tv Dateline NBC NBC August 12, 2013 2:00am-3:01am PDT
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one of the neighbors says i do notice men and women carrying whips, but that's the only thing i do notice that could be out of the ordinary. out of the ordinary? yeah. >> an incredible new chapter in one of the strangest stories we have ever had here on "dateline," the story of bob bishara this buttoned down businessman living a secret sex life right out of "50 shades of grey." was there an even darker secret he was hiding? >> did you murder your wife? >> absolutely not. >> he was the prime suspect. then someone else confessed. >> i hit her.
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i went bam. >> soon master bob himself was confessing to something equally dark. >> looking for a hit man to knock off his hit man? what were the other secrets in the suburbs? here is dennis murphy. >> most american cities have a neighborhood where the houses are bigger, the money a little older. in detroit it is gross point. >> it is the place that everybody wants to live, the homes are beautiful, the lawns are manicured, and everybody appears to live this perfect life. >> in this tasteful enclave of good schools, good churches, good families going back generations, jane and bob had made their home and raised their two children. >> i loved this place. how could you not? >> bob, big bob as he is known around gross point with the vanity plates to prove it was active in rotary, past president, and hands on for almost any community fundraiser
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you could name. jane was equally busy in volunteer organizations, primarily in the high school mother's group. they had been a couple for nearly 30 years >> we clicked pretty much right away, and within two years i asked her to marry me and she said yes. >> bob says he loved that jane didn't hold anything back. >> she was out going, a go getter, and get she was very loving and kind and i just was attracted to her right from the beginning because she had a good heart. >> the children came along, first robert, then jessica. >> this is where the kids grew up. >> this is where the kids grew up. >> if you look in the front yard of their gracious home on middlesex road in the city of gross point park, will you see two towering evergreens, bob can see his children in them. >> when my son was one i bought a live christmas tree, brought it in, we decorated it, and then undecorated it and took it outside and it did the same for my daughter two and a half, three years later, so we have
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brother and sister growing next to each other and now they're about 30 feet. they're wonderful. >> the son of a judge, he's a real estate guy and buys and sells commercial and residential properties around detroit and takes in cash flow as a landlord. he bought his first property as a teenager and never looked back. >> when you play the game monopoly the person with the most property wins. >> jane was a six figure marketing executive who retired several years ago but went back to work when the recession took a toll on her husband's property business. to all appearances the lives being lived in the nice house were the grown christmas trees out front weren't all that much different from what was happening in homes up and down the street in gross point park and out around exclusive lake shore drive. then came jan 24th, 2012. it was 5:30 in the evening. jane was driving her black mercedes suv home from her job
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in detroit. bob said they spoke on their cells. >> sounded perfectly fine. she said i am coming home, i will be home in 20 minutes. >> as jane drove from downtown, bob says he was tending to outside cleanup chores at one of his properties. when he got home, he thinks about 8:00, there was no jane in sight. >> did you see jane's car? >> no, i didn't. >> anything in disarray? >> no, i just assumed that she ran an errand. 8:30, 9:00 came and i starred calling her, and her phone didn't answer. >> two more hours went by and still no jane. bob said he was getting anxious. >> i called the gross point park police and alerted them that my wife wasn't answering her phone and i said i am concerned. she is not here. >> the next morning, a wednesday, tow truck operators in the east end of detroit were making early rounds. for their shift they will drive the street and look for stolen cars, abandoned cars, to make a few extra dollars. >> mark santea at the time was a
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top investigative reporter on the police beat for nbc's detroit affiliate wdiv tv. >> tow truck driver spots a beautiful mercedes suv and stands out in the neighborhood. >> a shiny vehicle that wouldn't turn a head in gross point was like a flashing neon sign saying something is wrong here in the gritty east end. just abandoned in this grungy alley. >> he calls the detroit police and sources tell me they walked up on that car and once they poked their head in, they saw a woman's body and everything changed. this went from an abandoned vehicle to a homicide real quick. >> the 56-year-old mother found dead on detroit's east side. >> when do you get the call? >> police knocked on the door at 9:30 the next morning. i think i fell to my knees. it was absolutely the worst news i could have gotten. at that point i just was grieving. i had to make phone calls. dreaded phone calls to my children.
