up the report, and stuck it away in the file where it sat unseen until tom dove came along. two things caught my mind. when i read it. one, whoever the caller is knew how many stab wounds were involved. and two, the caller stated that the person had used a backdoor or a window to enter the residence that night. that was significant in that this person had specific details unknown to the general public about the murder of jack jessee. reporter: most of the tipster s information was frustratingly vague, like a riddle, yet another game to be played. there were two killers, though he gave no names. one had a knife, the other had the getaway car. both worked at a big box department store. the man who told the story in the bar that day had been the driver of the car and with the blood money heat bought a truck and a sea-doo. but on the question of who was behind the plot, that s when the story named names, two of them. they were sandra s son, tom, the
california, moved to arizona to be near her son tom, and soon her daughter followed too. and they all lived within a couple of blocks of each other in homes sandra helped purchase with jack s insurance money and savings. when everything was said and done, she got close to $700,000. reporter: and as the months slipped past, leads failed to connect, the investigation hit one dead end after another. wyatt was promoted out of homicide. the case bounced from the placentia pd to the orange county s sheriff s department, where before long it became a case to avoid, toxic, an unsolvable career killer. so five years after his brother s murder, when david jessee met a detective named tom dove who said he picked up the case i said, oh, really? well, that s great. let me ask you a question. yeah. what are you going to do? are you going to get the case for three, four, five months, a year, then move up? become a sergeant or something and move on?
the board. okay, so what was the plan? what was the nature of your trap, of your mousetrap? we believed that if we did something to get these people uptight, if we were able to rattle the tree, if we were able to put some fear into them that maybe the police were on to them. that they would talk about the murder of jack jessee. so what was the little piece of cheese you put into that trap? we nailed a simple copy of the newspaper article when jack jessee was murdered anonymously to sandra jessee, tom aehlert, and brett schrauben. the significance of that was they didn t know we knew about brett schrauben. they re going to know something s up. reporter: sure enough, as soon as tom heard brett got an anonymous letter, he called his mother, sandra. whoever was sending out all that crap sent one to brett too. give me a break. really. you re kidding. no. why would i kid about something like that? sent one to brett? yeah. why would they send one to him? how could th
to begin with, it was 1998. shakespeare in love won the oscar. monica lewinsky was freshly famous. it was a sweltering august night, hottest of the year, when cheryl deedham got a strange call from her dad, jack jessee. i was getting ready for bed and my phone rings and it s my dad on the phone. what time was this? 9:20. reporter: he was worried about his wife sandra. she was missing. he thought she may have got in an accident or something. reporter: she d run to this nearby mall on a quick errand, said cheryl s dad, but was gone so long. would cheryl please find her, asked her dad.
liked to talk. puzzle which had become more difficult with each passing year. after i reviewed the case, i had no feeling for the family, no feeling for jack jessee. reporter: so to get his hand in the game, dove met with the people closest to jack. like his brother david. and when i met with david, he inspired me. his determination not to let the love for his brother go was a big motivating factor. reporter: but david also had some provocative information. something jack told him after arguing with sandra about moving to arizona. if anything ever happens to me, he says, it s her.