attorney, the prosecution indicated it would be open to making a deal. and i was blown away. a plea deal? yes. and what a deal it was. said bamieh. if jane pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, she would be sentenced to just six years and would most likely serve only three. seemed like an admission of weakness from the prosecution. said bamieh. and the opportunity of a lifetime for a woman facing first-degree murder and 50 to life. and so i gave her my strong recommendation that she take it. and she said no. i was just like i was stunned. i said, jane, i kept saying, do you understand it? she said i understand fully. it s not on you, ron. this is my decision. and she was crying. and she says, i have to fight for this. mind you, by then jane had some powerful moral support from her old friend, helen.
it s ludicrous. it violated the laws of physics. what s more, he said, the dna on the gun was dave s. once again supporting jane s contention, that he had the gun. and then they struggled for it. his dna is on the trigger. there s no getting around that fact. one more thing, said bamieh, one more bit of evidence that the police missed, even though it was right under their noses. bruising on jane s upper left arm. photographed the morning after dave was killed. look at the bruise closely, you ll see there s basically a little hand print. a hand-shaped bruise that helps prove, said bamieh, this wasn t murder. it was self-defense. if you re fighting for your life reasonably, you have to conclude they re fighting for a gun, you get to use lethal force. and now looking back, said jane s childhood friend, helen, things began to make sense.
we saw her less and less. more than two decades passed. helen had a long career as a social worker, and gradually lost touch with jane. i would always send her christmas cards and say, call me, whatever. and i would never hear from her. and then helen heard about dave s death. everybody was pointing to jane. and like a light bulb went off and i m like, oh, my god, she was a battered wife. and you didn t get it. you didn t see it. but the very idea that jane was an abused spouse, that she killed dave in self-defense? absolutely ludicrous said the lauts. an outrageous allegation about dave. i know my brother. he s just a good man. he would give you have the shirt off his back. that s just the way he was. can you see him losing his temper at the woman he s married
she rose that night. i mean, she didn t fall, she rose that night. and, you know, became the a very strong, powerful woman. and defended the life of her son. and then at last in january 2016, jane laut went on trial for murder. her friend, helen, sitting right behind her. do you think she ll go to jail? i don t. really? i don t. i absolutely do not. you believe the jury will believe her story? i do. and see it as a case of self-defense? i do. i believe that. i believe that. i sincerely believe her. i don t say that about many people. i sincerely believe her. do you usually get this personally invested in a case? i am always invested in my cases, yes. but do i care as much about clients like i do about jane laut? no, that s i would be lying if i said i did. but could he persuade a jury
ride your bike anywhere. everybody knew everybody. this is helen kulouris. of course, she knew the lauts growing up. and that big old farming family of her childhood best friend, jane laubacher. our dads were both farmers. old farming families we re both from. the laubachers were big here in oxnard. there was just lots of laubachers. you know, it was just they multiplied. they were good catholics. and helen s friend, jane, grew up to be especially beautiful. featured in her high school yearbook as homecoming queen. but she was not ever concerned with that. she s also very, very shy. how do you get to be homecoming queen if you re shy? she s also just a very kind person, very gentle person. and as that yearbook shows, a