second mortgage on her home in Marin County for$200 ,000. Jane had no means of ever repaying that loan. Jane's friend and attorney Jim Rohde was outraged. I said why in the hell didn't you discuss it with me, Jane. Especially when he heard that Jane had handed most of that loan over to Tom, who then spent it. He'd used a lot of it on commodities trading and lost it. But Jane still thought there was nothing to worry about.

12:22Of course, he would repay it. There was no problem. Because, Tom told her, he was coming into money of his own. Because we're looking at the 1.2 million. The trust fund. The trust. Tom had convinced her that there indeed was this trust. As soon as his trust fund in Switzerland mature oh yeah oh yeah millions in Switzerland he'd be a rich man bottom line on the trust was what there was there was no trust there was nothing Tom O'Donnell's stories didn't end there in fact Tom was conning Jane right up until the day he left that afternoon he convinced her to withdraw ten thousand dollars from this bank five thousand in cash which she gave to Tom to pay some of their bills the other five was in a cashier's check And Tom knew a place he'd have no trouble cashing that.

13:10Another bank where Jane's friend, Sandy Sullivan, was working as the manager. I said, you're going to cash the whole thing? And he said, yes, and I'd like it all in hundreds. And I said, you want the whole 5 ,000 in hundreds? And he said, yes, sweets. And in case that money ran out, Tom made sure he would have access to even more. He had all my dad's credit cards that my mother had never canceled. something like eight or nine visa cards, everything, and they were all maxed out. Despite what some of her friends thought, The letter sounded totally unreal. It was just a con. Jane's faith was unshaken.

13:46Did I believe it? Of course I believed. In her diary that week, she spoke of her worries for Tom. Why? How can Tom put me through this agony? He must be in such trouble. She truly loved this man and was buying into everything that he had written. The police, according to Detective Jeff Weemey, weren't buying any of it. The San Jose police and the FBI checked into his story, and in fact, there was nothing to it. It was all made up. Tom's disappearance only confirmed what they had already suspected, that six months earlier, Tom O'Donnell had murdered Jane's aunt, Gertrude McCabe. His motive was money.

14:22He thought that she was worth several hundred thousand dollars. If Gert was no longer alive, that Jane would inherit from Gert. Police now thought they had their motive for murder, but Tom O'Donnell had an alibi. It was all in Jane's diary. This is Thursday the 20th. Tom to L.A. at 2 o 'clock. Harry to pick him up and he will spend the night with him. Thursday, the day before the murder, Tom told Jane he was flying to Burbank near Los Angeles to stay with a friend. Saturday the 22nd. On Saturday morning, the day after the murder, Tom returned home to Jane's. Tom home at 10.30 a.m., tired. He's got to have an alibi.

14:59His alibi is to fly to his friend's house in Burbank and be in Burbank during the time of the murder. That's his alibi. But when police checked it out, they discovered Tom had logged 669 miles on his rental car in just one day. What he didn't realize is that the police were going to find out that he rented a car and that the mileage on the rental car was dead on from Burbank to the murder scene and back. To me and the other investigators, it shows that, you know, he was a perpetrator. Despite their big break, police still needed more than that to charge him with murder. But in the meantime, Marin County's Josh Thomas was more than willing to prosecute Tom O'Donnell on charges of fraud.

15:39To me, it was really a no-brainer as far as the evidence was concerned. But first, they had to convince a very stubborn Jane Alexander to file charges. Even with all the evidence staring her in the face, she was unable to believe that this guy had betrayed her the way that he had. She didn't listen to anybody. Nobody could get through to her. I was hysterical at that point. You can't cry and think. And then they got just what they needed to get Jane Alexander on board from none other than Tom himself. And then I got this letter and I did apply a little logic to it. Five months after he vanished, Tom sent Jane a second letter.

16:15I just had a gut feeling. You see, he was running away from these people supposedly. Now he's going to go back and work for them. And this time... It was not logical. But Jane didn't fall for it. I just knew when I read the letter that the whole thing was ridiculous. And for Jane Alexander... Then, I was upset. That was the turning point. It's something I've never felt before in my life. I was so angry. He planned it down to the last detail. And obviously I've been planning it for weeks, or maybe months. And all the time I'm living with him. I mean, how would you like this horror to face? I'm sleeping with this man.

16:56And he's so comforting and so kind and so solicitous. How could I be so dumb? Finally, about six months after Tom disappeared with her money, Jane Alexander filed felony fraud charges against him. Anything they want, they get. Any cooperation. But her real mission? I was going to nail him for the murder. That's what I was doing. And she'll track him to the ends of the earth if she asks me to catch him. So, where on earth was this globetrotting con man to be found? If anyone was going to catch him, it was going to be Jane Purcell. I turned around and looked at him and he saw me, and he knew he'd been had.

17:35That's next.

17:47I could have killed him. That's how I felt. I could have killed him. If I weren't a law-abiding citizen, I could have killed him. Now that Jane was convinced Tom O'Donnell had killed her Aunt Gertrude. It was very difficult to accept. And now that there was a warrant out for his arrest on fraud charges. I couldn't believe I had been such a fool. Jane was determined to find him. She's mad and everybody better get out of her way. Jane started thinking of all the places Tom could be. And then she remembered he had a good friend in Las Vegas. She was hot to try. And she wanted this guy hung out to dry.

