so what was the story? the story was a pretty pretty detailed and amazing story. reporter: schrauben described the whole affair on tape, laid detail. anatomy of a murder. the conspiracy was launched with a phone call from tom. he told me he d offer $50,000 to kill his dad. reporter: he met with sandra in a parking lot. she gave him a $5,000 deposit. she wanted jack dead and she wanted it done at the house and to look like a robbery. she told me she would leave for x amount of time and that s when it would need to be done. reporter: schrauben said he hired his good friend, a local drifter, to be the getaway driver. and on the afternoon of august 13th, 1998, while sandra was out having her nails done, schrauben claimed he and his friend drove to the jessee house to murder jack. i was already having a cold feeling on the way there. by the time i was walking down the street, i was really having cold feet.
dove. yes i can t tell you, move on. there was no hope of new evidence or fingerprints or dna, just the infuriating 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. reporter: not the only time jack said such a thing, it turned out. he actually told me, i wouldn t be surprised if the bitch killed me. he said that. reporter: so dove picked
when asked about detective wyatt about tom s friend, sandra said the boys were once work buddies. met him at target when they worked together. reporter: detective dove crisscrossed southern california, searching through the employment records of every target store for a guy named schreiber. but nobody had ever heard of him. we were starting to come to the end of our rope. we were getting to a dead end there. reporter: that was about the time jack s daughter sherry began getting strange packages in the mail from sandra, who said they were keepsakes jack wanted his girls to have. like what? little boxes of like ashtrays. his bowling ball bag. a bunch of junk. just weird stuff that just kept coming. reporter: which seemed designed to provoke exactly the reaction the sisters felt. hatred. more than i had before. reporter: sandra seemed to be telling them she d beaten them, got away with it, won the game. we just said, are we cursed?
it was horrible. what did you think happened? i thought he had fallen because he had a big gash in the back of his head. i went to the kitchen phone and called 911. reporter: when she rolled him over, she could see wounds all across his chest. he d been stabbed many times. every time i started doing cpr, every time i d breathe into him, i could hear bubbling. air escaping. then i started to feeling iti on his chest. reporter: it s not often little placentia, california, has a murder. r: 10:00 p.m. when i got the call. reporter: aaron wyatt was the sole homicide detective. what did the crime scene itself look like? it was pretty bloody. there was evidence of a violent struggle between jack and his killer. the kind of thing that might happen if it was a hope invasion, robbery, or something? or assault between people who knew each other. e reporter: protocol told him
hey, dude, it s me. you need to [ bleep ] call me asap. de could they set the perfect trap? these people might literally get away with murder. deadly conspiracy. hello and welcome to dateline y extra. i m craig melvin. with doting grandfather jack jessee at the helm his big and blended california family seemed like one happy bunch. then jack was found stabbed to p death in his living room and police wondered if the jessees weren t as close as they seemede the case went unsolved for years until an ace detective hatched an unconventional plan to catch jack s killers. here s keith morrison. with deadly conspiracy. reporter: the game is called mousetrap.