Province & Vancouver Sun get THE video!!

How awesome is THAT!?

On the down side, Jean Ann James's has a lawyer that is trying to appeal the verdict.

Jean James appealing murder verdict; video released of confession to 'Mr. Big'

The Vancouver Sun and Province jointly applied to B.C. Supreme Court to obtain and broadcast James' video-taped confession and were granted permission

METRO VANCOUVER -- A Richmond senior convicted last month of first-degree murder for the 1992 slaying of her husband's lover is appealing the jury's guilty verdict.

Jean Ann James, 72, admitted to undercover police posing as organized criminals that she slit the throat of Gladys Wakabayashi in June 1992 because the billionaire's daughter was sleeping with her husband, Derek James.

The confession to "Mr. Big" — the purported leader of the gang — came in November 2008, after almost a year-long operation in which the officers befriended James, earned her trust and got her involved in criminal acts for their fake counterfeit-goods ring.

Over 11 months, James worked her way up to meeting "Mr. Big" in a Montreal hotel room, where he talked to her about whether she was ready for a job in which she was going to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Vancouver Sun and Province jointly applied to B.C. Supreme Court to obtain and broadcast the video-taped confession and were granted permission by Justice Catherine Bruce as long as the images and voices of the undercover operators were altered to protect their identities.

James's appeal lawyer, Ravi Hira, said some of the prejudicial things James said during the 90-minute meeting in Montreal should not have been stressed during Bruce's charge to the jury.

"We are appealing on the grounds there was evidence that should not have been admitted for the jury and we are appealing based on the reliability of the alleged confession," Hira said.

The grounds in the appeal filed last week say: "That the learned trail judge erred in law by failing to exclude editable prejudicial evidence that was not probative of any issue led by the Crown in the various Mr. Big scenarios."

Hira also said the judge "erred in law by emphasizing in her charge to the jury the Crown's theory that no one else had a grudge against the deceased after disallowing defence counsel to cross-examine on that issue."

The final ground of appeal suggests Bruce also erred "by emphasizing in her charge to the jury various prejudicial comments made by the defendant and other bad character evidence relating to the defendant."

James was a suspect almost immediately after Wakabayashi's body was found in her palatial westside Vancouver home in the 6800-block of Selkirk on June 24, 1992. But there was no forensic evidence linking the retired flight attendant to the crime scene — Wakabayashi's master-bedroom suite on the upper floor of the house.

It wasn't until 2007 that the RCMP's provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit made another major effort to solve the case, developing a year-long "Mr. Big" operation where a number of officers posed as members of a crime ring and ingratiated themselves with James after a "chance" meeting at a spa.

Through a series of recorded meetings and events, it was clear James eagerly embraced her new criminal life, even offering to kill for the gang. She eventually confessed in chilling detail to her "crime boss" about how she cut Wakabayashi's legs with a box cutter as she probed for information about the affair, then slit her throat. The cold-blooded killer said she felt no regret.

The RCMP has used the "Mr. Big" technique in more than 350 criminal cases, with an amazing success rate.

Some critiques claim the scenarios are so elaborate and other-worldly that suspects make false confessions because they are caught up in the allure of potential profit, or are simply trying to impress people they think are high-level gangsters. And some targets have claimed they confessed because they were afraid of what their new associates might do to them if they didn't admit guilt.

"The undercover operators cultivate an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, which also creates a significant degree of psychological influence over the target," said Simon Fraser University PhD student Kouri Keenan, who co-authored a 2010 book called Mr. Big: Exposing Undercover Investigations in Canada. "The combination of the enticements or the inducements and the fear create the conditions for eliciting false confessions."

In an interview, Keenan said Mr. Big confessions are more reliable when "the confession was accompanied by narrative details that could only have been known by the perpetrator or someone who knew the perpetrator, notwithstanding the context within which the self-incriminating statement was made."

But, he said, if the RCMP don't include a number of safeguards during the operation, the chance of a false confession increases.

"As it stands right now, there is no sort of safeguard or no way within the criminal law to test the reliability of these confessions," Keenan said.

The RCMP techniques have evolved over the 20-year period studied by Keenan. Now operators posing as crime bosses stress that the gang has a code of reliability, honesty and loyalty — to warn suspects not to admit to things they haven't done.

"Those are the sort of fundamental themes that resonate throughout these investigations," he said.

Keenan said that if the investigations are long-term — the operators in the James case, for instance, built a relationship for almost a year — the confessions tend to be more reliable.

In one case where a confession was later proven to be false, the investigation lasted less than a month, he said.

University of the Fraser Valley criminologist Darryl Plecas said the Mr. Big technique is an invaluable tool for law enforcement when there is no other way to advance a case.

"I think it is a great practice. The acid test is when they do it, does it work? And as it turns out, it does," he said.

He said the safeguards adequately protect against false confessions by ensuring that a suspect provides details about a crime that no one but investigators would have known.

"It is not like somebody sitting down badgering somebody and them providing snippets of what happened," Plecas said. "I think that concern is unfounded."


Above is the article by Kim Bolan for the Vancouver Sun.


To view the full video (or shall I say the 3 portions of the video) go to THIS LINK.

HERE is the PDF transcript of the confession.

On a related note, HERE is an interesting article from yesterday regarding the Courts supporting the use of the "Mr.Big" method.

Tid Bit : Video Confession

Comment of the week

What about her assault on her poor, defenseless eyebrows. Another two years for that at least.



A comment on this Province article online.

logans
3:41 PM on 11/4/2011
What about her assault on her poor, defenseless eyebrows. Another two years for that at least.

Gratitude for justice after 19 very difficult years

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PROVINCE - NOVEMBER 6th, 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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19-year ordeal ends for dead woman's kin
 
Jean Ann James, 72, killed friend in 1992, not eligible for parole for 25 years


Family members of murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi, who say they have waited 19 years for justice, were gratified to see a jury render a guilty verdict Friday.

After less than a day of deliberations, the B.C. Supreme Court jury found Wakabayashi's friend, Jean Ann James, guilty of first-degree murder for the June 1992 slaying.

Justice Catherine Bruce imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.

The 72-year-old Richmond woman had little reaction to the verdict.

But several members of the victim's family were obviously relieved.

"We would like to extend our gratitude to everybody who contributed so much and helped us so much," Susanna Yang, Wakabayashi's sister-in-law, said outside court, thanking the Vancouver police, the RCMP, the judge and the jury for a "wonderful job."

"We just think that the justice system works even after this amount of time, that something like this can come to fruition and that the long arm of the law is a true statement," said Doran Aisenstat, Wakabayashi's son-in-law.

Yang said the past 19 years had been "very difficult," but the family never gave up.

The verdict in the sensational trial followed about three weeks of evidence, the most compelling of which was James' taped confession to undercover cops.

The body of 41-year-old Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in her Shaughnessy home.

No charges were initially laid, and the case lay cold for nearly 15 years, until Vancouver police reviewed the file and launched a year-long undercover operation aimed at getting a confession from James.

The so-called Mr. Big operation took James through dozens of scenarios in which she was asked to perform tasks for what she was told was a criminal organization. She told undercover cops that she had no conscience and was willing to do anything for them.

At the end of the operation, James was told that there was a "big score" in which she could share in a $700,000 windfall for helping commit an unspecified crime.