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to tell them about their mother. >> jane, a wife, a mother, a daughter, was suddenly violently dead at the age of 56. they had been strangled and severely beaten. >> we're told it was made to look like it was a robbery scene, her hearse had been dumped out and it looked like she was placed in her own suv and that suv was dumped in an alley on the east side of detroit. >> gross point park police took jurisdiction over the case because their working theory was that jane wasn't murdered in detroit, the city that suffered 340 homicides in 2011, but in a place just seven miles away that hadn't had a single murder since 1992. >> right away sources were saying they believed she was killed in gross point park. >> gross point park where residents like to think their grass is a little greener and murders simply don't happen down the block. >> if jane was killed in gross
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point park, who killed her and why? police soon identify a person of interest and there is a lot of interest in what had been a secret part of his life. >> people saying i don't know bob ba share aas gross point bob, i know bob as master bob. [ female announcer ] since 2001 caroline penry's used olay total effects.
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school whose murdered body had been found that morning inside her suv in this seedy alley in detroit. in the crowd her husband bob, a sudden widower. >> family members and friends, they just cannot make sense of any of this. >> reporter hank wynn chest you are covered the candlelight vigil. >> the first time many of us saw bob bashara is ten hours after he learned his wife was dead in a mercedes in detroit. >> the focus is trying to find out what hpd to her last night thattened in her death. >> a small city police department was now investigating its first homicide in 20 years. the husband was grieving in public. >> it is just unthinkable this happened to her and what she had to suffer. i am just so upset about it. >> unthinkable, would a respected husband like he was going through, the man known affectionately as big bob had no shortage of admirers from fellow row tear ans and church members to people all around town that regarded him as a cheerful
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can-do civil booster. >> you are not talking about somebody that are a prior criminal history. bob bashara does not have a criminal history. there was no signs of domestic violence at the home. >> bob was cooperating with the cops, but from the very first even with those arriving officers who broke the news of his wife's death, something about bashara's overall responses didn't sit right with the authorities. according to a tv reporter, mark santea. >> police sources and people we talked to, they felt it was wrong as soon as they walked into the house. >> based on what? >> based on his reaction, bob's reaction wasn't the reaction they expected when a husband learns his wife's body was just found in the east side of detroit. >> just three days after jane's murder the suspicions of the homicide detectives were made explicit by the police chief. he announced that bob bashara was a person of interest in the killing. >> what's the reaction of all of these supporters and the chief of police comes out and says we have a person of interest?
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>> it is you're kidding me, bob bashara? and that's what we heard time and time again. >> one person of interest, bob bashara. what happened there? >> i had no idea. you look at my life. really look at my life. you can see all the good i have done. why on earth would i want to change all of that? why on earth would i want to kill my wife? >> bob bashara, the community do gooder was all over the news. and around getter detroit there were people staring at their tv sets and saying i know that guy. tv viewers who called wviv reporter hank winchester and passed on juicy tips about big bob, wild stories, x rated stories about a secret life. >> bob bashara was the party man about grosse pointe, dinner parties, a christmas event and the other side of bob ba share a the real party side happened behind closed doors, and we're not just talking about a casino night. >> the tips led winchester to talk to some of the neighbors
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near one of the bashara's commercial properties. >> one of the neighbors said i do notice from time to time men and women dressed in leather from head to toe wearing masks, carrying whips, but that's the only thing i notice that could be out of the ordinary. i am like out of the ordinary? yeah. >> winchester's reporting would take him down a grimy flight of exterior stairs, behind the basement door on the right was the storage area for the bar above, the hard luck lounge. the door on the left opened to a musty underground room that people who had been inside according to the reporter called a sex dungeon. >> investigators want to talk with people that worked in a bar just above the alleged dungeon where bashara spent some time. >> behind the locked door the gossip wind big bob hosted wild parties and had play dates with willing women identifying themselves as his sex slaves. you can imagine once the cat was
