A violent marriage ends in a bloody murder. Police solve the case -- but it’s the victim who ends up on trial in a case that thrust the issue of domestic violence into the public conversation and made it impossible for law enforcement to ignore.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, there are resources to help.
In Canada, you can visit https://sheltersafe.ca/ for domestic violence resources and information or for more information on the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia please visit https://avaloncentre.ca/
In the United States, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE or text the word START to 88788.
For more information on the Coburn Place in Indianapolis please visit https://coburnplace.org/
Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-billy-stafford/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
This podcast dynamically inserts audio advertisements of varying lengths for each download.
As a result, the transcription time indexes may be inaccurate.
This episode is sponsored by the new loved your car guarantee from car max forbidding your lifestyle too.
In your garage finding the right car is all about the perfect fit, and that takes time, which is why car MAX created the love your car guarantee, giving you the time you need to find the perfect fit, starting with a twenty four hour testified that lets you take it home and really get to know. Your car driver
work to the gym. Pick up the groceries make a coffee runs. You can be sure it is the perfect fit before you buy and after you, by car MAX has you covered with a thirty day money back guarantee up to fifteen hundred miles, because a lot can change. In a month from your work to the weather, you ve got a full month to love it or return it. No questions asked finding the car that fits. Your life is easy. With the new love your car guarantee from car max restrictions apply, learn more today at car, max dot com,
max the way it should be high crime techies. If you like me, you try to shop sustainable as possible. Right recently, I've been searching for ceramic dinnerware to update our dining experience here at home. The dishes I have now have been the same ones we register for when we got married over twelve years ago, and they ve been great, but to set my taste and needs have changed in the past twelve years when it comes to what a grown up dining room table looks like when it's all set with dates. Dishes is kind of an understatement, which is when I came across a people's beautiful artisan made.
Ceramics, their dinnerware is made from recycled clays, one hundred percent nontoxic made in Portugal and starting at just thirty six dollars. It comes in these beautiful, muted colors that go with many
The court has ended in a word. Self is elegant enough for dinner party, but sturdy enough for my family to use every day, and I'm just so in love with them had over two fable that seal Andrew, called crime donkeys take fifteen percent off your first purchase. That's fifteen percent off when you use code cramp junkie at fable home, does
he'll high crime, junkies, I'm your host, Ashley flowers and I'm bread in the story,
How are you today is about a woman who spent six years in a relationship that got increase
singly more violent with a man, feared by pretty much everyone in their small community, but her path to freedom is anything but a
great line. This is the story of Billy Stafford and Jane Hersman.
Its march. Twelve neat
in eighty two and a man named Carl Croft is on his way to work in Liverpool Nova Scotia, which is its tiny town on Canada's EAST coast, walking along the country road. When he sees a truck pulled over on the shoulder at first, he thinks it probably below.
Songs to one of his neighbours. The long dirt driveway gets so muddy in the spring that people really can't even use them, sometimes just park on the main road and walk home. But the thing is Carl, doesn't recognised this specific car. What
does recognise. Immediately, though, is something on the door blood his
thought is someone must have gone into an accident, but there's no real, tell tee,
signs of an accident. There's no tire more
there's no damage coral
This is in the window ass. He walks past and realizes. There's someone inside slumped way over to the left with his head, almost
laying in the driver's seat like he's taking a nap
girl doesn't think so not to mention the man isn't.
Moving in inch, so
along with the blood sent him racing to the nearest neighbors place, to see there's anyone who can help and together
they drive back down the main road to check things out and they don't call nine on one first,
well no and I'm not entirely sure why to be honest, but my gut is thinking like they're trying
not to overreact. This could just be like a guy napping it it
feel necessarily like an emergency, yet yeah, and maybe they just want to get a good look around before the cops come yeah there's, maybe a little bit of small town, morbid curiosity to because
really want to know who this person is, but even when he brings
neighbour, that guy doesn't recognise the truck either or the person inside. But when he p
through the window. There is no doubt
in his mind that this man is dead,
to him. It doesn't look like an accident, his first
is suicide. They drive back up to the house to call police and
responders arrive at the scene around seven thirty, according to the book
with Billy by Brian Valet. They find the victim a man sitting in the cab of the pick up when it
finally move his body. They realize he's been killed by a shot gun blast. The head: one fired from close enough to virtually to capital
him. Wait so you're telling me that no one noticed that this guys had was practically blown off if they
the source material doesn't mention it, but there's a good
here they didn't notice it. Because of the way his body was position, there is actually a photo of the crime scene in Brian Valleys book
actually show you today that this picture is taken like looking in from the passengers have the track, and I see I presume man, a pretty big one
by the looks of things- and you write, he has some all the way over towards driver side door like almost lying into the sea and like the door itself. Actually,
yeah. It took me forever to wrap my head around this because, like how can you be shot with a shotgun, almost decapitated, unlike there is
What everywhere and it's not so clear, but when I saw that
oh my gosh. You would think this guy sleeping, but when police get
ere. They obviously look close and they see what really happened.