James travelled to Montreal, where she was confronted by the "crime boss," an undercover cop, who demanded that she come clean about the murder of Wakabayashi.

In a confession captured on videotape and played for the jury, James explained calmly that she discovered Wakabayashi "screwing around" with her husband, Derek James.

"I slit her throat," she told the fake crime boss, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.

James said she used box cutters to slash her friend across the throat and cut her on the legs in a bid to find out details of the infidelity.

James said she disposed of the murder weapon in a dumpster on the other side of town and threw her clothes in a school incinerator.

She said she used gloves during the crime, left nothing behind and never told her husband about it.

Though police had her as a suspect, she said she'd been to the Wakabayashi home several days before the murder to visit her friend and that "my fingerprints were all over the house."

"I didn't like the police coming around, but I wasn't shook up about it," she said.

James' lawyer, Aseem Dosanjh, argued Mr. Big confessions are by their very nature unreliable, some would say "notoriously" unreliable.

© Copyright (c) The Province

I can tell

I can tell that this story interests a LOT of people, probably for different reasons. So far today over 600 people have visited this blog, 4000 people since the trial started. That's a lot considering this is a local cold case murder that is over 20 years old.

Thankfully, thank every and any God or devine spirit you believe in, Jean James is now in jail! Some justice for Gladys and her family. They have been so very patient, and trusting - in a system that failed them initially.

Who am I and why do I have a blog about this murder, and moreso this crazy woman, Jean Ann James? Will this blog die out and end now that Jean James has gone to jail for a murder she committed 20 years ago?

No. The is so much more to this story!! Her story.

I can tell you I have known about this murder since almost day one.
I can tell you I have been in the company of Derek and Jean James - no, I am not friendly with them.
I can tell you that there is so much more I can not tell you... Yet.

I have no intention of dragging Gladys Wakabayashi's name throughout the mud - or make constant reference to her rich father, like the papers felt they needed to do, as though that was the only validation stamp on her life - she suffered a fate that was not hers to suffer.


I want to tell you of a woman so evil that she regularly did wrong and created a life that was built on deceit.

Let's remember, the bulk of the information given at trial was referring to the sting that caused her to be recorded confessing. Very little information was given regarding the actual crime or the weeks, months and years before and after the murder.

I bet Derek James is sleeping better tonight than he has in 20 years. No presents from Jean to worry about.

"Boxcutter Murder"

I want to say that Kim Bolan @The Vancouver Sun provided excellent coverage through the trial.

Jury convicts Jean Ann James of Boxcutter Murder.

Jean Ann James expressed no emotion Friday morning when a jury found her guilty in the first-degree murder of Gladys Wakabayashi.

At 72, she will likely spend the rest of her life in jail with an automatic sentence of 25 years to life.

Yet she didn’t break down and cry, or express anger, or regret. She looked straight ahead and then she walked away with a sheriff to her new life in prison.

On the other hand, Gladys Wakabayashi’s family did break down. Her sister-in-law Susanna, cried and smiled. She hugged prosecutor Kerr Clark outside court. A family friend said “justice at last.”

Wakabayashi’s throat was slit with boxcutters about 9:15 a.m. on June 24, 1992. For years, James kept her dark secret, even when police searched her house a week or so after the crime. But she was lured by an undercover operation where a number of officers posed as members of a crime ring that embraced the eager James in its activities. She eventually confessed to a skilled operative posing as the crime boss in chilling detail, saying she felt no regrets about killing her former friend.

James’ lawyers had suggested she fabricated the confession using details from newspaper articles at the time. But a jury saw it differently. They deliberated for less than eight hours before convicting her.

It took 20 years to get 25 in jail

Doran Aisenstat and Susanna Miu (Yang) react to verdict in the Jean Ann James murder trial. on Friday, November 4, 2011 in Vancouver.
Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

Family members of murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi, who say they have waited 20 years for justice, were gratified to see a jury render a guilty verdict Friday.

After less than a day of deliberations, the B.C. Supreme Court jury found Jean Ann James, a friend of Wakabayashi, guilty of first-degree murder in the June 1992 slaying.

B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Catherine Bruce imposed on James, 72, the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.

The Richmond senior had little reaction to the jury's verdict.

But several members of the victim's family were obviously relieved.

"We would like to extend our gratitude to everybody who contributed so much and helped us so much," Susanna Yang, Gladys' sister-in-law, said outside court.

She thanked the Vancouver police, the RCMP, the judge and the jury for a "wonderful job."

"We just think that the justice system works even after this amount of time, that something like this can come to fruition and that the long arm of the law is a true statement," said Doran Aisenstat, Gladys' son-in-law.

"It doesn't stop. If a crime is committed, justice is going to be served."

Yang said the past 19 years had been been "very difficult" but the family never gave up.

Aisenstat said he wasn't surprised at James' reaction, calling her a "cold individual, without a conscience," as the accused had portrayed herself to undercover cops.

"For her to have had the life she has had for the last 19 years, knowing what wad in her history, it's obviously a huge vindication for us."

The verdict in the sensational trial followed about three weeks of evidence, the most compelling of which was James’s taped confession to undercover cops.

It was 19 years ago that the body of 41-year-old Wakabayashi was found in her home in the posh neighbourhood of Shaughnessy.

No charges were initially laid by Vancouver police and the case lay cold for nearly 15 years, until police reviewed the file and launched a year-long undercover operation aimed at getting a confession from James.

The so-called Mr. Big operation took James through dozens of scenarios in which she was asked to perform tasks for what she was told was a criminal organization.

During one scenario, in which undercover cops stage a kidnapping, James is asked what they should do with the victim.

She responds that they should cut his “knackers” off.

James also told undercover cops that she had no conscience and was willing to do anything for them.

At the end of the operation, James is told that there is a “big score” in which she can share in a $700,000 windfall for helping commit an unspecified crime.

She travels to Montreal, where she is confronted by the “crime boss,” an undercover cop who demands that she come clean about the murder of Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

In a confession captured on videotape and played for the jury, James explains calmly that she discovered Wakabayashi “screwing around” with her husband, Derek James.

“I slit her throat,” the accused told the fake crime boss, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.

James says she used box cutters to slash her friend across the throat and cut her on the legs in a bid to find out details of the infidelity.

“I just went around to her and confronted her about it and she lied to me ... She just started laughing in my face and I just got furious and I did it.”

The accused said she disposed of the murder weapon in a dumpster on the other side of town and took her clothes and threw them in a school incinerator.

She said she used gloves during the crime, left nothing behind and never told her husband about the crime.

Though police had her as a suspect, she said she’d been to the Wakabayashi home several days before the murder to visit her friend and that “my fingerprints were all over the house.”

“I didn’t like the police coming around, but I wasn’t shook up about it,” she said.

In final submissions to the jury, Crown counsel Kerr Clark argued that James was in a jealous rage when she murdered her friend.

Her husband had had other affairs, but the accused’s anger was heightened by the fact that Wakabayashi was a trusted friend, said Clark.

James’s lawyer, Aseem Dosanjh, argued Mr. Big confessions are by their very nature unreliable, some would say “notoriously” unreliable.

He noted there was no DNA or fingerprint evidence and submitted that it was a “false-confession case.”

(Article above from the Province online & photo from Vancouver Sun online.)

