Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Jane Neumann

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

When a 30-year-old woman is found shot to death under the strangest of circumstances, police try to figure out exactly what happened, while her family is convinced there’s only one person who knows the truth… her husband.If you have any information about the death of Jane Neumann in 1993, please contact the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office at 715-386-4606. You can also email them at [e-mail] you or someone you know is struggling with your mental health, you are not alone. Crisis support options are available if you need them. Emotional support can be reached  in the United States by calling or texting the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988. Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Use promo code FREESUMMER to get access to all Fan Club exclusive episodes for FREE through July and August. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-jane-neumann Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today proves that the stranger the case, the more elusive the justice. This is the story of Jane Newman. It's precisely 6 18 p.m. on November 22nd 1993 when a 911 dispatcher receives a desperate call from 29 year old Jim Newman. And the pain in this guy's voice is apparent. He can barely get the words out as he tells the 911 dispatcher that he has

found his wife of five years dead and that their almost two year old son, Jonathan appears to be missing. Sheriff's deputies are dispatched to the house within minutes, finding Jim waiting for them, seemingly very upset. And when deputies enter the residence, they noticed that the front door has been broken open and it's in the downstairs family room of their split level home that they find 30 year old Jane Newman. And the way they find her, I mean it is a horrific scene.

She's laying face up and you can tell that she had been shot in the head. Oddly, according to an article in Minneapolis St. Paul magazine by Linda Henry, they also find little pieces of like bubble wrap and electrical tape that's scattered about. And no gun. No, nothing found. All indications are that a shotgun was used though, but that's gone and they don't see any major signs of a struggle. Also, despite that front door being busted in, nothing appears to be missing. I mean, Jane's purse is literally sitting near her body, and she's still wearing her leather coat. So it is like someone was just there for her and got to her just as

she walked into the house, most likely from the garage. I mean, that's kind of the only thing that makes sense, right? Like, there's no way she goes into that house if she notices the front door is busted open. Yeah, that's what investigators who arrive on scene are probably thinking too. But no matter what happened, this is a shocking turn of events considering where this is all taking place. Because it's happening in the quiet town of Hudson, on the western edge of Wisconsin, bordering Minnesota. And this isn't some big city known for its violent crime.

This is actually only the second homicide in the entire county that year, to give you an idea of how rare this was. And where's Jonathan? Well, that is actually the good news in an otherwise terrible story. It turns out that he wasn't missing after all. He is located at his daycare.

OK. So with Jonathan safe and the crime seen under control, sheriff's investigators now have the difficult task of figuring out what the heck happened here. So they turn to Jim. Jim tells them that he had talked to his wife several times during that day while he was at the office. He works as a computer programmer

at a place called MedSource, which is just a little over 30 minutes away. And Jim says that the last time he spoke with his wife was between 3.30 and 3.45 p.m. Jane had actually called him to tell him that the side door to their house had been left unlocked. And what's strange is, like, I don't think she's calling him because she's alarmed by this.

Jim kind of makes it sound like she's more or less just, like, busting his chops, maybe thinking that he left the door unlocked. Now, of course though, it seems a lot more ominous. She also told Jim on the phone that she was having trouble with the garage door. For some reason, it wasn't working properly. And he basically told her to go back,

try it one more time, and then call him back with more detail so he could try and troubleshoot the issue over the phone. But he says that she didn't call him back, so he kept calling her, over and over, ten times in total, but she never answered. Wasn't he concerned? Well, I mean, yeah, hence the ten calls. But honestly, I'm almost like, think it's kind of strange he was concerned.

I think my first thought probably would have been like, oh, she got it fixed. She went about her day. But doesn't need me anyway. Great. Yeah. But he thinks like you, he was worried. So he's making, you know, call seven, eight, nine, 10. Oh, and their answering machine actually had this feature which allowed you to listen in on like what was going on in the house, which when I first heard about it, I was like, Oh, how strange and spooky being able to like secret spy. And then I remembered that like now we have actual camera. I have a camera in my living room that I can do that today and see.