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out of the bag about the two lives of bob ba share a the rotary with a whip, it was a scandalous story and irresistible fodder for the underground bdsm community, bondage, domination, saidism and mass kichl. they were firing off e-mails with all the lurid details. bob bashara quickly became the public face of a very camera shy group of fetishes. >> people saying i know bob bar share a, but i don't know bob bashara as grosse pointe bob, i know bob bashara as master bob. >> master bob in his world of whips and dog collars the stories went was a dom or dominant, someone who exerted total control over his sex play in a dungeon like this one. police started to ask if the s&m lifestyle might somehow be connected to jane's murder. it surfaced that his special sex partner according to police and media sources was a detroit area
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woman named rachel gillette. rachel and bob were together at her daughter's wedding in 2011. this shot of them dances was posted on the photo company's facebook page for all to see. rachel herself turned out to be a chatty kathy blogger. her dear diary entry, she claimed, had master bob, mb's okay. here are sample from her online journal. i love the power you hold over me. i have written about my first encounter with his belt. ecstasy. the alternative lifestyle as it is called in s&m circles seems so outlandishly removed from solid old mac and cheese mainstream american more rays that you may wonder if it is not just made up but it is quite real and this player that says she knows intimately the other side of bob bashara has come out of the shadows. >> definitely. we had a drink and then down to the dungeon. >> follow her down the stairs to
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the media has painted a picture of me as a terrible person and all of these different things going on in my life when they didn't know me. >> bob bashara, the church going row tear an it turned out had a secret kinky side and like "50 shades of grey," the erotic blockbuster best seller about an s&m relationship, this real life 50 shades of grosse pointe was a steamy topic. >> his alleged secret life. >> and investigators looking into the murder of his wife jane bashara were pursuing the sex dungeon angle, too. this s&m business based on power and control with pain thrown in seemed way more than the all too common woman on the side theory
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of motivation. they wonder could it have something to do with the murder? fetishes were coming out of the wood work. >> the day i heard the news i went to the police right off. >> this woman told detectives about her 2009 romp in the dungeon. she said she had with a man she knew only as master bob. >> i told them, i said rachel was his slave. >> she asked we call her lynn. disguised beneath theatrical makeup she agreed to talk to us about her sexual lifestyle and the person she knows as master bob. lynn, a single mom with a job made her own journey from the straight life, vanilla as they calls it, and understands the lure of being controlled, dominated. >> how do you go through that door? >> it is a scary door, especially for somebody later in life discovering this. the sex life, it was pretty boring. >> conventional. >> always conventional, vanilla, yeah. i stumbled upon it, and it kind of hit me and i am like well
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this is what i have been missing. >> you are a submissive. >> yes, submissive means you submit to that dominant, so submissive will do pretty much anything her dominant says. >> are we talking about collars. >> yes. >> whips. >> whips, flogs, canes, props. >> lynn said dungeon parties can be held just about anywhere in warehouses, rental homes, garages, even suburban rooms and invitations through the web and word of mouth. >> you're invited to a dungeon party, how do you know you're not going to john wayne gacy. >> you don't. with me terribly i talk to people for a while. if there is anything that doesn't sound right, i wouldn't go. >> she said she heard about the dungeon beneath the bar from bashara himself, and that he found her on an alternative lifestyle website. >> master bob, and his "saturday night live" and the reason i followed through is because i had not experienced a dungeon.