GUILTY, James looked calm

Vancouver Sun...

Jean Ann James found guilty of 1992 Vancouver murder

James looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations

VANCOUVER -- A jury convicted Richmond senior Jean Ann James of first-degree murder Friday in the slaying of a woman she thought was sleeping with her husband back in 1992.

James looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations.

James, 72, was found guilty of slitting the throat of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41, on June 24, 1992.

Her lawyers had argued she falsely confessed to an undercover police operative posing as a crime boss who offered her the chance to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in his gang.

Justice Catherine Bruce urged jurors Thursday to carefully consider whether the evidence supports the Crown or defence versions of the murder of the heiress.

The jurors began deliberations about 3 p.m. Thursday after a four-week B.C. Supreme Court trial.

Bruce spent the much of Thursday summarizing both the defence and prosecution positions, as well as the witness testimony during the sensational murder trial at the Vancouver Law Courts.

Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in the master suite of her home at 6868 Selkirk Street in Vancouver by her estranged husband and 12-year-old daughter.

James was a suspect from the beginning, though there was no forensic evidence linking her to the slaying. In 2007, the unsolved homicide unit mounted an undercover operation targeting James.

I'm sorry, what?!

From The Sun article walker today...

And she reminded jurors about testimony related to the other “scenarios” with the undercover operatives, including a fake kidnapping and beating in October 2008 of someone who owed the gang money.

Witnesses said James was not rattled by the kidnapping or apparent injuries of the victim and told the operatives they didn’t go far enough with the man. “When he had gone, Ms. James said that he got off too easy, she did not like his attitude and suggested that she could put raw meat on his crotch and let her dogs eat it off,” Bruce said. “She had never done this before, but believed that her dogs would have lunged at the meat.”

The judge also noted that James had said “she would curl [the victim’s] penis with a curling iron.”

“When asked about her suggestions as to what to do with [the victim,] Ms. James replied that they should cut his knackers off,” Bruce said.

Who thinks they are talking to major criminals and feels they need to - again and again and again, at different times - seem like bad-ass granny that would do stuff like this because they fear bad-ass-bubba in the corner, or could use an extra $233,333?! I could certainly use $233,333... But would I feel pressured to seem like I could do these things in order to get the money knowing I would actually, for real, have to do similar things?!

Let's remember Jean James kept choosing to involve herself with these "criminals" and clearly was not that scared of them on that fact alone. But to go so far as to say she was intimidated by them and so falsified a confession to them?!

As far as Jean getting details wrong in her confession tape...

Would you tell a crime boss you are trying to impress that you threw out the bag of clothes in a random dumpster on the east side? No, you want to sound smarter than that!

Would you tell him that you walked around the house leaving bloody footprints? Or washed the weapon off in the bathroom? No, again, trying to impress him I doubt you want to seem that dumb.

The details she "got wrong"... They only make her seem smarter than she was. Yet, she still outsmart the investigators back in the day.

A little earlier today on the Sun site...

Fate of Vancouver senior accused of slitting woman’s throat in jurors’ hands
 
Fact woman willing to do illegal activities not proof of guilt in Shaughnessy murder, judge says

-- Did Richmond senior Jean Ann James slit the throat of a woman she thought was sleeping with her husband back in 1992?

Or did the 72-year-old falsely confess to the murder after an undercover police operative posing as a crime boss offered her the chance to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in his gang?

Justice Catherine Bruce urged jurors Thursday to carefully consider whether the evidence supports the Crown or defence versions of the June 24, 1992 murder of heiress Gladys Wakabayashi, 41.

The jurors began deliberations about 3 p.m. Thursday after a four-week B.C. Supreme Court trial.

Bruce spent the much of the day summarizing both the defence and prosecution positions, as well as the witness testimony during the sensational murder trial at the Vancouver Law Courts.

Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in the master suite of her home at 6868 Selkirk Street in Vancouver by her estranged husband and 12-year-old daughter.

James was a suspect from the beginning, though there was no forensic evidence linking her to the slaying. In 2007, the unsolved homicide unit mounted an undercover operation targeting James. They used several police officers posing as employees of an organized crime ring who befriended James over several months and involved her in a series of criminal activities before she finally confessed to the murder in a Montreal hotel room on Nov. 27, 2008.

The gang offered her $233,333 of the expected profits from a “job,” as well as the chance for her aspiring actor son Adam to get a role.

“Ms. James was treated to lavish restaurant meals and entertainment and given gifts to show her that the organization was rich and powerful,” Bruce noted. “The two most important carrots held out to encourage Ms. James to be part of the criminal organization were the prospect of a large score that could be a third share in $700,000 or more, and the prospect of furthering Adam’s acting career.”

Bruce told jurors to review a videotape of James’ confession, paying close attention to James’ demeanour and details of what she claimed.

And she reminded jurors about testimony related to the other “scenarios” with the undercover operatives, including a fake kidnapping and beating in October 2008 of someone who owed the gang money.

Witnesses said James was not rattled by the kidnapping or apparent injuries of the victim and told the operatives they didn’t go far enough with the man. “When he had gone, Ms. James said that he got off too easy, she did not like his attitude and suggested that she could put raw meat on his crotch and let her dogs eat it off,” Bruce said. “She had never done this before, but believed that her dogs would have lunged at the meat.”

The judge also noted that James had said “she would curl [the victim’s] penis with a curling iron.”

“When asked about her suggestions as to what to do with [the victim,] Ms. James replied that they should cut his knackers off,” Bruce said.

The judge also warned jurors that they couldn’t use the fact James was willing to do illegal activities for the fake organization as proof of her involvement in Wakabayashi’s murder.

Bruce said defence lawyer Aseem Dosanjh argued his client’s confession was false and that she was under pressure to please the man she thought was a crime boss.

“The defence argues that the alleged confession to the crime boss cannot be regarded as in any way reliable for a host of reasons,” Bruce said. “There were many complicated reasons why Ms. James would lie about the murder.”

The defence said James “was also under financial pressure and would greatly benefit from her one third share in $700,000. She was fixated on this big score,” Bruce noted.

The defence also pointed to inconsistencies in James’ confession, like a comment that she burned her clothes at a school incinerator and never went into the master bathroom.

“She lied about her finances being rosy; there was no incinerator at the Tyee School where Adam attended in 1992 contrary to Ms. James statement that she burned her clothes in an incinerator at the school, there was a shoe print and blood splatter in the bathroom of the deceased’s residence but Ms. James said she did not go into the bathroom,” Bruce summarized.

She also summarized the Crown’s position, which urged jurors “to call upon your collective wisdom and experience to understand the evidence in this case and to draw common sense inferences from that evidence.”

“The Crown’s theory is that Ms. James believed her husband was having an affair with the deceased and her anger and her jealousy led her to murder the deceased in a horrific manner,” Bruce said. “The Crown argues that its theory is borne out by the confession Ms. James made … during the crime boss interview and, further, that this confession is supported by other independent evidence in many respects.”

Latest from the Sun...

Fate of Accused Killer Jean James in Hands of the Jury

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce gave her charge to jury Thursday in the Jean Ann James first-degree murder case. The jury is now deliberating.