Just like no big deal. I don't know why this sounded so strange to me. But he admitted to doing that, but it sounds like he didn't hear anything unusual. But still, even not hearing anything unusual to him, I guess was unusual. In a 48 hours episode from 1998, Jim talks about how his heart was palpitating, that he just knew something wasn't quite right. But there's something that doesn't quite add up.

Because if Jim was so concerned that he was having heart palpitations, why didn't he jump in his car and go home to check on his wife? Because from his story, it sounds like he finished his regular work day. He told investigators that he left work at around 5 PM, drove his boss home first before arriving at his house at around 5 45. And that is when he discovered his wife's body and

when he tried to look for his son before finally calling 911. Now, they just straight up ask him, as they would any husband in this situation, did you kill your wife? Did you have someone else do it? But Jim swears he didn't. Yes, he had $100,000 life insurance policy on her that now he'll be getting,

but he swears he didn't kill her for money or any other reason because he didn't kill her. He loved her. And that's all that police really have at this point. So they collect Jim's clothes and shoes and they swab him for any gunshot residue to see if he had recently fired a gun. But then they cut him loose. Because even though they're not done with him, like if there is a there there, they're gonna need proof. Physical proof that they do hope to get from the scene. A scene that doesn't seem like someone random broken and murdered Jane.

Sure, there's a lampshade askew, a broken earring is found about six feet from her body, which could indicate some kind of struggle, but these aren't significant signs that someone was in there, a stranger was in there that she like fought with. And the position of Jane's body is also strange to investigators because her feet are pointed at the wall, and they determined that not only was Jane

facing the wall when she was shot, but she had to have been super close to the wall. Was she shot from behind? No, so this is the wild part. I know I said she was shot in the head. They think she was shot in the face. What? Facing the wall.

I know. And it only gets more bizarre because when they remove a photo that was on the wall that she would have been facing, they find a two-inch wide hole. And that hole is about four feet nine inches off the ground. Now it looks like this hole was made with some kind of hammer or something. And according to a leader telegram article by Chuck Rupno, they even find the pieces of the wall neatly placed in this waste paper bin. So it happened recently.

Probably or they hadn't taken out the trash in a while. But I mean, it's looking like it has to be connected. Does this hole go all the way through? Like? Can you see whatever's on the other side? Yeah, this isn't a big construction wall. We're talking about just a paneled wall that you could easily put a hole in. And it's the laundry room that's on the other side of it, but they don't find anything of interest in the laundry room, other than there just being a hole in the wall. So what does this mean then? Someone sat in their laundry room, got her to come right up to the wall, and they shot her from there on the other side of the wall in the laundry room?

Maybe, but I think in the early days investigators are just as puzzled as you. In that 48 Hours episode, one of the investigators talks about how this was the weirdest thing he had ever seen, and Dude has been on the job for over 30 years. But later that day, some of the mystery does start to get unraveled. And that happens when the results from Jane's autopsy comes in. The medical examiner determines a few critical things

during Jane's autopsy. One, Jane died sometime between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Two, the cause of death is as expected from a gunshot, but what's not expected is this. The Emmy said that the barrel of the gun would have been in Jane's mouth and that she would have had her right hand on it. Now, it doesn't say how they determine this.

I assume there's some kind of marks on her hand that told them that story, or GSR, I don't know. But I do know that there were no defensive wounds, indicating that she fought off an attacker. One of the source material pieces we have claims that there is a fracture to one of her neck bones, which the medical examiner assumes is from the gunshot blast. And there's pieces of that bubble wrap and electrical tape found at the scene that are also found in her wound,

indicating that the barrel of the gun was wrapped up in that stuff. – Like a homemade silencer of some kind? I don't think that's it. I mean, I'm no criminal mastermind, but I don't think bubble wrap is gonna put a dent in muffling a gunshot. Right. And it sounds like their house is in a pretty rural area.

