Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder and Other True Cases Read online

  Years later, when the suit was finally settled, Bill Jensen was disappointed. He didn’t get the $1.7 million he had sought; he received $80,000, Sue was awarded $20,000, and Jenny and Scott each received $10,000.

  Sue wasn’t concerned; they had adequate savings and investments. They had bought out her sister’s share of their home, remodeled it with money from Sue’s inheritance account, and had a manageable mortgage. Bill would have his retirement money and his disability insurance payments, and he wasn’t totally disabled. He could work at another career, and if need be she could get a job, too.

  Sue still didn’t consider leaving him, despite his grouchy demeanor. But she didn’t know the secrets that her husband had kept from her.

  One of the things Sue didn’t know was that Bill had already applied to vest his police pension. Under the Washington State Law Enforcement Retirement Plan—LEOFF II—Bill had $154,746 coming to him. He chose to cash it out entirely. As his spouse, Sue was legally required to sign the application along with Bill, so that he could receive this money. She found out later that Bill had either forged her name or found some way around this requirement. He accepted the sheriff’s pension money and put it in his own private bank account without telling her. Most of it went to buy collectible currency.

  But hope for their future was looking up a little. When he realized that he had no choice but to resign from the sheriff’s office on disability, Bill grudgingly agreed to be retrained for a new career. It seemed the perfect alternative for a man who was physically compromised. Bill had always been fascinated by computers, buying himself the very best and most advanced computer technology available. The Jensens lived in the shadow of the sprawling Microsoft campus, and Bill Gates himself, while not exactly a neighbor, lived only a few miles away. It was the computer industry boom, and Bill had the knowledge and the skills to take advantage of it.

  He attended Bellevue Community College, where he became remarkably proficient in all things Microsoft. Bill Jensen was brilliant with computers, perhaps more suited to this career than to a deputy’s. In March 1999, when he completed his courses, he was hired by City University at a salary of $100 an hour. He taught between ten and twenty hours a week. And that meant he was grossing $1,000 to $2,000 each week. Even though he complained that his knee bothered him tremendously, he was capable of bringing home between $52,000 and $104,000 a year for a part-time job.

  With his retirement fund, the insurance settlement, the equities and investments he and Sue shared, and his teaching salary, life was far from over for Bill Jensen at the age of forty-one.

  While it was true that teaching computer science might not have been as exciting or even as personally rewarding as being a cop, Bill had his family, a very comfortable home, and any number of options for the future.

  He taught at City University until June 2002. But from 1997 to 2001, Bill spent the rest of his time watching TV, sleeping, or off someplace participating in activities that Sue Jensen knew nothing about.

  In October 2000, a year after Bill retired from the sheriff’s office, Sue poured out her feelings in her journal, hoping that Bill might see what they would both lose, what their children would lose, if he didn’t make an attempt to resume their family life.

  “Bill,” she wrote, “today I attended my daughter’s basketball game—alone. I thought how sad it is, you have no idea. Will you wake up one day and just have no idea of what you have missed?”

  Another entry read: “I came home to find that you had finally gotten up at 12:30, unshaven and unbathed, to find you were not ‘up to’ attending Ryan’s wedding.

  “Sitting there alone in church made me realize how desperately I miss [your] companionship. I looked over at [a couple] holding hands and felt so very hurt.”

  Only special friends had been invited to the $100-a-plate reception after the close friend’s wedding, but Bill refused to accompany her. “I look back at the time with the Johnsons—which was probably the best [time] there has been in our marriage. We behaved as a couple and actually enjoyed each other’s company.”

  After working so hard for a year and a half, twelve-year-old Scott had triumphantly passed a karate test to move up to the next belt, but his father wasn’t there to see him glow with pride.

  “Again,” Sue wrote, “I thought how sad—for you to miss the hard work and drive he has fought for all of his life—a simple reward but so meaningful. I was so proud I cried. You chose to miss that moment in life.”