But they notice is that inside the windows and walls of the truck it is actually covered with blood and tissue and slug fragments the tree,
keys, are still in the ignition and just outside the driver side door on the ground. They find a set of false teeth, but here's the thing, unlike the neighbour guy, they don't think that this was a suicide. My not well there's no gun
Now the men who called the police didn't know the car and they couldn't idea the victim, but an officer at the scene does reckoning
is the vehicle and the body inside it. The victims name
is Billy Stafford,
forty one year old, husband and father who lives about ten miles away in an even
smaller town called bangs falls. So is really like a friend of his or just like. You know. This is a small town. Everyone knows every one kind of thing now: they're not
friends, in fact, the officer who recognized him had only spoken to Billy one time before
a year ago in this very truck at a routine traffic stop. But
it's more than just your usual, like small town
everyone knows everyone stuff like you
need to know Billy Stafford to know of Billy Stafford, most people most police,
officers specifically in the area know exactly who he is even if they'd never spoken to him in their lives
had been involved in all kinds of illegal activity. He had
your guns used drugs. We sought to probably cell drugs that kind of thing and you
ago Billy worked on fishing boats, the kind that leave for a couple of weeks at a time and he used to brag about how he killed a guy
on one of those boats by throwing him overboard and
He ever arrested or serve time, for that will he hadn't even been charged for that, because none of the other sailors would testify against him, which had of
been a running theme of Billy's life. What you mean by that I mean some, how he was
always able to get away with this stuff in some cases
but he knew would vouch for him in at least
in case Elizabeth. She he writes about in this peace called defending
women on trial, one guy legit perjured himself.
This stand because he was so tariff.
Of what Billy would do if he told the truth. So the real
issue is that he pretty much had everyone in town too terrified to dare press any charges. People would call police and complain.
About Billy for different things, mainly for threats and intimidation, often anonymously and police would try to investigate. But most of the time those investigations went nowhere
so really most of the time. Instead of trying to involve police people would just go out of their way to avoid Billy. Even police tried to avoid him. If they could, the head of the RCMP detachment had told
his whole team that if they had to go to Billy's house for any reason, always go in pairs and not only that, but according
nineteen, eighty three canadian press article- they should go armed and ready to shoot. Yet this guy sounds like a real peach right but
murder is murder, even if the victim is a bad dude and police need to find out who is responsible for Billy's tat, even if the list of people with an
axe. To grind against this guy is a mile long officers call
canine unit to search the woods around the crime scene, hoping to track down the murder weapon, while police start canvassing
area to see if anyone saw or heard anything unusual the night before they knock on every
door along river road where Billy's body had been found and one
I won the residents tell police they didn't hear or see anything out of the ordinary they also go to Billy's home in bangs falls
they get there. There met by his common law, wife Jane who is home with her sixteen year old son from a previous marriage, Alan and her four year Old Darin, whose Billy's
Illogical. Son may ask Jane when she last seen, Billy and she says that she
seen or heard from him since the night before when he left in his truck, she tells them
then say where he was going, and so she has no idea where he is that's when the officer tell
jane that they
do you know where he is that, unfortunately, Billy had been murdered. The news is
such a shock to Jane that she literally faints on the spot. Now I couldn't find any detail in the source material about the step by step. Police investing
in that day, but Brian Valet wrote in life with Billy that within the EU
day. They have ten officers assigned to and working the case, which is alive
considering the size of this community yeah,
According to another book, I read on the story called life and death after Billy by Vernon illegal. It's around
time, that police get the results of Billy's autopsy, which confirms some of what
They already know that he died from close range gunshot last to the head and it puts his time of death at ten o clock the night before
it doesn't take long for word of Billy's murder to get around in the community and when it does rumours start to bubble up and come to police is attention. Rumours about a murder for higher taste episode was made possible with Ernest it's time to break out of the student tat cycle and earnest can help with Miss. You can check your mate risk free in just a couple of
see which one of earnest low rate student loan refinancing works for you and even pick your loan term and get radically flexible payment options by refinancing. You can not only just save money,