So I don't think noise would have been the issue. Actually, according to that Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine article, the medical examiner, what they put forward is basically that, the best way to put it is like most likely the bubble wrap in the electrical cord had something to do with like the comfort of putting the gun in someone's mouth. Like, I don't want to go into like a ton of detail about that. But the medical examiner ends up listing the manner of death because of everything that

they found as pending. Because even though there's some signs pointing to a potential suicide, there are still some unanswered questions. So according to court documents, the sheriff's investigators bring Jim back in for round two. And this time he rolls in with a lawyer. When investigators press him on the fact that they don't think the crime scene

or the autopsy report supports a break in theory, that's when Jim changes his story. He tells them that, okay, Jane wasn't murdered by some intruder. He knows that she wasn't even murdered at all. He says Jane had taken her own life and Jim had covered it up. Now he says that the first half of his story is all true, basically everything before he arrived home. But the truth of what happened after he came home is this. This time he says when he entered the house,

he could smell the faint odor of gunpowder. He noticed that the laundry room door was closed but could see a light on. And when he opened the door, the smell of gunpowder was even more potent, and on the ground he found a shotgun. He then ran to the next room, he says, where he found Jane dead with a note that she had left nearby. The gun is in a different room than she is?

Girl were all confused, so they actually had to mock this up in the 48 hours episode, and I'll explain it the best I can. But it does involve, like, that hole and the fact that she's facing the wall. Basically, what they think is that the shotgun was propped up in the laundry room with the barrel sticking through that hole in the wall. And then tied to the gun's trigger

was a fishing line that was run through a smaller hole in the wall. And then tied to the gun's trigger was a fishing line that was run through a smaller hole in the wall. Hold up, what smaller hole? There was like a secondary, even smaller hole in the same wall. They found that initially. Okay, so Jane could pull the fishing line from the next room to set the gun off?

That's the theory. And by the way, where this shotgun came from seems to be a bit of a mystery. Reporting in the Leader Telegram from 1996 claims that there's no record of Jane buying or borrowing a gun. And there's also nothing in the source material about Jim owning one either, or even having access to one.

So it doesn't appear that this gun was already in the house, as far as I can tell. Anyways, Jim tells investigators that after finding Jane's body, he decided to hide what she had done to protect her image, because he didn't want her family to think that that is how she died. And he thought it was better if he told them she was murdered? I know. And it doesn't get any better, because Jim tells investigators that what he did is he

wrapped the shotgun up in some garbage bags. He then drove three miles, hopped some four-foot fence and dropped the gun off a highway bridge into a river. And then he gets back to the house, he shouldered in his own door to make it look like a break-in, and he admits to being the one who hung that picture over the hole. Which was a good thing to confess to, I guess, since by the way, they found his fingerprints on it. What did he do with the note?

Well, he says he burned it and then flushed the ashes down the toilet. And after he did all of that, then he called 911. And that 911 call, that happened at what time? 618. Okay, 618. So he... Yeah, he basically had, you're trying to figure out how long- he basically had 30

minutes to do everything. Which, Jim of course says was more than enough time, but I think there's some heavy debate about this. Like for instance, it was kind of still rush hour when he drove to this bridge, so I would figure that alone is gonna take a few. I know they live in kind of a rural area, but like, I don't know. And not only if there's traffic, it would take longer. People would see him.

No one saw him dropping these bags over? Apparently not, but no one appears to have seen him on the bridge, like at all, or even driving to it. And why wouldn't he have just kept the note, like hidden it away somewhere just in case? I mean, it's proof of how she really died, right? I thought the same thing. I don't know. Because it is like your ticket, right? Like if you're going to stage this, part of you has to be, unless you think you're just

like a perfect genius, part of you has to be thinking like this might not work. And having this would would help me. Like how do I make sure I don't go to prison for this? Because even the way you're setting it up makes you look super guilty. Yeah. And for someone who's claiming to be protecting her family, her image, he's kind of doing the opposite. He's destroying her final words.

That note. I mean, they might want that. They might need that. Well, he tries to give them that after the fact, according to an article in the Post Crescent, Jim claims that he remembers what she said. He said that she talked about how she was a poor mother in the note, how she had low self-esteem.

And by the way, this is often how Jim has portrayed Jane over the years, said that she had several mental health issues, and I don't think we need to detail what those were. I mean, for one thing, some of this information comes from Jim, who we know had lied to police once. And for another, nobody truly knows what was going on in someone else's head. But the thing that's important to know is Jim tells investigators that the note mentioned Jane's life insurance policy. Jane said that it would help Jim pay off their debts. They had about $45,000 worth of debt along with their mortgage.