  “I always believed what Bill told me,” Sue later recalled with some exasperation. “It never occurred to me that he might be lying to me or be unfaithful. We had our problems—but I always trusted him.”

  Bill no longer participated in his children’s’ activities. He said he couldn’t coach Jenny anymore, or ride motorcycles with Scott. And that was probably true, but there were other ways he could have spent time with them. He occasionally went to Jenny’s ball games, limping in from his car and sitting on the bleachers. But that didn’t last long; if he couldn’t be the coach, he didn’t want to be there at all.

  Sue, Jenny, and Scott tiptoed around Bill, trying not to do or say anything that would set him off into a screaming tantrum. Scott’s tutor noticed how anxious and afraid Scott seemed, and he whispered to her that they couldn’t talk very loud because it would make his father angry.

  Even though Sue understood that Bill was depressed, he didn’t seem to be doing anything to lift himself out of his situation, and his dark moods and outbursts of anger were making their whole family anxious and depressed too. His bad knee and constant pain were all that mattered to him, and he obviously had no interest in his marriage or his children. Sue wrote in her journal, trying to understand, “Bill, I know you are in pain, and it is not easy. But at some point you will have to accept that which you cannot change. It is up to you to determine your destiny.”

  They weren’t really a family any longer.

  Bill stayed up all night and slept through the day. During the few meals they shared, Bill lost his temper and sent Scott to sit in a corner for punishment for some small annoyance. Eventually, Bill no longer ate with Sue and their children.

  Bill blamed Sue, insisting it was her fault that things were going wrong. He told her repeatedly that she needed counseling, and she agreed to go. Sue had begun to doubt what her husband told her. One night in December 2000, after the family had gone to bed, she was shocked to find him counting out large bags full of lottery tickets and peel-off pull tabs. She eventually learned he had spent $69,000 on them—most of them were from machines on the bar of a little tavern close to their home.

  When she asked Bill about the lottery tickets and pull tabs, he had an easy answer. He explained he was saving them as a favor for a guy to use as a “tax write-off.”

  Later, Sue realized that her husband was using his computer for online gambling. While he had always taken chances in the stock market, she had never really thought of him as the kind of gambler who bought lottery tickets or spent much in Las Vegas. Her own limit was $300 for a weekend trip to Nevada, and while Bill wagered a little more, it hadn’t been a problem. He always told her his gambling was “totally under control” and that he knew his limits.

  He had kept his huge gambling losses hidden by changing the address on their bank statements to a post office box.

  Sue realized that Bill was lying to her—had probably lied to her for many years. Every few months brought more secrets she had never known about. In May 2001, he told her that he had won a $10,000 cruise just for testing some new software. It was to be a wonderful trip for their entire family. It never happened.

  She finally acknowledged to herself that every time something was really important to her or to Jenny or Scott, Bill would go out of his way to smash their joy. His birthday was coming up on Memorial Day weekend, and they made plans to take a family trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon. They went, but Bill was surly and critical of everyone, and nobody had any fun.

  Around June 16, 2
001, she learned that Bill had just spent $28,000 on collectible coins he’d purchased on the Internet. Their marriage had spun like a colorful top for twenty-two years, the lines and patterns blurred by Bill’s glib excuses. Now, as it wound down slower and slower, Sue could see the pattern of lies.

  It was all too much. Sue had finally hit a wall, and she told Bill she wanted a divorce. He begged her to stay. She said she would if he would join her in counseling.

  Bill attended four sessions, but blew up when the counselor pointed out to him that he was responsible for the domestic violence incidents in his home. Bill refused to go back.

  He chose what mattered most to him. It wasn’t Sue—or even their children. Their marriage had become untenable. There was nothing left to save, and no way in the world to make it work.