you can even reduce your loan term and combine multiple loans into a simple monthly payment, and if you ever have any questions you can even take it and talk to a real, live human and earnest to help you out so say goodbye to stressful student loan payments and take charge of your future here with Ernest plus right now. Ernest is offering our listeners a one hundred dollars cash bonus, refinance your student debt at Ernest COM, crime, junkie terms and conditions apply now Ernest is giving our listeners a one hundred dollars bonus, refinance student loans at Ernest Comcrimejunky terms and conditions apply. Once again, you get paid one hundred dollars cash bonus when you visit Ernest Comcrimejunkie to refinance your student loan not available in all states terms and conditions apply. Earnest student loan refinancing made by Ernest Operations, LLC and MLS number one hundred and twenty four thousand nine hundred and seventeen California financing law license number six hundred and five four thousand seven hundred and eighty eight five hundred and thirty five Mission Street San Francisco
California. Ninety four thousand one hundred and five visit Ernest COM licenses for full list of licenses within the first day of the investigation police, hear a rumor that Jane had been looking to hire someone to kill her husband, apparently Jane, had approached this guy named Beverly. Just a couple
of months back like in January, an outright asked him to kill Billy in exchange.
Twenty thousand dollars, which it turns out, is
exactly the amount of Billy's life insurance policy hold up. She was gonna pay this guy, the entire.
Amount of a life insurance policy like yeah, all of it. So she's not doing this for money. Why pay someone
Oh, he knew why, and everyone knew why,
back in January, Beverly Flat out, asked Jane if Billy was beating her and Jane said yes and not just her, but her younger
son daring to and of course, the next question he asked. Her was
Why don't you just leave then? But Jane told him ass? She couldn't leave Billy threatened to kill her family,
first one by one if she ever tried to leave him. Ok. So if Juliet
beating her and the kids like it seems at something?
police would already know about you know from being called out to the house time after time or our well, that's just it.
Never received a domestic violence, call from Jane which acts
He doesn't surprise me at all, because the way domestic violence was treated at the time which is more of a you know: it's not a crime,
something you deal with at home between the two of you exactly
nation of needed a call to know that something was going on. Police are well aware of Billy's reputation as a bully again many office.
Had seen it for themselves in or
CALL Elizabeth, she he writes that Jane had actually been to the police station in person just two
earlier about a summons. They had for Billy on illegal hunting charges and when she showed up, she showed up with two black eyes. Did any of them asked her how she got the black eyes, not as far as I can
how which to me says they knew how she got the black eyes, and since she did
bring it up. They probably figured she had it under control
she was doing what society wanted her to do about domestic violence at the time was just to keep it to yourself. Keep it quiet, because, apart from the
they get to no one talked openly about domestic violence, not even victims. They were like a few hands.
Full of like organizations working quietly to get women out of abusive relationships, but they weren't even well known, and they for
sure, weren't operating in Jane's, small town, which left her with very few options to escape the violence? Really only one option to kill him or in Jane's case, to pay someone else to kill him at least that
what investigators are thinking so late on the night of March thirteen. This is the day after Billy's body was found
they bring Jane in for questioning but sheet
calls them. She had nothing to do with his death that he'd been in
in drug deals for a long while, and she thinks he was killed in some kind of drugrelated mafia hit situation, and not only that she's also terrified that whoever killed him is going to be coming back for her and her children, but police aren't buying it
Miller. Look everyone in town is other celebrating. No one is
argue with you that Billy deserves where he got just tell us the truth, but she doesn't budge from her story, but then she asks if she can see Billy's dad
Lamont police, say yes and when Lamont finally gets to the station and sits down in the interview room next to Jane, who has been
literally up all night. At this point he flat out asks her. Did you kill bill and she just answers? Yes, I mean that means she had him killed right. No, I mean she killed Billy with her own bare hands. That's when she begins
open up to police, and she tells them that she and she alone is responsible for the murder of Billy. Jane, says that she and plan to kill
that night. Not really. She certainly thought about killing him many times,
She thought about it after every single assault,
including one had happened. Two weeks prior when Billy beat her with the metal part of a vacuum cleaner, hose she thought of
every time he ain't a gun at her hat or at one of her kids heads or fired a bullet that missed her by inches Jude.