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understanding the draw and the excitement, i had to see the dungeon. >> so one afternoon lynn said she met master bob and his special slave rachel for the first time. she had the three of them spent a few minutes in the bar, chatted about nothing in particular and relaxed with a few stiff drinks >> and down to the dungeon. >> this is the actual dungeon she shared wit master bob. it was shot undercover by wdiv tv and the detroit affiliate. >> the first thing i see in a far corner is a bed. next to the bed there was a giant web like looking device. >> what? >> it looked like a giant spiderweb. with rope. >> do i want to know? >> it was a 360 type web. >> the spiderweb contraption was in storage when the local camera crew was filming undercover. the grungy windowless dungeon contained the hooks, ropes and other toys lynn remembered. >> how do you break the ice? >> oh, that was quick because
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she disrobed when i got there and had her collar on and that's what i was ordered to do and can that's what i did. >> master bob is telling what you to do. >> yes. >> and you were having a great time. >> it was really exciting and that's where we initially both had her first flogging. >> you say that so easily, my first flogging in the dungeon. >> yeah. >> yet she says she never went back to master bob's dungeon. she liked rachel well enough but master bob. >> self absorbed, very, very dominant, you know, when i say he is master bob, i believe he believes that with every fiber of his being. >> she went to the police, she said, because she believed bob's secret life might be relevant. >> the whole purpose of this, of my talking with the police, of any of this is justice for jane's murder. >> there is a working police theory of the motivation in this case that leads through master bob's dungeon door. a crime with roots in an old-fashioned love triangle but with a kinky twist.
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the cops speculate bashara was so consumed with this s&m lifestyle and the slave he shared it with that his wife jane just didn't fit anymore into the relationship map. so how did he solve the problem of one woman too many? did he delegate the dilemma to someone else? possibly his handyman, a big guy, he had touched up the paint on the rental property and when that handyman came to pay police a visit, he would have an unbelievable story to tell. at least the cops seemed to think so. >> coming up, the night jane bashara died in the words of the man who says he killed her. >> i went bam. took her neck out. >> why would he kill her? [ female announcer ] think all pads are the same? don't.
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two days after the body of jane bashara was discovered in the backseat of her mercedes, an suv ditched in a detroit alley, her husband of 25 years, bob bashara, was named a person of interest. just four days after that in january of 2012 a huge guy walked into the grosse pointe park police station and the admission he made that day would turn the case upside down. >> hours later we break the story that joe gents is talking to police and give being them very specific details. >> a handyman by trade, joe gentz had done minor fix it work for bob bashara at his home and rental properties. >> about 6'6" tall and size 16 shoe and big man. >> a big man with reportedly a child's man. >> a third grade iq. he is mentally impaired. >> gents was taken to an interview room and for three days the cops listen to the
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handyman's bizarre account of jane's death and how he said he was responsible for t the detectives appeared to not know what to make of this guy who walked in off the street with an outlandish confession because at the end of their interrogation they did a surprising thing. they let joe gentz go. he walked out the front door without any charges. seemed as though gentz couldn't get anyone in authority to take him seriously. reporter marc santia tracked gentz down and able to get a brief statement from him on camera. >> what do you want people to know? >> i want them to know the truth. >> he didn't know what to believe about joe gents, was he a killer or not? santea was hearing bits and pieces of the confession from police sources and wanted to get it directly from gentz, something he knew could be dangerous and a little tricky. so when gentz said he would do an audio only interview santia called for backup and asked a former detective to sit in with him.
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>> you didn't have your gold shield anymore and the old instincts kicked? >> yeah, something i want to do, maybe if i still got it. >> the handyman, the reporter, and the ex cop met in a suburban detroit conference room. t. berry switched on his tape recorder and as soon as gentz's account came spilling out, santia and t. berry knew why the cops had trouble believing it. it was bizarre and chilling. was it true? only "dateline" played it on national television. >> why did he pick you? >> i am a pawn basically. >> gents said he met bob in the fall of 2011. joe was looking for an apartment in grosse pointe park. bob didn't have a place for him but bob did throw a bit of work his way. almost immediately the handyman claimed bashara asked him to do a job that had nothing to do with the usual, painting garages or making repairs in bob's backyard. so his proposal was cleanup work
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of sorts. >> he calls me, he wants his wife hit. >> he told you and he doesn't even know you. >> he goes i want you to do this job. >> gentz said the job was to ram into jane while she was driving her mercedes. >> basically he wanted a hit and run. >> he says make it look like an accident. >> okay. >> like hitting a tree. >> where did he want to you hit. >> another car. >> as he tells it he is asking me to kill his wife. >> yeah. >> not put her in a hospital bed or rehab home, he wants her dead. >> the hit and run scheme went nowhere. plan b to murder jane involved a fake backyard accident. gentz told t. berry that he was offering cash. >> this is what he said. i give you five grand if i knock out his wife. he wanted it to look like an accident that she fell off the roof of the house. >> gentz said he was set up to meet his boss's wife in the bashara backyard and he was
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expected to kill her that day and although he talked to her out back he didn't go through with it. >> what did he say if anything. >> i am ticked off. you're supposed to take care of my wife. bob, you're chicken, bob, maybe i am. i got a lot to lose here. isz you're nuts. i told him that. >> bashara, accord canning to the handyman, became more belligerent and demanding non-stop phone calls. >> a deadline. >> tells me that. >> what kind of deadline? >> i am sorry, joe, bobbed i am on a deadline or you're on a deadline. >> he is on a deadline. bob is on a deadline. >> okay. >> now i am like what do you mean you're on a deadline? he says i got to have this done immediately. >> as he told it bashara's urgency became even more obvious when he called joe on the afternoon of january 24th, 2012. >> he says, hey, i need you to be at my house at 7:00 tonight. >> 7:00 sharp. do not be late.