Do life insurance policies pay out when someone takes their own life though? Like isn't there a clause for that? You hit the nail on the head. Because there was an exclusion in Jane's life insurance policy about not paying out in the event of a suicide, but strange times, turns out that that exclusion basically expired just four days before her death. So in this situation, Jim would get paid out, but Jim would later say that he never knew about that.

Why would she go through all this to take her own life though? I mean, the hole in the wall, the string, the gun in the other room. There are a lot of whys, especially for Jane's family. Jane's mother and sister tell investigators that they had spoken to her earlier that very day. According to that Leader Telegram article from 1996,

they talked about things like holiday plans. Jane was set to host Thanksgiving, and at the time she worked at a mortgage company, and that day she had asked about vacation and holiday pay eligibility. So they didn't get a whiff that anything was wrong. Now they learned that after she left work that afternoon, she popped by a store to exchange a purse at around 3.15 p.m.,

which investigators confirmed she did in fact go and do, because the new purse that she got was actually the one that they found near her body. So all that to say, there's nothing out of the ordinary to anyone who knew her. It sounds like she was just going through a normal day, even running errands. But as we mentioned earlier, as we always mention,

you never know what is happening in someone's head. This doesn't mean Jane couldn't have been going through some stuff. Right, and I agree. But you can kind of see where her family, her friends, her coworkers, they might have trouble with Jim's narrative, like from their perspective. I would feel the exact same way.

But unfortunately, all they can really do at this point is see what, if anything, investigators can find to corroborate what Jim is now saying. And one of the first things that they do to try and corroborate that is, okay, let's go try and find that shotgun. Mm-hmm. So they send out a dive team who spends over three hours

searching the river that Jim said he threw the gun into, which was like five minutes ago, by the way. But they find nothing. And it sounds like they even went back and did a second search. OK, why lie about where you put the gun if you're telling the real story now? That's a great question.

There are other parts of his story that they do corroborate, though. Bone records confirm that Jim was repeatedly calling the house from work between 3.55 and 5.07, just like he said he did. And these calls are important because they do fall within the critical time of death window, which we have, which is three to six.

And I mean, he's home around 5.45. He is, and Jim's boss confirms that Jim drove him home when he said he did, with him leaving the office just before 5, which lines up with Jim's last call at, like, 507. So it doesn't leave Jim a lot of time if he is somehow responsible to, like, get there at 545, stage everything.

But, I mean, we talked about it before, like, not impossible. So in December, Jim agrees to take a polygraph test, which he passes. And throughout the rest of the month and into January 1994, items taken from Jim's home, like his computer, the answering machine, and even those insurance policies that we discussed, they start being returned to Jim. That all feels like stuff you'd want to keep for a trial.

If there was going to be a trial, maybe. But all Jim is charged with are three misdemeanor counts of obstructing an officer for lying to police and disposing of the gun. He ends up pleading no contest to one charge, and he's ordered to pay nearly $5,000 in restitution. Shortly after that, Sheriff investigators announced that they believe Jane had taken her own life.

The medical examiner changes the pending status for Jane's manner of death to align with what investigators have concluded. And so Jane's case is then officially closed in early 1994, just months after it began. But just when it appears that this thing is done and dusted, Jane's family steps in to take up the fight. According to that article by Linda Henry

for Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, in May of 1994, Jane's mother, Patricia, sends an 11-page letter to the district attorney. In it, she's asking him to look at the case closer. She talks about some of the inconsistencies. She speaks lovingly about her daughter and Jane's plans for the future. Then, of course, there are her thoughts on Jim. She says, quote, we sincerely hope we are wrong in our suspicions, but we need some answers.

Please help us sort this all out. End quote. What's the district attorney's response? None. He never responded. Dude. I know. You can't take a few minutes to put pen to paper for a grieving mother.