Both killing Billy when her. Sixteen year old son Aoun confess that he was thinking about suicide, because,
he couldn't see any other way out of the hell they ve been living in and what's the point anyway, but
firstly, when she thought about killing Billy, it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with her little boy.
Urine and unfortunately, is abused toward dear and happened more than any one wanted to believe, and it was bad
No abuse against kids can be hard to hear about its awful to talk about, but actually said.
Recently in one of our headlines episodes we have to talk about it. It's the not talking about it that let these people continue their abuse, because we all this can't be faced with it, but we have to face it Jane, Hell's, police, about a time when dear
Just three years old, she was working in the garden and Billy yells out you have a mess to clean up in the bedroom when Jane got.
The bedroom. She found a daring again three year old, dear and lying on the bed, choking bacteria and he's doing that because
he wasn't allowed to cry. Billy had beaten him.
With a broken mob handle so
verily that he pooped himself, the bed was covered in blood and feces endurance? Tiny
body was black and blue.
Jane immediately started to cry because of course she did and Billy punished
in the face and told her to clean him up, they were going out, so she did and the three of them went out as though nothing had happened
not just one example: there's another that comes up
often in a source material. For this case, that happened during
one night Billy, huh,
rule in the house that everyone had to eat at the same pace, heated and as a toddler Darren couldn't keep up,
sometimes Billy. We just force feed him one by after another after another
and on at least one of those occasions dear and actually threw up at which point Billy just force, fed him that so yeah Jane tells me
least, that she thought about killing Billy quite a lot. Every time she watched his rage boil over every time he be.
Her there sign whomever in every
She would have this thought in the back of her mind that one day, one of these times she was going
be the one left dead. So was there some sort of altercation that night that she killed her like? Was it particularly bad?
What happened again every day was bad in that house, but actually the night Billy died, hadn't been overly memorable in terms of physical violence, Jane helpful
that billion as other guy IRAN, who bordered with Stafford spent the entire day drinking and then later that
evening around eight thirty p M, according to Vernon Oils book Billy,
demanded that Jane drive them to a party a few miles away. The whole
they are genes as that Billy kept going on and on about their neighbour Margaret who, I guess he fought with awe
the time in saying how this was it. He was gonna end their ongoing argument over the property like once and for all, and they get at a party, any kind of drops it. But then, as soon as their back in the truck and headed home, he picked right back up where he left off
hunting about Margaret and here
I'm gonna, get you to read this passage from Brian Valleys book about what Jane says. He was actually saying quote when Margaret turned
of her lights down there tonight ITALY lights off for her for good. He shouted. I got five
was a gas in town today and I'm gonna die
all around that trailer and watch them burn they'll never get out. Can't you just see
with her game leg and Roger with his bad heart running, around
trying to get out. They won't have a chance and quote right after Billy turned to her and said quote and I'll deal with that Sunday,
yours. At the same time, I've waited a long time to deal with him. I might as well clean them all up at one time. End quote Jane, says she was terrified terrified for Margaret for our
for all of them. She knew what Billy was capable loud and she worried about what the next several hours would bring. Would you tell the police
that by the time they pulled into the driveway at the Stafford home Billy had passed out wrong stumbled into the house, but Jane stayed where she was behind the wheel, because that was the rule she had to stay in the truck with him
till he woke up and gave her permission to go inside. She says she just sat there
for whatever reason in the stillness of the night, with Billy slumped over asleep. Next to her everything he said and done to her
breathing. He had said and done to her children, everything he said.