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>> what do you say? >> i will be there. >> bob told joe he had boxes his wife wanted moved from their garage. >> he wants you to move this stuff and anything else? >> he goes i want you to take out my wife. >> what is your intention when you go there? he has a job over there. >> yeah. >> is that what you thought? >> i thought about both. i thought about both in the back of my mind. isz this ain't good. >> he says he had blown off the previous killing spree and anticipated this set up was more serious. >> so walks over to the bashara home in grosse pointe park and led in by bob. >> he says he and bob were in the garage starting to move the boxes to the basement when jane, the wife came in, and she was fuming. >> bob turns around. she is yelling and screaming at bob. >> what is she saying? >> i want this [ bleep ] out of here. take your [ bleep ] golf clubs to the country club and bob says shut the woman up now.
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now, all i heard is click. >> looks at him and says that bob produces a gun. he has hey gun in his hand. >> i looked down a barrel and like oh [ bleep ]. >> what happens next? >> he says take her out. or i am taking you. bob was going to shoot me. >> okay. >> i hit her. >> did you hit her. >> on the neck. i knocked her down. >> did she yell? >> she goes, bob, and bob says choke her. we struggled. >> is she knocked out? >> she didn't get knocked out. >> she groggy? >> she was more like what are you doing, bob? help me, bob. bob says take care of her. i went bam. took her neck out. with my boot. >> did you see yourself on the neck. >> the whole thing. bob says make sure she's dead. i am like -- bob says load her up in the car. i went to pick her up.
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>> he couldn't lift her body by himself. bob came over to help and as they lifted jane, her breasts became exposed. >> the shirt opened up, okay. >> did you see a bra? >> i didn't see a bra. i seen [ bleep ]. bob goes over there and goes i am sorry, baby. >> and covers her up. >> covers [ bleep ] up and then we put her back in the vehicle. i put her feet in, bob put her head in. >> gents said bob opened up the garage and/orred him to drive away jane's body laid across the backseat. >> he says don't [ bleep ] up. >> you sat in interview rooms with countless numbers of suspects. what did you think of this guy's story? >> my opinion, he is telling the truth. the story was so believable it didn't change. the story was consistent. >> the ex cop said gents may have been most credible when he told of the ex poed breast, bob's covering it up. >> to me very, very important. >> then when her body is
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discovered she is not wearing a bra. >> exactly. >> who would know that? why would he think of making up awe story like that? the story flows. everything that he told us basically flows. it is all believable. >> and two months after it seemed the grosse pointe park police hadn't believed his murder confession, someone in authority finally did. >> you're under arrest for the murder of jane bashara. >> the wayne county prosecutor covering detroit and grosse pointe charged the handyman with first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. just as it takes two to tango, it takes two to conspire. >> the community is waiting, when are they going to arrest bob bashara for the murder of his wife. >> or would they? would the other shoe ever drop? >> coming up, bob bashara tells his side of the story. >> think about it for a moment.