  They reached a watershed point on Friday, June 22, 2001—the first full day of summer. Sue had made plans to drive Jenny and the girls on her basketball team to Spokane for the annual “Hoop-Fest” that drew teams from all over Washington State. They needed to take the Jensens’ Sequoia SUV, the only vehicle big enough to hold seven passengers.

  But Bill would not allow it. He forbade Sue to take it, and Jenny and the team had to scare up a ride with another parent.

  “It was more than his selfishness,” Sue remembered. “The team parents and the girls were my friends and Jenny’s friends. This was my social life—all that I had—and I was embarrassed, and Jenny was, too—and disappointed. Bill and I had a big fight that day, and I realized I’d totally, finally, come to the end.”

  A battle comparable to the War of the Roses began that day. The house they lived in had been owned by Sue’s family since she was in grade school. It seemed reasonable that Bill should be the one to leave and move into an apartment. Uprooting their children from the only home they had ever known and taking them out of their schools would be cruel. They were already devastated that their parents were divorcing.

  Bill agreed to leave that Friday, June 22, but it wasn’t an easy transition. He and Sue were both angry, and maybe he expected her to back down, but she didn’t. Jenny had left for Spokane to play in the basketball tournament, but Scott was home when Sue called her sister and asked her anxiously to come right over. “I’ve called the police,” Sue said.

  When Carol pulled up to the house in Newport Hills, she saw several Bellevue Police cars parked outside. Scott was in the front yard, safe—but obviously humiliated to have all the neighbor kids watching. There should have been a way for Bill to move out without causing a scene, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Officers Raskow and Boyd had responded to Sue’s 911 call for help. They found her crying and upset, but saw that Bill was upset too. It was a common reaction to a domestic dispute, and neither of them appeared to be out of control.

  Bill was mostly concerned over a box of documents, files of some of his financial dealings that Sue knew nothing about. Their argument was at an impasse but not flaring dangerously, and Bill left the house. The two patrolmen were preparing to leave when Bill drove back—just as Carol was trying to lock the box of files in the trunk of her car.

  Bill grabbed it out. Kurt Raskow, the patrol officer, told Carol to put the box back into her car and instructed Bill to leave it there.

  At that point, Bill Jensen erupted and went “ballistic.” Even the Bellevue officers were surprised at his sudden mood swing as he went from being pleasantly cooperative to being angry.

  “But we were dealing with a domestic,” Raskow said, “and I’ve seen it before.”

  And then Bill’s rage ballooned suddenly to a point where the Bellevue officer found him “way overboard from what I normally see. I thought it was going to be a big fight right there in the street.”

  Bill stomped over to the Toyota Sequoia SUV and ripped a wire out from under the hood. He threw his arms into the air as he headed back to confront Raskow, who was trying to comfort Scott. Bill went into the house, and Scott trailed after him.

  Sue was crying and upset. She had called 911 for help, but the patrolmen explained that there had been no assault and that they could not deal with civil matters. Cars, files, and paperwork caught in a tug-of-war didn’t constitute an assault.

  The patrolmen could see Scott inside, peering out a picture window, and he looked safe enough; Sue didn’t worry that Bill would hurt him. Bill loved Scott. But the two policeman were concerned when they heard pounding as if Bill was blockading the front door. They called their supervisor, saying that they were afraid the child might be being held against his will. Then Scott came out and spoke to his mother. He insisted that he wanted to stay with his father.

  Advised by the Bellevue police to obtain a no-contact/ protection order, Sue and Carol drove to the District Court and obtained one, but the officers wanted them to stay away until police served the order. Sue was worried sick about Scott, so Raskow and Boyd brought him along when they met Sue and Carol a few miles from Newport Hills and escorted them back to the Jensens’ home. The police were concerned about another confrontation. Scott was okay, but torn, his loyalty to both his parents obvious.

  It was something no twelve-year-old boy should have to go through.