The Richmond senior is charged with slitting the throat of her friend Gladys Wakabayashi on June 24, 1992. The trial heard James believed her husband Derek was sleeping with Wakabayashi,s the 41-year-old daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

The Crown said that in a jealous rage, James was determined to get rid of her rival and carefully plotted the crime, telling Gladys she had a gift for her and arriving at Wakabayashi Selkirk Street home with box-cutters and a murderous plan.

James finally confessed what she did to undercover cops posing as a crime ring in a so-called “Mr. Big” sting in 2008. She was arrested and charged a short time later.

Her lawyer, Aseem Dosanjh, pointed out inconsistencies between what James said to police and the evidence from the crime scene. He said she falsely confessed because she wanted to earn money from the ring due to financial stress she was under.

Over the three-hour recitation of the evidence at the four-week murder trial, Bruce highlighted the testimony from the various witnesses and told the jury to carefully consider what both the Crown and defence presented.

This trial has been so sensational that the courtroom was packed every day. Members of the public jostled to get a seat and some were left listening to the evidence from the hallway through the open door.

Tick, tick, tick

I wonder who is more shaken waiting for the verdict right now, Derek or Jean James?

If she is found guilty, I wonder if the judge will sentence her right away or set a date for sentencing?

Considering it has been 19 years waiting for this, waiting a few more hours or days shouldn't be so hard.

I feel like I'm holding my breath.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow the judge will give the jury some final instructions and send them on their way.

What are they thinking right now?

What are you thinking right now?

How long do you think the jury will deliberate?

What if Jean Ann James goes free?

The friends and family of Gladys Wakabayashi - along with MANY other people - have been waiting for this day to come. Patiently.

I guess after holding your breath, questioning the system and/or your God, and stewing with emotions for 19 years... waiting until that jury comes back to court with a verdict could be either that slow-motion moment before the final wound is inflicted or a the deepest breath you ever took before a sigh of relief.

Jury to begin deliberation after further instruction, TOMORROW

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PROVINCE - NOVEMBER 2nd, 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Defence cites flaws in Mr. Big sting at murder trial of Jean James


The motive for Jean Ann James murdering her friend was that she was in a jealous rage over news Gladys Wakabayashi was having an affair with her husband, a prosecutor argued Wednesday.

During final submissions, Crown counsel Kerr Clark told a jury that James, 72, felt betrayed after discovering the affair and drove to Wakabayashi’s Shaughnessy home.

He said the evidence from a confession James made to undercover cops shows that she used a box cutter to slit her friend’s throat.

“Jealous rage and betrayal is a very good reason for someone to be very, very angry,” he told the jury.

Clark noted James herself confessed that she had a plan and acted deliberately, methodically destroying all evidence of the crime.

James has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the June 1992 slaying of Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

No charges were initially laid in the police investigation but the file was re-opened in 2007 and an 11-month-long police sting launched.

James is captured confessing to the murder at a meeting with a police undercover officer posing as a crime boss at a Montreal hotel in November 2008.

Clark said there may be some discrepancies in the details James gave of the murder, but he argued that was understandable given the passage of time.

He said there was evidence James’s husband, Derek James, had had other affairs but that the accused’s anger at Wakabayashi was heightened by the fact she was a friend, not a stranger.

“One thing that’s very clear is that this was a very, very violent attack. It’s a crime that only can be committed by someone with exceeding anger and resentment.”

He added: “It appears it was almost an attempt at a decapitation.”

Aseem Dosanjh, James’s lawyer, told the jury police stings like the one targeting his client result in confessions which, by their very nature, are unreliable and which some would say are “notoriously” unreliable.

“I want to be clear, this is not a DNA case, this is also not a fingerprint case. This is a false-confession case.”

Dosanjh said the lack of hold-back evidence — evidence that would only be known to the killer — should raise a reasonable doubt for the jury. client made a

“If the design of the undercover operation has flaws in it, that should raise concerns and that would raise a doubt.

“And if the police put too much pressure on a 69-year-old woman, that is a flaw and should also raise a doubt.”

Dosanjh argued the police investigation that led to the “so-called” confession lacked reliability safeguards.

“Mrs. James’s version of events in that video recording is just not reliable. It’s not reliable because she did not do this crime.

“She is making up a story, putting together various pieces of second-hand information she had available to her and trying to make it all seem consistent and impressive.”

B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Catherine Bruce told the jury she expects to give them final instructions on Thursday before they begin deliberations.

Gladys Wakabayashi

I have been wanting to post a photo of the victim, Gladys Wakabayshi, but I have found no photos that I feel do her justice.

I want to put a face to a name and help paint a portrait of a lady who was (probably) attacked by a trusted friend.

Someone who played piano, was loved by the few friends she had, attended charity events, helped her daughter with school work, had grace and was soft spoken. I don't know that she was any of these things (Okay - we know she played piano), but I imagine her to be a lovely woman who didn't deserve friends like Mr. & Mrs. James.

How they twisted her life into a tale of jealousy impaled into her legs is a sad tale to tell.

I look forward to a day when I can help create balance in our minds as to Gladys Wakabayashi being more than a victim.

Do you ever wonder?

I use to go to New Westminster Quay all the time. When you read stuff like the article below that says she met with Sandra MacDonald there for lunch and they bloody well talked about all this craziness, do you wonder if maybe you were there?! Over heard a bit of it..? What if you were their waiter and heard some of it?

We've all been on the skytrain or bus or even sitting in a restaurant and heard a bit of a conversation that we thought "WTF?! Did I just hear that?!" When do we know to act on it and when do we just file it away as that bit of crazy that happened today?

What if you unknowingly heard bits of the conversation Jean Ann James was having with Sandra MacDonald that same day they had lunch at New Westminster Quay? Or you saw Jean Ann James walking back to her car, five blocks from the murder and thought nothing of it. Suppose you were a teacher at the school where she took the clothing and incinerated it, and saw her walking with the garbage bag past your door, but at the time that didn't seem odd.

Somebody reading this knows more than they realize. Or maybe you do realize. You have an interest in this story for a reason, why? Did you know one of these people? Did you work with one of them? Were you friends or acquaintances? Did you hear or see something that made you wonder all these years?

What if some part of your life, is unknowingly entwined with this story.

We all hear things and see things daily that could be helpful years or decades later in murder trials like this. But where do we draw the line of suspecting everyone around us of being "up to something".

Trust your gut, I say.

Only good that came from the police surveillance was that Derek was behaving himself

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PROVINCE - OCTOBER 27th 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Former friend testifies accused murderer Jean Ann James ‘very angry’ with husband


A former friend of Jean Ann James says the accused murderer was “very angry and upset” about her husband’s affair with murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi.

James, 72, has pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of Wakabayashi, 41, in June 1992 in Vancouver.

It’s the Crown’s theory that James slit the throat of Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, after she learned of the affair.

Sandra MacDonald, a friend of James, told a B.C. Supreme Court jury in Vancouver that she occasionally met James for lunch meetings.

Under questioning from Crown counsel Kerr Clark, MacDonald said James quite often brought up the subject of her troubled marriage to Derek James.

“It was very stormy,” MacDonald said of the marriage. “He had been having affairs and she was very hurt and very angry about his behaviour.”

Asked by Clark whether there were any particular people mentioned by James, MacDonald said that the accused mentioned a woman named Gladys.

