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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
Showing posts with label GUILTY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GUILTY. Show all posts
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
"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.
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.
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.
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