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if you wanted to pound someone would you hire a guy with a 68 i.q.? i am not going to hire an idiot to kill my wife in my garage. could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. yep, everybody knows that. well, did you know the ancient pyramids were actually a mistake? uh-oh. geico. fifteen minutes could save you...well, you know. so i can't afford to have germy surfaces.
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jane's husband, his sometimes boss bob bashara pulled a gun on him and ordered him to murder the wife or be killed himself. four months into the investigation a question the prosecutor's office wasn't answering was is why hadn't bashara be arrested for murder yet? >> i have no idea what happened. i wasn't sheer. >> with the other shoe not yet dropped we talked to bashara in april of last year, the family home where he lived with jane for 25 years. he told us gentz did it, case closed. >> all i know is that he admitted doing this, they have the man behind bars. let me rebuild my life. let me move on. i miss her terribly, the mother of two wonderful children is gone, and that just absolutely saddens me. >> did you murder your wife? did you cause her death? >> absolutely not. >> were you in ka hoots with this handyman guy to come in and do the dirty work?
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>> absolutely not. let me tell you something. i loved my wife dearly. i loved my wife. >> were there other women? >> i do not want to get into a lot of this because of my children, but i will tell you that i did have -- i had a relationship with one other woman. >> the woman known as rachel. >> yes. it has nothing to do with this case, anything to do with the death of jane. nothing at all. >> bob, this really gets complicated by what is being called your alternative lifestyle and people say they know a different bob bashara. they know master bob. >> well, you know -- >> what do you say about it all? >> let me tell you, it was a private part of my life. it was nothing, had nothing to do with jane, and people talk about that dark side. they don't even know about what that -- what's involved with that. they think of this terrible
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notion of different things, but they don't know. they don't know what was going on. >> bashara says his big mistake was being a soft touch for gentz, trying to throw some work his way. the handyman, he says, was in and out of family court at the time and desperate for money. >> he called me and said he needed to talk and needed money and because he had a custody hearing where he needed $1500 to pay a lawyer, and i wouldn't give it to him. >> he tells a story that you are there in the garage with a gun on him, saying do it now, gives her a karate chop and he drops and she is fighting on the floor and he stomps on her neck and you are there. >> unbelievable he would say that. the man is a disturbed man, and he made a mistake. he crossed the line, killed my wife, and now he is trying to blame it on me. >> said he did it for what a thousand bucks or so. >> he said two thousand and then it was 6,000 and then it was
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8,000 and a cadillac and i didn't offer him anything to do anything. think about it. just for a moment. if you wanted to harm someone, would you hire a guy with a 68 iq and have the work done in your garage in your home? just for a moment think about that. does that make any sense? absolutely not. i am not a nefarious person. i am certainly not going to hire an idiot to kill my wife in my garage. >> and then a case that was already sad and strange went completely off the rail. >> bob bashara leaves the police station in a back of a squad car. >> june 2012, big headline news. bashara, accused in a conspiracy, a completely new one, to have the handyman joe gentz murdered by a killer for hire. >> bashara is looking for a hit man to knock off his hit man?