“She said Gladys was a friend of hers as well as Derek and that he had had an affair with her,” said the Crown witness during testimony Thursday.

“What was her demeanor,” asked Clark.

“She was very angry and upset,” replied MacDonald.

The witness said that at some point she received a visit from detectives who said they were investigating a murder and wanted to know if she knew James.

A short time later, maybe a week, she received a phone call from James asking whether she’d been contacted by homicide detectives, said MacDonald.

James told her that she was involved as a murder suspect and that the police had been “making her life hell” and had been following her and talking to her family.

“She wanted to give me a heads up that they may be calling,” said MacDonald.

“What was your response,” said Clark.

“I was quite taken aback,” said MacDonald. “I believe we didn’t want to get into too much over the phone, so we did arrange to meet after that call.”

MacDonald said that she subsequently met with James for lunch at the New Westminster quay.

“She told me she’d been accused of the murder of Gladys, her friend, and that Derek had had an affair with her, how awful her life had been, that police had been following her.”

MacDonald said James told her that the only good that came from the police surveillance was that Derek was behaving himself.

MacDonald explained that she met James, a former nurse and flight attendant union executive, through a mutual friend and knew her for several years.

“She was always very well dressed, very well put together whenever I met her.”

Under cross-examination from James’ lawyer, Raj Basra, MacDonald admitted she didn’t recall the date of the lunch where the murder investigation was discussed.

She also conceded that she had not taken any handwritten notes of the meeting.

Basra suggested that James actually told MacDonald that other people had told James that her husband was having an affair with Gladys.

“No, she definitely told me herself he was having an affair with Gladys,” replied MacDonald.

On Wednesday, the Crown played a videotaped confession to the murder made by James following a year-long undercover police operation in 2008. James had been a suspect during the initial police investigation but no charges were laid at that time, court heard.

My Thoughts on the Latest

Quoted from the article in the Province online article below...

In matter-of-fact tones, James explains that she did a lot of digging and found out that Wakabayashi was “screwing around” with her husband Derek, an air-traffic controller who had been unfaithful to her numerous times.

Where are the other women? Still alive?! If they are I bet they have been (a) cursing their luck that they got involved with Derek James, (b) counting their lucky stars Jean had no presents for them and (c) watching their backs for years!

I wonder how Derek has suffered at the hands of his wife, Jean Ann James, because of his unfaithfulness?

BTW - Aseem Dosanjh, lawyer for the accused, is the son of Ujjal Dosanjh.

"I've never told anyone else. I've always denied it."

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PROVINCE - OCTOBER 26th 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Video depicts scorned Jean Ann James describing grisly murder to undercover cop

A jury was shown a video of a Richmond senior calmly describing how she used box cutters to slit the throat of a friend she believed was having an affair with her husband.

The video was taken at the end of a year-long police sting aimed at wringing a confession out of Jean Ann James, 72, who has pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41.

Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was murdered in her home in Vancouver’s posh Shaughnessy neighbourhood in June 1992 but no charges were initially laid in the case.

Nearly 16 years later, police re-opened the file and launched a so-called Mr. Big undercover operation targetting James, who was initially a suspect in the murder.

At the end of the year-long operation, at a hotel room in Quebec in November 2008, James can be heard being wooed by an undercover RCMP officer posing as a crime boss.

The scenario has James being offered a chance to participate in an unspecified crime with a reward of $700,000 to be split among the participants.

But first James, who had earlier assured the undercover cops that she had no conscience and was willing to do anything, is told by the crime boss that she must come clean about the Wakabayashi murder.

In matter-of-fact tones, James explains that she did a lot of digging and found out that Wakabayashi was “screwing around” with her husband Derek, an air-traffic controller who had been unfaithful to her numerous times.

“That was just one time when I wasn’t going to put up with this nonsense anymore. I did something about it,” said James.

“You kill her or you got somebody else to do it?” asks the cop, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.

“This is strictly between you and I?” says James.

“I’m never going to talk about it,” says the cop.

“I have never told anybody,” says James.

“Well, that’s smart,” says the cop.

“I just went around to her and confronted her about it and she lied to me ... She just started laughing in my face and I just got furious and I did it.”

“What did you do to her?” asks the cop.

“I slit her throat,” said James.

The cop presses James to tell him whether she in fact committed the grisly crime on her own.

“There’s no one else,” replied James. “I’ve never told anyone else. I’ve always denied it.”

Elaborating on the crime, James says she initially tried to get some information about the infidelity from Wakabayashi by cutting her on the legs with a box cutter, before slitting her throat.

“I said (to her) that if you tell the truth, I’ll call the ambulance, which of course I had no intention of doing.”

Asked by the cop what she did with the murder weapon, James says she took it to the other side of town and threw it in a metal dumpster.

“And all the clothes that I had, there was an incinerator at the school and I threw them in there.”

James, who admitted she was “very sneaky,” described how she had parked her car five blocks away from the crime scene and walked to the Selkirk Street home.

She said she used gloves and “kept nothing” from the crime scene when she fled the home.

James reiterated to the undercover cop that she had never told her husband about the crime.

“He was upset, he was just beside himself, but I never said anything.”

Though police had her as a suspect, she said she’d been to the Wakabayashi home several days prior to the murder to visit her friend and that “my fingerprints were all over the house.”

“I didn’t like the police coming around, but I wasn’t shook up about it,” she said.

During his cross-examination of the undercover cop, James’ lawyer Aseem Dosanjh pointed to several inconsistencies in the evidence.

Spectators packed into the small Vancouver courtroom to hear the confession played for the B.C. Supreme Court jury.

"I was very sneaky about it"

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THE VANCOUVER SUN - BLOG - OCTOBER 26th 2011 - KIM BOLAN
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Accused Killer Jean James Confessed to Undercover Cop

Jean Ann James looks like a typical 72-year-old Richmond senior, small in stature, well-dressed. She has a slight English accent.

But a video-taped “confession” has her admitting that she killed her husband’s mistress in 1992 and would be willing to kill again for a purported criminal organization that had promised her hundreds of thousands in earnings.

The secretly-recorded confession to an undercover cop posing as a crime boss was played in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday.

She said she used brand-new boxcutters when she slashed Gladys Wakabayashi’s throat on June 24, 1992. She had purchased them for use at a school fund-raising event. She said she tricked Wakabayashi – her friend of five years – by telling her she had brought her a gift.

“I was very sneaky about it. She thought I was giving her a surprise. And we were upstairs. She was sitting in her closet. And I had this necklace. She had her back turned and I had gloves on,” James said.

Her lawyer Aseem Dosanjh suggested several of the things James said in the confession do not match evidence police found at the time. And he suggested she was lured by the undercover operator, who had a big burly ”body guard” who was very menacing when she met with the officer.

"My mother always told me if you have secrets, keep them to yourself"

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THE VANCOUVER SUN - OCTOBER 26th 2011 - KIM BOLAN
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Accused killer describes murder to undercover officer in video-taped meeting

VANCOUVER -- Accused killer Jean James matter-of-factly described how she used box-cutters to slit the throat of Gladys Wakabayashi in a video-taped meeting with an undercover officer posing as a crime boss.

The tape of the November 27, 2008 meeting in a Montreal hotel room was played for jurors in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday.