Was gonna do to Margaret and Alan that night, at all just hit her at once, and she decided she was
on that. She wasn't gonna live like this any more and that there was
one way to end the cycle of hell, she and her children had been living in. This episode was made possible by honey. We all shop online and we ve all seen that promo could feel that
haunts us at checkout, but thanks to honey manually, searching for promo codes is a thing of the past. Honey is the free browser extension that scours the internet for promo codes and applies the best one it can find to your cart. Honey supports over thirty thousand in stores online too. They range from sites that have tech and gaming products to popular fashion brands, even food delivery. I've been using honey for years,
It was so easy to download and has quite literally saint me hundreds of dollars. If you don't already have honey, you could be straight up missing out on free savings, its literally free and installed in a few seconds, and by getting it you'll, be doing yourselves a solid and supporting this pod cast get honey for free at join honey, dot com, slash, crying junkie that join honey, dot com, slash crying junkie.
Journalists in story reported for the improvers Jane, beat the horn to wake up out and asked him to get the guy loaded and bring it outside which she tells police. He did. You didn't tell me
HU. The gun was for or why once she was confident out
back in bed. She says she walked to the truck put the barrel of a gun
hu the open drivers. I window pointed at a Billy's head,
turned away and pulled the trigger she tells police. Then, of course the shot woke Alan and when he came outside, she told him not to ask any questions. Just get rid of the gun. Her focus at this point was on getting the truck away from
House as quickly as she could before daring woke up and saw anything. She says that
she didn't once look at Billy's body or beyond the steering wheel of the truck after she pulled the trigger
have any idea whether Billy was even alive or dead. She just drove with Billy's body, slowly inching closer and closer. We
more and more against her. The whole way when she got there, she left the truck by the side of the road. Again she
you know for sure that he was dead or that she and her kids were really truly safe until the officers came the next day to notify her so when they notified her and she fainted,
that may have been more relief than grief, release
The austrian shock, all of it right, so it doesn't seem like a threat to public safety. To me at least to me, if anything Billy had been too threat to the public, but it is still technically
murder. What did the police do? Women their sympathetic? Obviously, in back
adding to reporting by Louis Sweet for the Edmonton Journal. One of the officers famously said that
in deserved a metal and that she probably even saved a couple of officers lives by killing Billy
they asked Jane, where they could find the murder weapon and she tells them Allen, had taken it apart and thrown it in a river at her direction. They also
on the way back to beings falls, and she tells them exactly where to find it, and then they take Jane home to get some rest
which don't get me wrong is very weird to me. But, like you said, police, don't think she's a risk to the pub
for anything nor did they think shall run. I think they just probably feel like she'd been through enough at this point I don't know and they're they're, not letting her off by any means, because three,
later on March, sixteenth police formally charged Jane with first degree murder. First agreement are like planned out very deliberate first degree, murder, yet Jane actually offers to plead guilty to the law.
Charge of manslaughter and according to brine, Valleys book life and death after Billy. The ground prosecutor is support,
of this, and so is the RCMP, but when they take that deal to the attorney general, which is the elected official in charge of the Justice Department, he's like Pard PATH
wait. Why would they do you wanna? Be simply bargaining on a first degree murder charge mostly, and
willing to reduce it to manslaughter, because Billy was asleep when Jane shot him. So they don't care
it was self defense either because they see list
like you, weren't, in imminent danger at that exact moment, and though the crown
holds their ground on the murder charge and says that they'll, let the jury decide
during the month long trial, which begins in November nineteen, eighty to the jury hears from a slow
of witnesses who, according to coverage from the canadian press, tell the court about the extent of the violence?