I mean, it's not a good look for anyone, let alone an elected official in a victim-centric job. Yeah. But meanwhile, I mean, like, there's nothing Patricia can do. No one can make him respond. So they're kind of just left to sit there, wait and watch as Jim collects Jane's life insurance money. They also discover that Jim plans to move

to Washington state, taking Jonathan with him halfway across the country. And it turns out, Jonathan wasn't the only one going with him. Four months after Jane's death, Jim started dating a woman named Heather, whom he had hired as Jonathan's nanny. And these two would eventually go on to get married, by the way. But Jane's family isn't just standing idly by. They continue to press for Jane's case to be re-examined, and they even hire their own lawyer to help investigate. And it seems like the pressure starts to work

because the district attorney finally cracks and asks Wisconsin's Division of Criminal Investigation to look at the case. But here's the thing. According to that Linda Henry piece, from the jump, it sounds like this DCI investigation is doomed. Because just weeks in, they tell Jane's family that the case isn't a priority. They say that out loud?

Mm-hmm. DCI also tells the family that the local sheriffs basically effed this one up so bad that, like, they don't know what they can do. Like, for instance, according to reporting from Chuck Rupno, the clothes that were taken from Jim were never actually analyzed. They also never ended up testing for fingerprints on the pieces of wall that they found in the waste paper basket. Oh.

Or even the wall itself. And there's- What? I know, and there's nothing in the source materials about any results of the gunshot residue testing that they did on Jim So I don't know if that actually got done or if they just like swabbed and then did nothing with it Oh my god, so because DCI is coming in like so much later They're like it's gonna be pretty hard for us to uncover something new So you can imagine it's really no surprise when the family finds out in late

1996 that the DCI has come to the same conclusion as the original investigators. They say there is no evidence to charge anyone with murder. So there is only one option left for her family. A civil suit, which they actually file in their grandson's name while waiting for the DCI report to come in. Can you do that? their grandson's name while waiting for the DCI report to come in. Can you do that? It sounds like you can. I think it has something to do with the fact that Jonathan had a court appointed guardian

who was looking out for his interests. So in the summer of 1997, they finally get their day in court with Jim. And this civil suit becomes a huge turning point in the case because a ton of details either not made public or not known to the investigators or maybe just ignored by everyone start coming out. And one of the big witnesses that the family's lawyer calls to testify is Jim's boss at MedSource.

So it turns out Jane actually used to work there too at one point, so this guy knew her along with Jim. And remember, Jim gave his boss a ride home the night that Jane died. Well, this guy tells the court something that Jim told him days after Jane's death and Brit, my jaw was like on the floor when I first read this. Jim told his boss that when he entered the house that night,

the door to the laundry room was rigged with a bomb that he had to defuse. Oh, Jim, come on. Obviously, that was not true, but here's the thing. So Jim was doing this all the time, apparently. He would try to convince people he was some super spy or something. What? That his office was bugged, that the government was pressuring him to do something he didn't want to do.

Or one source even says that he claimed he served in the Persian Gulf War despite actually working as a military clerk in Germany. So was he just paranoid or a pathological liar? I mean it sounds like this guy was more of a liar. A friend of the Newman's who even worked in the same building as Jim testified that he thought Jim was the best liar he ever met. Now you tell me there's a bomb on the door, I'm like, are you the best liar? Like no Jim, but apparently he was pretty good at it.

Now going back to Jim's boss though, so he asked Jim about the way that Jane died, bomb on the door aside, because I think this guy was like just as puzzled as anyone else. And he said that Jim speculated to him at the time that someone could have put a knife to her neck and basically forced her to do it. My spidey senses always start tingling when there's some speculation, right? Is there some truth in there, Jim? Yeah, full body chills. When he said that I was just like, is it one of those moments where you're like you're saying it because you know what happened

Or or truly you're like that's the only way it would happen. Why would you say it if it's not what? What happened what's close to what happened if you know she took her own life? I mean, I guess he was trying to convince people that's not what happened. I don't know, it's really strange. But like then why go to those lengths? I don't know. But let's, okay, forget like speculation aside. So there are some interesting things about Jim's timeline that also comes out through his boss.

