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.
guilty. and finally that little ball stayed on its track. the key mouse was caught. i hope that she rots in hell. i just really do. i m glad it wasn t the death penalty. i want her to stay there and suffer with all the other miserable people that go to prison. what s it feel like to get justice finally? oh, it feels good. it feels good, but not complete. not complete. lost a guy. the nicest guy i ever met. and for tom dove, he s now retired from the sheriff s department, and at his going-away party his fellow detectives gave him this. it honors his commitment to the jessee case. it means more to me than any other plaque or award i ve ever received in my life. in retirement tom planned to
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 r: connect, the investigation hit t one dead end after another. wyatt was promoted out of homicide. e 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 ar 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? f
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 he had 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 mama s boy jack raised as his own. under the direction of the mastermind herself, jack s wife, sandra. so with that new perspective on the case, dove revisited sandra s old interview. the hours of mostly useless chatter. how many times did you listen to that interview? at least ten times. reporter: and then it jumped out at him. right about here on the tape. sandra is going through slips of paper in her day planner.
maze. after a few days of the game, sandra, tom, and brett began to wonder if they were getting played. suspected their phones were tapped. maybe even their houses bugged. i want to talk for a couple of seconds okay. no, i d rather pick you and up go back to the church or church? well, just somewhere outside. oh, okay. away from your place and my place. okay. not on the cell phone. okay. when would you have time? now. reporter: so they started meeting in shopping centers. we decided to put surveillance teams on each of the individuals, sandra, jessee, tom aehlert, and brett schrauben. during the duration of the wiretap, to capture some things they may do that may not be normal while the wiretap was in place. they d stand shoulder to shoulder in a parking lot,