18:24But when she called around looking for that friend's phone number, she got the runaround. And you put two and two together and you figure that Tom is hiding out. with them in Vegas? I knew it. I knew it. Don't ask me how, but I just knew it. And sure enough, when police went to arrest Tom, he was right where Jane predicted. Sitting there watching television with no shoes on. Six months after vanishing from Jane Alexander's life, Tom O'Donnell was finally brought to court about to face charges of fraud. I turned around I looked at him and he saw me and he knew it had been had. The good news was Jane Alexander had Tom O'Donnell right where she wanted him, behind bars.

19:07The bad news was he had her in debt. At this point are you broke? Oh, I'm totally broke. I filed bankruptcy to wipe out Tom's debt and they foreclosed on the house. What was it like to lose the house? Next to Gert's death it was probably the most traumatic thing of my life. I moved out on Mother's Day. She went from a huge house to a little room in somebody's home. She doesn't have any heat. Jane's children worried about her. It got to be 30 degrees in the winter. There are no rugs on the floor. I went to the Goodwill and bought rugs. It was a little lifestyle change. At the age most of her friends were enjoying their golden years.

19:44I have to go to work for the first time in my life to support myself. That was kind of a cultural shock. Jane got her first job. Good afternoon. May I help you? Ironically, at a retirement home. All I had to learn to do was run a switchboard and be nice and yada, yada, yada. For Jane, it was more than just a lifestyle change. When he left me and took everything I possessed, that involved my ego because I never really thought I was stupid and I learned that, yes, I was. I lost my children's inheritance. I lost my home. How could I be so dumb? And then, Then about a year and a half after he disappeared from her life, Jane finally had the chance to hear from Tom himself when he took the stand during his fraud trial.

20:28He took off like a deer and he started launching into this incomprehensible, absurd story, so I just stood there and let him go. And he went and he went and went. Josh Thomas was the Marin County prosecutor on the case. Josh Thomas did a marvelous job. He threw the book at him and the judge did the same. Tom O'Donnell was found guilty on four counts of fraud. I think the jury picked up on the fact that this guy was a ball-faced liar. And sentenced to just under four years in prison. I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew if that guy walked out of the court, we'd never see him again. Tom O'Donnell was finally behind bars for stealing Jane's money.

21:09Now, she wanted to put him in prison for murder. But to do that would be a race against the clock. She and detectives had to come up with the evidence before Tom could finish serving his sentence for fraud and be free to disappear again. We've got him in jail now. Let's put the noose around his neck. He's in jail for fraud. Let's nail him for the murder. Right. Once she believed it, then, you know, full speed ahead, she's gonna get him. First of all, I saved everything. I have files and files and files. I made a flyer once. I ran all the phone numbers for a year. This was the new Jane, amateur detective.

21:45I called the paper, tried to get publicity. Relentless. I called homicide on a weekly basis. There's a picture of Tom and Duke. Once she's on board, Ben, back off, she's going. He's beautiful. The dog. The dog. After months of digging, Jane finally hit pay dirt. She found two important clues. Both of them, in fact, were mistakes made by Tom O'Donnell himself. He was great at con, but not at murder. Amateur. Tom's first mistake was a phone call he made the day after the murder. It was a Saturday morning, about 10 o 'clock. Tom had called his relatives in Montana to tell them he would finally be able to repay the$10 ,000 he owed them.

22:27The reason was that Jane's aunt had passed away and she was going to inherit a lot of money and he was going to be able to take care of that debt now. The problem was, according to Detective Jeff Weemey, Gertrude McCabe's body wasn't even found until the next day. Nobody in the world except for the killer knew that Gertrude McCabe was dead. That's a pretty important piece of evidence. It was a very important piece of evidence. After reporting her findings to detectives, Jane Alexander kept on digging. Her next break came from her daughter-in-law, Rocky Alexander. Jane is a fantastic detective.

23:02Tom had called Rocky on Monday, the day after Gertrude's body had been found. He said she'd been stabbed numerous times and that she'd been bludgeoned and there was blood all over and that she had been garretted. He says she was garretted to death. Not strangled, but garretted. That word stuck out. Yes, because I didn't know what it meant. So she wrote that down on a notepad and had to look it up later. She didn't know what the word garrett meant. A method of capital punishment in which an iron collar is tightened around a condemned man's neck. That's what happened in this case. The bicycle cable was put around her neck and twisted until it got so tight that it killed her.

23:37Now, isn't that information that the police might have told him? No, that information was not released. The only thing that was released was that she was strangled. And mentioning that gruesome detail was Tom O'Donnell's second mistake. That was withheld specifically because we did not want anybody to know the means of strangulation. In fact, nobody did know but the killer. These two phone calls were just what detectives were looking for. But were they too little, too late? Tom is out. I couldn't believe it. After serving just 18 months in prison... Of course, he got off on good behavior, which naturally he would be good.

24:11Tom was free to disappear again. I just couldn't stop crying. It was such a shock. But it wasn't long before Jane was right back to being her pesky self. She'd call me daily and then weekly and then daily again, finding out what's going on with the case and what else can we do. Finally, all of their hard work paid off when Detective Weemay found the final clue, and Tom O'Donnell's third mistake. And he said, tell me again about the check register. So I went through the whole thing with him. Remember, the first day police searched Aunt Gert's house, the only thing they couldn't find was her checkbook register.

24:44So the thinking was that the killer might want to check the balance and find out how much money was there. Basically, that's correct. At some point, that check register, what, suddenly appears? Now what happened is when Jane Alexander and Tom O'Donnell were given custody of the house, they went through various items, and O'Donnell told Jane Alexander that he had found the checkbook register, and he showed her exactly where he had found it, which was in a bedroom drawer. Detective Weemay found that suspicious, so he went back and reviewed the crime scene photos. And there was a picture of the drawer, and there was no checkbook register in there.