  Bill was inside the house, apparently still barricaded. Aware now that they were dealing with a former deputy sheriff who had a safe full of guns in the house, the Bellevue Police chose a cautionary approach, and stationed eight officers around the perimeter of the property. A negotiator called the phone inside, but Bill wouldn’t pick it up. They left messages on the answering machine, hoping that he was listening.

  It was a very bad night. Sue and Carol waited outside. Sue wasn’t sure what Bill might do—but she was still certain he would never hurt Scott.

  For two and a half hours, they were at a standoff. And finally Bill walked out. Bill was served with the no-contact order, and allowed to go.

  When Sue checked the master bedroom closet, she found that Bill’s service revolver was gone. As for the seventeen guns in his safe, Bill told Officer Kurt Raskow that he had forgotten the combination to his own safe. After midnight, and just to reassure themselves that Jensen didn’t have access to it, the Bellevue police arranged to bring their van to pick up the safe full of guns and remove it from the house. It was subsequently locked in the department’s property room. That was probably a wise move; Bill had committed the combination to memory. He was in and out of it a few times each day, although Sue wasn’t allowed to see what he kept in there.

  Any police officer—Bill Jensen included—knows that the two most dangerous calls he can respond to are mental cases and domestic violence disputes. Bellevue officer Kurt Raskow admitted that he had feared for his own safety when the huge ex-cop went in an instant from being reasonable to towering rage.

  All in all, the conclusion to that long June evening had been lucky. Nobody was hurt. Nobody was killed. Everyone involved—the Harris sisters, Sue and Carol; the Jensen children; the Bellevue police officers; and quite probably Bill Jensen too—was relieved.

  Sue Jensen hired Janet Brooks* to represent her in her divorce proceedings. Sue had never had a will, assuming as most young wives do that she and Bill would be each other’s heirs if one of them should die. She had never checked on the bank account she shared with Bill. They had begun it with $10,000; she had eventually contributed $208,000 with checks she had written from her inheritance account. Bill never put so much as a dime into the account, and for fifteen years he didn’t take anything out without Sue’s okay.

  Bill had always figured their income tax and did the filing.

  It only made sense now for Sue to evaluate their assets as they would soon be negotiating the division of the property and funds they had accumulated in twenty-two years of marriage. She assumed that they were headed for nasty battles and that Bill would attempt to wear her down until she was “broke mentally or broke financially—or both.”

  Money meant everything to Bill Jensen, but it wasn’t what was foremost in Sue’s mind.<
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  Sue made lists of what mattered most to her. Any woman caught in a litigious divorce would probably recognize and empathize with her final document:

  My children

  My sister

  My health

  My sense of peace

  My future

  My friends and the happiness friendships bring

  My happiness

  A sense of self-integrity

  My sense of purpose, lifetime accomplishments

  Financial security

  All things being equal, it was a modest list.

  In Washington State, if parties agree, it takes only three months for a divorce to become final. Sue had no illusions that Bill was hurting emotionally because he still loved her. It was just that he—like a number of husbands (and wives)—had always wanted to be the one to walk away, and he’d been ill prepared when Sue filed for divorce.

  Janet Brooks worked with Sue in an attempt to determine which assets belonging to her and Bill were intact and which were somewhat diminished. They needed to find out what was community property and what was separate. It was standard procedure in any divorce. On some occasions, it is necessary to discover if there has been any “dissipation of assets”—that is, has either party disposed of money, stocks, vehicles, jewelry, or other valuable belongings that were shared by both the husband and the wife?

  Novels, movies, and television dramas often depict one spouse or the other charging up to the limits of credit cards, sneaking money out of bank accounts, or cleverly hiding assets. Depending on the slant of scripts, spending an about-to-be-ex’s assets can seem either hilarious or outrageous.

  On her divorce attorney’s advice, Sue attempted to freeze the accounts and investments she shared with Bill. But when she inquired about their joint bank account, she had a shock. The money was all gone. She had put almost a quarter of a million dollars from her parents’ legacy to her into their joint account, and it was missing.