James, who was 69 at the time of the confession, told the officer that she was furious to learn in June 1992 that her friend was having an affair with her husband Derek James, an air traffic controller.

"I wasn't going to put up with this nonsense any more and I did something about it,"James told the officer, whose identity is shielded by a court order.

She said she went to Wakabayashi's westside Vancouver home on June 24, 1992 and confronted her.

"She lied to me. And I caught her because I checked," James said, referring to hotel records of her husband that showed he had called Wakabayashi's home.

"She said 'oh' and she started laughing in my face, and I just got furious and I just did it," James said. "I slit her throat."

The jurors have heard that at the time of the meeting, the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit had launched a new probe targeted James as the suspect in the case. They created an elaborate scheme where undercover police agents arranged chance meetings with James, became her confident and eventually got her to do low-level jobs for their purported crime ring.

At the time of the confession, James had indicated an interest in participating in a larger criminal endeavour that was to earn $700,000 for the ring.

The officer asked James how far she was willing to go, asked if she was an A to Z person, with Z meaning she could kill someone.

She said she could do so again if she had to.

"You are an A to Z person," the officer said after hearing the confession.

He asked James if she had left any evidence behind, including a knife.

"I didn't use a knife. I used boxcutters," James said.

The cop expressed surprise that boxcutters would do the job and James said the blade was similar to a surgeon's scalpel. But she agreed they wouldn't go through bone.

She assured the "crime boss" that she was very careful, parking her car some distance from Wakabayashi's house at 6868 Selkirk.

"I walked to her house. I parked my car about five blocks away and I went in and out of the alleyways I didn't go down the main street," she said.

James told the officer that Wakabayashi had split with her husband.

"She divorced her husband so she could screw around with mine," James said.

She told the officer she had a plan to kill Wakabayashi before she went to her house that day, but told her friend she had a new necklace for her.

"She had her back to me," James said, indicating how she pretended to place the necklace around Wakabayashi's throat, but cut it open instead.

"I had gloves on so there was no DNA, she said.

James also cut Wakabayashi's legs, she said, to illicit more information from her about the affair.

"I said if you tell me the truth, I'll call an ambulance which of course I had no intention of doing," James told the officer.

She said she knew Wakabayashi would bleed out "because I cut her along the jugular vein."

"I just left her. I never touched her," she said, describing the area in the victim's master suite where the body was lying.

Before the murder, the two friends had coffee, so on her way out James "washed the cups and wiped everything."

She told the officer that she had never told anyone what she had done, including her own husband.

"I never tell my husband my business," James said. "My mother always told me if you have secrets, keep them to yourself."

James' lawyer Aseem Dosanjh suggested to the officer that some of the details provided with James did not match up exactly with the circumstances of the crime.

On the tape she said she left Wakabayashi's bedroom without going anywhere else within it, yet there was a bloody front-print from a high heel found in the bathroom, Dosanjh noted.

And while James admitted to slitting Wakabayashi's throat and cutting her legs, she made no mention of another wound in the lower chest area, Dosanjh said. The officer agreed.

He also agreed that his purported body-guard, another undercover officer, was a large menacing figure.

The trial continues.

FYI : Comments

I noticed today that the comments settings were so that you had to identify yourself. Now you do not, you can comment anonymously, if you so wish. I did notice that there are a LOT of you stopping in here to read - don't worry I don't see your address or name or something ridiculous like that - so feel free to participate.

My Thoughts on the Latest

Alright, I can't help but make some comments on the latest Province article by Keith Fraser. Not because I need to, but why would you come to this blog to read all the information out there thus far when you can roam around the internet and find it yourself. Ease, I suppose. But how about a little of my blah-blah-blah along the way.

Quoted from the article:

James told an undercover operator that a friend of hers, an East Indian woman, had told police she was the killer, court heard.

“She became a suspect because the East Indian woman had alerted police."

...

Referring to her notes, the undercover cop said that in describing the situation, James was “very angry” with the East Indian woman.

“I told her I hoped the East Indian woman got what she deserved. She said she didn’t know, she hadn’t seen her in a long time but that she thought that she was probably dead.

Um, hello, "East Indian woman" if you are out there I hope that when Jean Ann James is "very angry" with you and thinks you are "probably dead", you aren't! You okay? Will you be testifying? Hmmmm.

I wonder how angry she was at Gladys Wakabayashi if she thought Gladys was having an affair with her husband?

I wonder how angry she was/is at her husband, Derek James, for thinking he was having an affair with Gladys Wakabayashi?!?

If you were Jean Ann James you sure-as-shit would not let your husband divorce you. I'm right in thinking that spouses can not be made to testify against each other, right?

UNDERCOVER

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PROVINCE - OCTOBER 24th 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Accused murderer told undercover cop she was a suspect, but denied involvement, court hears

In the midst of an undercover police operation, accused killer Jean Ann James admitted she was a suspect in the murder of her friend, but denied any involvement, a jury heard on Monday.

James, 72, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the June 1992 slaying of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41.

The Crown’s theory is that James slit her friend’s throat after she learned that she was having an affair with her husband Derek.

The jury has been told that at the end of the lengthy undercover operation launched in 2008, James confessed to the grisly slaying in the Shaughnessy home of Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

But before the confession, in the middle of the year-long operation, James told an undercover operator that a friend of hers, an East Indian woman, had told police she was the killer, court heard.

“She became a suspect because the East Indian woman had alerted police,” said the undercover operator who cannot be identified because of a publication ban.

“She denied any involvement. She said the only reason she was a suspect at that time was because she was friends with the deceased.”

Referring to her notes, the undercover cop said that in describing the situation, James was “very angry” with the East Indian woman.

“I told her I hoped the East Indian woman got what she deserved. She said she didn’t know, she hadn’t seen her in a long time but that she thought that she was probably dead.

“She assured me that the issue was dead because it had happened 15 years ago . . . She believed the person responsible must have been caught.”

The undercover cop described an elaborate operation targeting James that involved dozens of high-society scenarios aimed at drawing the accused into what appeared to be criminal activity.

The first scenario had the cop posing as the very wealthy, nouveau-riche wife of a property developer.

She said she met James after both women were contest winners and were picked up in a limousine and taken to Spa Utopia in downtown Vancouver, where they spent the day getting their nails, feet and facials done as well as a massage.

James was “very interested” in wine and invited her to a wine-tasting at the Rosedale restaurant on Robson the following week, she said.

“She was very friendly to me, as was her husband, Derek.”

The cop said she later phoned James and asked her to go shopping and show her around.

James told her that her son was an aspiring actor and had met actors Billy Bob Thornton and Nicole Kidman, she said.

The scenarios took the two women to the Gourmet Warehouse to buy special sauces and ingredients and to Granville Island to shop and look for special pastries.

The undercover cop said that in March 2008, a scenario took the two women to the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver, where the undercover cop parked illegally and then took a package into the hotel, she said.

The cop asked James to shoo away anybody who came near the car while she was in the hotel, she said.

Later scenarios had the cop displaying three six-inch bands of $20 bills in front of James, said the officer.

“She seemed excited. It was exciting to see that amount of money.”

Following a lunch at the Fish House restaurant in Stanley Park, James was instructed to watch the cop meet another person, for which James was paid $300, she said.