An abuse, Jane and daring both lived through from now
Eighteen, seventy seven until that fateful night in March, Billy's former wife even gets up
talks about her experience, which included, abuse against their five children from the time they were babies literally six months old in a crib Billy's warmer
common law spouse tells a very similar story about her experience. So how did they
manage to get away from him like. I assume they faced similar threats that Jane faced
they had to leave the province to get away from Billy his first
Pauline waited until he was gone on this like two weeks sale and moved herself in the kids to Ontario to stay with her cousin and in his next partner. Those women in faith did the same thing but fled to Calgary, but Jane, couldn't
that, because by the time, things were bad enough to start looking for a way to escape, there was
one Billy wasn't spending two weeks at a time at sea. He wasn't working at all. Any more so
in known about fillies two former spouses and like their history, is I mean at such a small town? Will
means is that she didn't know about Billy's violence when they first got together, which I think is
on common. In fact she says
he was loving and charming in those early days of the relationship has spoiled her doated on her. He made her feel safe. It wasn't until she got pregnant with dear, in that his dark side started to come out yet, which we know
since that uncommon, the start that the American College of Obstetrics and gynecology gives goes out is that for like one in six victims, violence starts in pregnancy, yeah. Now at the trial, her parents testify in court that they have had no idea how bad things really were for Jane how bad they become
in the five years since the abuse began. Nothing new Billy was no saint, but they didn't know what day to day life with him was like for Jane, partly that's because, like so
many victims of domestic violence Jane.
An isolated from her family and friends. Over time and Jaynes parents gave
a wide berth themselves and they had ever since he attacked Jane's father. He apparently ripped the door
the hinges smashed a window pushed him and punched him in the face of it, so they were clearly scare them till they could.
Say that they didn't know yet.
Is where I get a low confuse again. Maybe they didn't know what day to day life was like, but they clearly
You have no need of violent streak if that's the reason their staying away from him, yell like if he attacked them like what would keep him from attacking her and
it is about like right. I don't know, but again,
the Tories separated from her family. They were scared of him. The police were scared of him. Every one was scared of Billy Jane
couldn't see a life raft anywhere, there was no escape from the hell that she was living in with Billy. She had no one to turn to and nowhere to go and with Billy home all the time there were no opportunities to escape, not
till that night, when he passed out in the truck and she decided to just
the nightmare once and for all, and only happened that night, because he was
turning her son and their neighbours, I mean: doesn't that qualify as self defence
at the time no self defense was really about. Stopping
minute danger and is
hard for anyone to see a sleeping man as a threat to any one, but that's largely because people do
understand. The issue of domestic violence. At the time and J
the trial was one of the first times people heard about what's known as battered wife syndrome or battered woman syndrome and bread action,
I ask you to do a little bit of digging into this in share, but a background so doing people a bit about what you found
so. I found an article on the trauma, awareness and treatments on her, and it defines a
woman as someone over the age of eighteen, who is repeatedly subjected to forceful, physical and or psychological abuse? In an intimate relationship
and to define a little bit more. They consider an intimate relationship as romantic, affectionate or sexual, and the abuse, as we know, can take a bunch of different forms, including course of control, psychological abuse, sexual assault, fiscal assault threats. I mean the whiskers
and according to the Supreme Court of Canada, whirling, are versus loudly in nineteen. Seventy, nine, a clinical psychologists and domestic violence researcher named Doktor, Lenore Walker put forward the Walker Cycles, theory of violence
and in her research, she outlines these phases or patterns of violence occur really in a cycle and the first phase is called tension building and that's when the abuser becomes increasingly more hostile towards the victim over
period of time, like an victim, just responds in whatever they can do to keep the peace just I'll do whatever just to make things. Ok, then, this
phase is what happens when all that tension boils over into an episode of violence, whether its physical or
the logical look at this
the release of all that tension that have been building and then, after this outburst, there's the
Immediate reduction attention like taking a boiling PA offer burner and Doktor Walker, says quote this in itself is naturally reinforcing. Violence often succeeds because it does work and quote because at the end of this outburst, the last
phase of cycle is called loving, contrition and is basically they like I'm. So sorry, it's never gonna happen again. Phase rate. So after this explosion of violence theirs
kindness, remorse, apologies promises presents. You know the abuser says: I'm never going to do this again and a lot of times. Both people believe that that's true that that's actually going to happen.
And the person who emerges from the tension and violence is the one of the victim feels like is the poorest
They met and fell in love with the one that there still
in love with a lot of ways. Now, at this point in time,
one thousand eight hundred and eighty two, the law hadn't quite caught up to the growing research and understanding of domestic violence and how a victim trapped in this cycle might respond to being provoked.