So something that he points out is that Jim had access to a company parking garage, which he says could have allowed Jim to leave the building unnoticed. Jim had access to a company parking garage, which he says could have allowed Jim to leave the building unnoticed. Did Jim have enough time in between calls to the house? So here's the thing. The boss has a little interesting wrinkle for that too. Now just a heads up, this next bit is all from

that Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine article, but one of Jim's jobs apparently was to program a computerized telemarketing system. So Jim's boss says that he could have programmed the med-source computers to make those calls to his house. So basically creating the alibi with these computer calls, it looks like he's at work, he slips out the private garage.

Yeah, and while this might sound like something out of a movie, there is some additional evidence to back this up. Now, it's unclear where, when, or how this comes out, but the answering machine at the home, the one that Jim was calling into that day, apparently it got erased by Jim. Yeah, not suspicious at all. Mm-hmm, and the boss also tells the court that, by the way, that bubble wrap that was found at the scene,

the one that was most likely used to wrap the gun barrel in, that came from computer packaging, which Jim had access to at work. I'm sorry, that seems pretty f***ing significant. Did the original investigators not know any of this? I don't know what they did or didn't know. But honestly, it only gets more suspicious. A forensic firearms examiner testifies that depending on the trigger pull weight, what that original investigation showed happen to Jane

might have been possible. Still, in some cases, it would take a bit of strength. And this is important because in the 48 Hours episode, they point out that if Jane was pulling on the fishing line, it would then leave behind a mark on her hand or finger where she would have been pulling, maybe even cut into the skin. But there was no mark on Jane's hand to indicate this.

Now, maybe that mark disappeared quickly, don't know. But another weird thing is like, even the setup doesn't quite make sense. And again, they had to like illustrate this in the 48 hours episode. So from the ME, again, I don't know if it was a GSR, I don't know what it was, but they knew she was holding the gun with her right hand, like holding the barrel, right? Well, where the other hole was,

I guess with her left hand, she would have had to like reach across her body and pull the string or whatever. Like it wasn't on the left side, which if you're setting this up yourself, like doesn't- Yeah, I was gonna say, like one thing I keep coming back to is just the elaborate setup of all this, like the shotgun, the hulls, the fishing line, it's like a freaking Rube Goldberg machine, but then to set it up where it's like...

If you're gonna leave a suicide note. Not comfortable for you then? Right, she wasn't even trying. To do it on the wrong side, like it doesn't make sense. Yeah, and Jane's family claims that she wasn't even mechanically inclined and this whole setup was very mechanical in nature And this next part it's not physical evidence, but it will make you hate Jim Even if he's an innocent man in all of this According to that Minneapolis st. Paul article

Jane's sister testifies that Jim told her that one of the worst things about losing Jane was that he was without sex. What? And then, Brit, he made a pass at her. Can you imagine? Poor Jim. Everything aside, literally just a scumbag.

Just a scumbag. Poor Jim. What? Now three co-workers of Jim's at MedSource testify to similar encounters with Jim. One even left her job because of Jim's stalking behavior. Now Jim will later testify that he considered these encounters with these women, I can't with this guy, acts of kindness? Yes, because women often leave their jobs because of excessive acts of kindness.

Excessive kindness. There was another woman who worked with Jim in the 80s who testifies that he told her once that he could basically break her neck, quote, like the snap of a twig. Uh, I'm not 100% certain that he's a murderer, but he's a creep. Yes. And I think the family's lawyer is being smart and using all of this to his advantage. It doesn't even seem like he ever puts up his own theory of what he thinks actually happened according to that 48 hours episode. From what I gather, it's more just showing the inconsistencies, pointing to the things

that don't add up or don't make sense or could point to Jim's involvement. And then there are a few other small things, like the fact that in the 911 call, Jim said that Jonathan was missing, even though he was the one who dropped him off at daycare that morning. Now, to be fair, right, like if she's home, she's probably the one that would go pick him up. And so if she's home, he's not, I don't know. So I'm not freaking out about that little part, but it's something that they point out. Now, what I do spin out about is the fact that just before Jane's death,

Jim had turned their dog into a shelter and put the reason as owner passed away before Jane's death. I'm sorry, what? Now, here's the thing. Jim and Jane's niece recently talked on the Cousins on Crime podcast, and she said that the dog being turned in was a decision that both Jim and Jane did make. That the dog had been like peeing all over the place, like they decided that together. And the thought was that if information was put down, the reason that they put it down was for peeing everywhere, like maybe the dog wouldn't get adopted. So Jim put owner passed away. But again, like that's the one you pick? That's still like not a great look.