One scenario took them to the exclusive Shaughnessy Golf Club for a meeting of James’ wine club, with 60 to 70 wealthy people in attendance.

“I met lots of people and she was very proud to introduce us around,” said the cop.

At one point James said she had hailed from royalty and deserved to have a nice lifestyle.

“She wanted to live in the south of France and also to have a house in Shaughnessy.”

The criminal scenarios included the apparent trafficking in stolen credit cards and the laundering of money at several casinos, including the River Rock Casino in Richmond, said the undercover cop.

The trial continues.

One Year Ago : Pretrial. Today : Trial.

I posted a blog post one year ago, October 18th 2010, also a Tuesday. No longer is this case in the preliminary stages, now they are in FULL TILT TRIAL!

I know a few people have been waiting YEARS for this trial to be happening. I bet there are some people who thought this trial might not happen.

Here are some of the stories run last week by the Vancouver Sun and The Province.


Jean Ann James bows her head as she leaves BC Supreme Court in Vancouver. James is on trial for the murder of Gladys Wakabayashi, whose throat was slashed in 1992
Photograph by: Ric Ernst, PNG


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THE VANCOUVER SUN - OCTOBER 12th 2011 - KIM BOLAN
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Richmond Senior “Confessed” to 1992 Murder: Crown

VANCOUVER - A 72-year-old Richmond woman confessed to slashing the throat of her husband’s wealthy mistress two decades ago after police launched an undercover sting into the unsolved murder in 2007, B.C. Supreme Court heard Wednesday.

Jean Ann James is charged with first-degree murder in the Shaughnessy slaying of her former friend Gladys Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, on June 24, 1992.

The charge was finally laid three years ago, after undercover officers posed as members of a criminal organization that recruited James, Crown prosecutor Jennifer Horneland told jurors in her opening statement.

Police arranged a chance encounter between James and an undercover operator and the two women “became friends and bonded,” Horneland explained.

Soon, the operator asked James for help doing “various tasks for the criminal organization such as delivering packages, moving vehicles and meeting with buyers of counterfeit products,” the jury heard.

Eventually James was taken to Montreal for a meeting to discuss her potential role with the purported crime boss, and it was during this meeting that James laid out details of the Wakabayashi murder, Horneland said.

“She killed Gladys Wakabayashi because she had done a little digging and found that Gladys Wakabayashi had been having an affair with her husband. A few days after learning this, she told Gladys Wakabayashi that she had a gift for her and would like to bring it to her home,” Horneland said.

She said that James carefully planned the murder and laid out those plans in the video-taped confession to undercover police in November 2008. The tape will be played later in the trial.

“You will hear from Jean James that she was sneaky about it and that she parked her car five blocks away from Gladys Wakabayashi’s home, that she walked down the lanes rather than on the sidewalks to get to the residence. She put a necklace, which was the gift, around Mrs. Wakabayashi’s neck and slit her throat with a boxcutter.”

James also stabbed Wakabayashi’s legs and claimed she would call her friend an ambulance if she gave “a truthful account of the affair,” Horneland said.

“You will hear Jean James say that she had no intention of calling an ambulance and that she slashed Gladys Wakabayashi on her legs because she wanted to get information from her and particularly she wanted to know how long the affair had been going on,” the prosecutor told jurors.

The videotape shows James describing how she wore gloves and destroyed evidence, disposing of the murder weapon in a metal dumpster on the other side of town, Horneland said.

James’s lawyer Raj Basra urged jurors not to jump to conclusions and to examine all the evidence presented during the trial carefully. And, he said, the central issue in the case is the reliability of the video-taped confession.

“Be critical about what you hear and ultimately keep an open mind in this case,” Basra said in his brief opening.

Horneland said the Crown will call 33 witnesses, including friends of James, who are expected to testify that she had learned of her husband Derek James’s affair with Wakabayashi. And Wakabayashi’s former husband, Shinji, and daughter, Elisa, who was just 12 at the time, are expected to be called this week.

One friend is expected to detail a lunch she had with James, in which the accused killer said “Derek was having an affair with a very, very wealthy oriental woman and that this woman Derek was having an affair with was supposed to be her friend,” Horneland said.

Several police witnesses will be called, Justice Catherine Bruce heard, including officers from the original Vancouver Police investigation as well as the undercover sting 16 years later, and a blood-spatter expert.

James sat in the prisoner’s box, emotionless, as Horneland spoke.

Wakabayashi, 41, was separated from her husband when she was killed. The court heard that she loved playing the piano and missed a lesson on the morning she was killed.

She shared her home at 6868 Selkirk St. with her young daughter, whom she failed to pick up from school that day, Horneland said.

Elisa Wakabayashi called her dad to come and get her instead. He discovered Wakabayashi fatally wounded in the dressing area between her bedroom and ensuite, Horneland said.

Wakabayashi was described in court as a soft-spoken woman. Jurors heard that in addition to her affair with Derek James, an air-traffic controller, she had a two-year relationship with a Chilliwack music teacher named Joseph Bayer.

The trial is expected to last six weeks.


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THE PROVINCE - OCTOBER 12th 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Woman confessed to killing husband's mistress with box cutters, court told

A Richmond woman confessed to undercover police that she used box cutters to slash the throat of a friend who she believed was having an affair with her husband, a jury heard Wednesday.

Jean Ann James was 69 years old when she was arrested in December 2008 and charged with first-degree murder in the June 1992 slaying of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

Prosecutor Jennifer Horneland told the jury that police did not have sufficient evidence to lay charges following their initial investigation.

The case lay cold until 2007 when the file was reviewed by the unsolved-homicide investigation unit.

New witnesses were interviewed, old witnesses were re-interviewed and police launched a year-long undercover operation against James.

At a meeting in Montreal with police posing as members of a criminal organization, James confessed to the murder.

“She killed Gladys Wakabayashi because she had done a little digging and found that Gladys Wakabayashi had been having an affair with her husband,” said Horneland.

“A few days after learning this, she told Gladys Wakabayashi that she had a gift for her and would like to bring it to her home.”

Horneland said James was “sneaky” and parked her car five blocks away from the victim’s home on Selkirk Street in Vancouver’s posh Shaughnessy neighbourhood, then walked down the lanes rather than on the sidewalks to get to the residence.

“She put a necklace, which was the gift, around Mrs. Wakabayashi’s neck and slit her throat with a boxcutter,” she said.

“You will hear Jean James explain that Gladys Wakabayashi struggled, so she told Gladys that she would call an ambulance if she would give a truthful account of the affair.”

The prosecutor said the accused had no intention of calling an ambulance and slashed the victim on the legs because she wanted to get information from her, including as to how long the affair had lasted.

Horneland said the evidence will show that Wakabayashi had several incise wounds to her arms and her legs, many deep incise wounds to her chest and a massive encircling wound to her neck.

The autopsy revealed that the encircling neck wound was the cause of death, she said.

A blood-spatter expert is expected to testify that Wakabayashi died while in a seating or leaning position.

The Crown counsel said that 33 witnesses will be called including the Wakabayashi’s former husband, her daughter and her brother, as well as friends and acquaintances of the victim.

Court will hear that the slaying was discovered after the victim had failed to pick up her then-12-year-old daughter from school, said Horneland.

The daughter phoned her father, who picked her up and returned to the home, where the victim’s body was discovered in the master bedroom, she said.