And over again over a period of years right and victims of domestic violence, actually don't tend to react to defend themselves with force at the moment of an attack like it's, usually the opposite. They often retreat get away
just anything trying to survive until they feel safe or at least safe enough to defend themselves and to do what they feel is necessary in order protect themselves and their families. Just like Jane did the jury here
all this information during Jaynes trial, which last nineteen days and their sent off to conceal
the evidence and come to a conclusion at this point, everyone is holding their breath the prosecution defend the community domestic violence advert.
Its everyone knows how important this verdict is in so we
The word gets out that the jury has reached its decision. The entire country is watching. This episode has brought tune
by Grove, literally as in recording this I'm expecting my monthly grove order to arrive on my doorstep,
of amazing, sustainable home beauty and personal care products that are good for me and my family, and it's one of those things I don't even really have to think about, because Grove takes the guesswork out of going green by guaranteeing that every product is going to be good, not only for your home but our home, the planet. Seventy percent of people say that they want to use natural products, but only two percent actually go for it, but that is because it gives
be really overwhelming and a lot of times the products they sell. The store are from the biggest companies and maybe not the best companies, but not with grove. So my favorite
Four items I have recurring orders from Grove are the Grove Laundry Detergent pods that one hundred percent recycled plastic trash bags and, of course, the Maldives surface, cleaner
entreat so join me and over two million household who choose to shop sustainably at grove plus shipping is fast and free on your first order. Choosing products that are better for you and the planet has now
urban easier for a limited time or listeners can go to grove dot com, slash crying Jackie annually to choose a free start or set with your first order. Gotta grove, dot com, slash crime, donkey, t your exclusive offer. That's grove, dotcom, slash crime, junkie,.
Women jury. Finally, files back into the court room after eighteen hours of deliberation. The judge does the whole give power
you reached a verdict thing
foreman says. Yes, they have so vaginas agree
Hand me the indictment and tender forms, like
We just supposed to write it down. Wickedly didn't either right down to the judge,
God, send them back out of the courtroom to fill the paperwork, a comedy of errors. At this point they return for a second time. The
find Jane, not guilty of murder,
according to Alan stories, piece in the Vancouver Sun, the courtroom literally breaks into applause for advocates the not guilty verdict.
Like a step in the right direction towards the legal system, finally, putting victims of domestic violence ahead of their abusers by
not. Everyone is celebrating and for the people who are the cheers and applause are short lived because, a few weeks after Jane's acquittal, the crown appeals the not guilty verdict, wait what the prosecution appeals,
not guilty verdict by the jury like. Can they do that? Isn't that like double jeopardy or something that was it
actually my reaction, because here in the? U S, you're right, that is double jeopardy. You cannot be tried for the same thing twice when it comes to mind.
Yeah, you can appeal, I give you were found guilty. You can appeal, but if you're found not guilty it's over but appeal
currently in Canada. The crown can appeal and not guilty jury verdict. Not all the time
I'm not just because they don't like it. I guess in order to appeal the crown has to argue that
judge made a legal error serious enough to impact the verdict. What was that argument like? What are the trial judge do wrong? Will, according to court docking,
The crowns argument is more or less than the judge just did a bad job directing the jury
Apparently, he took literally a full day to do it, like five hours of which was spent reviewing the evidence which
was it necessary, but the crown also called the jury's verdict. Perverse.
And said that there was no way the jury could find Jane, not guilty, given the evidence presented a trial, but they did
all the evidence and they still found her not guilty
The evidence is the other important thing, because the Supreme Court actually agrees with
the crown of the jury had been improperly instructed in his.
Cissian Justice, Gordon Heart wrote that the evidence presented at trial about Billy was on necessary and
admissible and quote served only to create sympathy for the responded
end quote, and so the Supreme Court overturns the not guilty verdict and
there's a new trial on the first degree murder charge, which is set for February nineteen
four okay. So I guess what makes a crown think
The result will be any different this time like do they assume that the passage of time will just make the jury less sympathetic?