Yeah. Did this niece say anything else? I mean, just that Jim was a strange dude and some decisions or behavior could be chalked up to that. She also said that he did come from a really religious family. So something like Jane taking her own life would have been a big no-no. So like in her mind, like that could have been why if he really did like walk in on

that and like covered it all up. Maybe that's why he went to such lengths and didn't just admit what happened. But she wants answers to things just like the rest of us. Now, seven days after the civil trial began, Jane's family was about to get some answers. After listening to all of the testimony, the jury was sent off to deliberate. According to court documents, they're given what is known as a special verdict. And that's where they'll need to answer some specific questions regarding Jim's culpability and Jane's death. And those questions were verbatim as follows.

One, was the death of Jane Newman a homicide? And if yes, A, did James Newman murder Jane Newman? B, did James Newman solicit someone to murder Jane Newman? When the jury finally returns, they answer yes to the first two and no to the last. So not only do they believe that Jane was in fact murdered, they believe Jim did it all on his own. Correct. The jurors said that Jim lacked credibility and they thought it was odd that Jane had

no marks on the hand that she would have needed to pull the fishing line with. So Jim is ordered to pay $400,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The judge also orders Jane's death certificate to be changed to homicide. Does that change the potential for a criminal case now? I mean, that was the family's hope. I mean, it was part of why they brought the civil suit in the first place. But the district attorney at the time, much like the one before him, felt that the evidence wasn't sufficient to file homicide charges.

The burden of proof is a lot higher. Right. Now, Jim, of course, appealed this civil verdict. According to another article by Chuck Rupno in the Leader Telegram, in February of 2001, an appellate court upheld his liability in his wife's death, saying there was quote, ample evidence of Newman's motive, opportunity, and lack of credibility to support the jury's conclusion that Newman was the murderer, end quote. Although the appellate court did reduce his punitive and compensatory damages to $482,903.

Which is ultra specific. And that was the last significant update in Jane's case. Which is frustrating because there are so many questions left unanswered. Like, did sheriff's investigators ever test the garage door that Jim claims Jane called him about that wasn't working? If Jane took her own life, where did she get the shotgun from? Well, and where is the gun? Like, that's my biggest hangup, right?

Like, how can his bull story be true if they never find the gun? I agree, but like, on the flip side, if Jim did murder Jane, how did he get her to put the gun in her mouth? Did he force her to do it with a knife at her throat? I mean, that's what he speculated to his boss. And by the way, it is how Jane's family believes it was done.

I also wonder, you know, was there anyone suspicious seen in the area at the time of Jane's death? Someone who could have been an accomplice perhaps. And I mean, we could go on and on and on, and investigators might have answers to all of these questions and more. They just might not be public. And until they are,

people are gonna keep asking questions. I think they're gonna keep doubting Jim's innocence, which he maintains to this day. The only thing Jim has ever been criminally convicted of in connection to Jane's death is obstruction of justice. Technically, her case remains an open homicide, but after over 30 years, it seems more and more unlikely that anyone is gonna take it up without some new evidence,

which leaves Jane's family in a difficult place, convinced that Jim had something to do with her death but unable to prove it. And if Jim is as innocent as he claims, he has been publicly accused of a crime that maybe he didn't commit. But what often gets lost is their son Jonathan, who is now in his 30s. He grew up without his mother while living with a father who was constantly under suspicion of her death. And that's not just tragic, that's heartbreaking.

I hope that of everyone, Jonathan gets the answers he needs. After researching this case, I think one answer is clear. His mother loved him more than anything, and no matter what happened to Jane, that will never change. Jane Newman's case remains unsolved as of this recording, but her family is still desperately searching for answers. So if you have any information, please contact the St. Croix County Sheriff's Office at 715-386-4606.

You can also email them, tip line at sccwi.gov. If you or someone you know is struggling with your mental health, you are not alone. Crisis support options are available if you need them. Emotional support can be reached by calling or texting the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the U.S. at 988. We'll also put this information on our website, so it's there if you need it. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?