Raj Basra, a lawyer for James, cautioned the jury to remember the presumption of innocence for an accused.

He said the central issue at trial will be the reliability of the confession.

“Be critical about what you hear and ultimately keep an open mind in this case.”

The first witness, Edward Parker, 81, the victim’s former piano teacher, told the jury he felt “very apprehensive” when she failed to show for her regular one-hour long lesson.

He said he phoned the Wakabayashi residence but could only get a recorded message.

“I thought that was strange. She was very precise about appointments ... I felt there was something very serious happening.”

Parker said it wasn’t until the next day that he was told the “tragic” news.

He described his former pupil as “a very gentle, soft-spoken” woman who didn’t initiate conversations.

“She was a little bit shy. We didn’t go for coffee at all. She had her lesson. It was an hour long and then she’d be on her way.”

The trial continues.


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THE PROVINCE - OCTOBER 13th 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Wife confessed to murder: Crown

Jury hears opening statement in case of Gladys Wakabayashi's alleged slaying


A Richmond woman confessed to undercover police that she used box cutters to slash the throat of a friend who she believed was having an affair with her husband, a jury heard Wednesday.

Jean Ann James was 69 years old when she was arrested in December 2008 and charged with first-degree murder in the June 1992 slaying of Gladys Wakabayashi, 41, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

Prosecutor Jennifer Horneland told the jury that police didn't have sufficient evidence to lay charges following their initial investigation.

The case lay cold until 2007, when the file was reviewed by the unsolved-homicide investigation unit.

New witnesses were interviewed, old witnesses were re-interviewed and police launched a yearlong undercover operation against James, who was married to Derek James, an air traffic controller.

At a meeting in Montreal, with police posing as members of a criminal organization, James confessed to the murder.

"You will hear Jean James explain that she killed Gladys Wakabayashi because she had done a little digging and found that Gladys Wakabayashi had been having an affair with her husband," said Horneland.

"A few days after learning this, she told Gladys Wakabayashi that she had a gift for her and would like to bring it to her home."

Horneland said James was "sneaky" and parked her car five blocks away from the victim's home on Selkirk Street in Vancouver's posh Shaughnessy neighbourhood, then walked down the lanes rather than on the sidewalks to get to the residence.

"She put a necklace, which was the gift, around Mrs. Wakabayashi's neck and slit her throat with a box cutter," she said.

"You will hear Jean James explain that Gladys Wakabayashi struggled, so she told Gladys that she would call an ambulance if she would give a truthful account of the affair."

The prosecutor said the accused had no intention of calling an ambulance and slashed the victim on the legs because she wanted to get information from her, including as to how long the affair had lasted. Horneland said the evidence will show that Wakabayashi had several incised wounds to her arms and her legs, many deep-incised wounds to her chest and a massive encircling wound to her neck.

The autopsy revealed that the encircling neck wound was the cause of death, she said.

A blood-spatter expert is expected to testify that Wakabayashi died while in a seating or leaning position, between the open passage between the ensuite bathroom and the bedroom.

Court will hear that the slaying was discovered after the victim failed to pick up her then-12-year-old daughter from school, said Horneland.

The daughter phoned her father, who picked her up and returned to the home, where the victim's body was discovered.

Raj Basra, a lawyer for James, cautioned the jury to remember the presumption of innocence for an accused.

He said the central issue at trial will be the reliability of the confession.

"Be critical about what you hear and ultimately keep an open mind in this case," he said.

James has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. The well-dressed elderly woman sat quietly in the prisoner's dock during the first day of the trial.

Wakabayashi's husband, Shinji Wakabayashi, and her daughter, Elisa, are expected to testify today.



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THE PROVINCE - OCTOBER 14th 2011 - KEITH FRASER
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Accused murderer was found in victim’s bedroom days before attack, court told

Shinji Wakabayashi leaves Supreme Court after testifying at the murder trial of Jean Ann James. James is accused in the murder of Wakabayashi’s former wife, Gladys.
Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

The husband of murder victim Gladys Wakabayashi testified Thursday that just days after the slaying, accused killer Jean James was seeking details of the homicide.

Shinji Wakabayashi told a B.C. Supreme Court jury that James had called him two days after the June 24, 1992, slaying, while he was staying at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver.

“She told me, ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ and asked me what had happened,” the Japan Airlines manager said. “I told her I can’t say anything just yet ... After I explained that to her, she said, ‘Yes, I understand,’ and I hung up.”

Two days later, he met James while the two were visiting the victim’s mother, he said.

“She asked me how (Gladys) was killed. I told her I can’t really explain much but I told her I saw her laying on her back, face upward and there was a cut on her neck.”

James has pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder of her friend, Gladys Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire.

The Crown’s theory is that James slit her friend’s throat after learning that Gladys was having an affair with her husband, Derek James.

Prosecutors say that following a police sting, James confessed to the murder.

Shinji Wakabayashi, who was separated from his wife at the time of the slaying, testified that on the day of the murder, he picked up his daughter Elisa after her mom had failed to pick her up from school.

The father and daughter went to Gladys’ home on Selkirk Street in the posh Shaughnessy neighbourhood.

Wakabayashi said the back door was unlocked, an unusual circumstance, and there was no answer when he called out Gladys’ name.

He went upstairs and went into the master bedroom where he found Gladys laying on her back.

“I saw a big cut on her leg. I tried to push her left arm. I felt something was not right.”

Wakabayashi said he tried to call 911 but was not able to get through and went next door to his brother-in-law, where police were called.

He testified that prior to the murder, his daughter and a son of James attended the same school and the families frequently socialized with one another.

The Crown played a number of recorded but undated messages from Gladys Wakabayashi’s telephone message machine, identified by Wakabayashi as being from both Jean James and Derek James.

Several of the messages from Derek James expressed intimacy.

“Hi love, just me,” says one message. “Saturday night. I was just calling. Thank you, bye.”

Another from Derek James said: “Hi darling, it’s me. I’ll call you back sometime. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

Under cross-examination by James’ lawyer, Raj Basra, Wakabayashi said he didn’t explain in detail to James what he saw when he found Gladys’ body.

Elisa Wakabayashi, who was 12 years old at the time of the slaying, testified earlier that she found Jean Ann James in her mother’s bedroom two days before the slaying.

She said that she’d heard the phone ringing in the Shaughnessy home and went into the bedroom only to find James.

The accused killer wanted to know if it was her husband, Derek James, who was calling, she told a BC Supreme Court jury Thursday.

The phone stopped ringing and Wakabayashi went back to her room, she said.

Under cross-examination, Wakabayashi was asked if she noticed anything unusual about James.

She replied that other than finding James in the bedroom, “I didn’t find her behaviour odd, or unusual.”

Elisa said her father was “quite hysterical” when he discovered the body of her mother in the home.

“He was very, very upset and difficult to understand, but he told me what had happened.”

Asked by Crown counsel whether there was any animosity between her parents, she replied: “No, they didn’t fight a lot. They just had cultural differences that couldn’t be resolved.”

She explained that her father was Japanese and her mother Taiwanese.

Court heard that no charges were laid after the initial police investigation.

The case lay cold until 2007 when the file was reviewed by police and the undercover operation was launched, court heard.

The trial is expected to continue Friday and run for six weeks.