I think the jury would be less sympathetic if they didn't hear anything about the years of domestic violence, Jane and Daring lived through, but
they're not willing to take any chances. This time around. Remember that, please
deal genes attorney brought to the prosecution before her first trial yeah? I was for manslaughter right right,
How will this time the crowns, like you know what will take it? You're kidding me
I wish I mean. Arguably it was the right charge in the first place, not for
degree murder by and by pleading
key to this new manslaughter charge, it's up to a judge to decide what her sentence will be, basically
leave the jury out of it,
to Brian Valet's book. During the sentencing hearing, the judge says that while Billy Stafford had been quote a man
on the outer fringes of the definition of humanity, wives, dough,
have the right to take the lives of their husbands. End quote, but he can't
nor the original acquittal adduced
the jury reached after nineteen days of testimony, and so he sentences Jane to six months of jail time plus two years of probation,
not as good as no time, but certainly not twenty five to life either. The judge or
so says that Jane can leave the jail to attend nursing classes which she'd been taking for several months at that point, so basically she just sleeps in jail
yeah, considering at the two hour drive each way from the jail to the school and then a full day of classes. Pretty much and joy,
and observing just two months of that sentence before being released and in the years that
although she uses her experience to advocate for other victims of domestic violence- and she goes
on to work as a nurse to support her children. She worked
Ryan Valet on the book life with Billy and then later on, a film based on that book, a film based on her life. She takes position
on community boards and govern
advisory councils shaving gets married again
all those years of hell both before and after Billy's debt? All Jean really wanted was to live a normal quiet life which she does to a degree until fairly
twenty third nineteen. Ninety two almost
ten years after Billy's death, when a passer by fines Jane in the front seat of her car on the Halifax Waterfront dead from a single gunshots,
to the chest: what Dean baby reported for the Vancouver Sun that polices initial theory around Jane's death was suicide because there's a weapon
at the scene and no signs of a struggle, but not everyone.
So sure genes
work. As an advocate had brought a lot of haters out of the woodwork, she get threats by the phone and people would leap. Notes on her.
Are basically telling her that she didn't shut up. They would do it for her in six weeks before her death, Jane
a slew of anonymous letters and phone calls to the police, and in fact she
scheduled to speak to them the very next day about it. That's interesting, so
is the medical examiner able to say for sure is that it was suicide, or is there possibly that if the hum
I'd need not really the Emmy says genes. Death is consistent with a suicide, but is enabled to rule out homicide, so police do open. A cripple
investigation, but in the end they find no evidence to suggest Jane was murdered. I mean that kind of trauma must have done serious,
number on her mental health through the ears. Absolute
We and forging
actually that trauma manifested as depression and kleptomaniac. You mean like shoplifting
Jane had been fined the year before for stealing greeting cards and perfume, and she had cha
jeez dating back over ten years, she said that any times
triggered a memory of her time with Billy. She got his uncontrollable urge to steal police fine. That Jane had act.
We ve been scheduled to face trial on shoplifting charges the next month, which may
I have been a contributing factor in her death if she did in fact take her own life. Now Jane tried to escape her abusive husband in nineteen eighty two and if there had been resources available to victims like her
in her community at the time things may have ended very differently. So if you
out there listening to this right now. If there are parts of genes story that sound like your story, there are options.
One of those options here in Indianapolis is called COBRA place, it's a safe and
your building where survivors can live, rent free in their own, fully furnished apartment for at least six months, but up to two years we know how important safe housing is for victims of domestic violence.
In some cases it could be the difference between staying in abusive relationship and leaving. That's why audio Chuck has made a donation to colbrand place to find one of those apartments
help ensure survivors of domestic violence and their children can live, rent inutility free they can access
ports and services and build a life they truly deserve, and I went
thank all of our listeners for supporting us and giving us the ability to do that in some ways, Jane did escape Billy when she pulled the trigger
and his life, but in other ways she could never escape and her death. Ten years later was Billy's final act of violence,
If you are experiencing domestic violence, there is support out there and people who can help in the? U S, you can call
The national domestic violence Hotline and one eight hundred
seven hundred and ninety nine, safe or text, the word start two hundred and eighty eight seven hundred and eighty eight
if you suspect, a loved one, may be experiencing domestic violence, but dont know how to help the hotline is there for you to it, also there for
perpetrators of violence who want to get the help to change.
You can
all the source material for this episode on our website crying junkie, podcast, dotcom, envy.
Followers on Instagram at crunch, Anti podcast, we'll be back next.
With a brand new episode
crime junkie, is an audio chuck production, so
Do you think check the approve
Transcript generated on 2021-10-19.