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>> exactly. it is like we're in shock. >> bashara at that point was operating with the idea that he needs to stop joe gentz. >> in what can only be called a hair brain scheme police said bashara approached a friend who ran this furniture and appliance store and asked him to figure out a way to have gentz killed inside the county jail. tom berry, the ex detroit cop said bashara told the appliance salesman the hit would be worth $20,000. >> gentz is locked away. necessary a cell. this hit man who isn't a hit man is going to do him how? >> the hit man is going to get a guy in jail with gentz to put crushed glass into his food, gentz will eat it in the hope that is his colon is perf rated and he dies. >> he never considers this for a second. >> never for a second. he is not going to do it. >> the appliance salesman immediately notified the detroit cops. the retail era greed to wear a
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wire when he met with bashara again to finalize terms >> bob bashara was not offering this guy a million dollars to take joe gentz out. bob bashara was going to people he thought would be easy targets, maybe easily manipulated, like joe gentz was, to try to seal the deal. >> instead, according to reporter hank winchester, bob sealed his own fate by yacking about the hit as the police surveillance team recorded and videoed his every word. >> at the end of the day it all came down to the tape. bob bashara in his own words laid out this crime and investigators had a bombshell. >> as you understand it, they're not talking in code words or riddles or anything. >> no. he is talking about killing gentz in jail. >> did bashara think he resolved his nagging prop? after buying what he thought was a hit, bob retired to his grungsy sex dungeon to chill. the police were right behind him. >> when he gets over there, they move in, and they put the
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handcuffs on him. >> master bob, so used to being the one to put on the cuffs was booked and issued a jumpsuit. in october of last year faced with the irrelevant refutable evidence of sting tapes bob bashara pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder. >> in june of 2012 i foolishly and regrettably offered to pay steve tabotl to find someone to kill joseph gentz. >> the judge gave him a sense of at least 80 months in prison. at year's end the original hit man, handyman joe gentz pleaded guilty to second degree murder. a negotiated deal in return for a lighter sentence than life in prison. >> bob bashara offered me money to and threatened me if i did not kill her. >> two-ways to look at this, he is trying to get rid of the chief accuser and the other way gentz got off light the way he see it is and revenging the
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murder of his wife. >> i look at it he was trying to kill the hit man he hired. >> gentz was now prepared to testify against his old boss. bob bashara still hadn't been charged with his wife's murder. prosecutors it turns out were slowly methodically building a case beyond the handyman's accusation. seizing ultimately upon a motive bigger than the usual love triangle. how about one person more? >> coming up, bob bashara talks about his secret sex life and so does his sex slave mistress rachel. >> we fell in love and in retrospect i realized he lied to me and manipulated me. [ female announcer ] now get high speed internet at home on our newly expanded advanced digital network, a connection you can count on. at&t u-verse high speed internet offers more speed options, reliability and wi-fi hotspots than ever. go to our website below to get u-verse high speed internet for just $14.95 a month
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time for killing bashara's wife on orders he says from the husband. bashara had so far not been charged in his wife's death. here is what was going on. behind the closed doors of the investigation, the police and prosecutors were looking at bob's relationship with the woman he admitted taking to his sex dungeon, rachel, his mistress of three years who was cooperating with the police. she had been heard from publicly in a brief interview with wvit detroit. >> when i first met mr. bashara online, he actually on his profile said that he was widowed. >> although he later admitted he was married, rachel was not ruthful about getting involved with the man she called master bob. >> i unfortunately began to care very much for him and fell in love. in retrospect i realized that he lied to me and manipulated me. >> ex cop tom berry says his sources picked up on one thread in particular, rachel had
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allegedly given bob a deadline, divorce your wife or i am gone. >> bob took that ultimatum very seriously because that's when he became very, very aggressive with gentz. >> gentz said as much in his audio taped interview. bob was feeling the heat. >> he is on a deadline. bob is on a deadline. >> okay. >> now, i am like what do you mean you're on a deadline? he says i got to have this done immediately. >> when the detectives went back and read the mistress's chatty blogs to the s&m community they had an a-ha moment and thought they understand now what the deadline was about. >> there is a theory it gets weirder because it is not the classic lover's triangle it is a lover's quad wrangle. >> exactly. >> it is bob, two women, plus his wife. >> exactly. >> on their indiscreet blog she let it be known she and master bob, mb as she referred to him were shopping for a third
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partner, a new sex slave to complete the fantasy freeway household. we are looking for a special girl, a third to round out our relationship. my very first requirement is that they have to adore mb. according to rachel's blog, they found the ideal submissive, a woman from oregon. >> this is a woman that bob and rachel met online. she caught a quick glimpse into bob bashara's life, the money, the luxury cars, lake front living in a suburb of detroit and on top of it all, you're into a kinky lifestyle and i am, too, so let's get the party going. >> wement to make it a three some instead of a two some and we want to you move here. that's the process going on at the time of the homicide. >> in her blog rachel said bob went to oregon to meet the woman. january 10, 2012, they are forming a bond to some day be master and slave. bashara according to reporters san see asources was brazenly house hunting to find the three
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some a place to call home in the weeks before jane was murdered. >> this motive, there is reason in going back to joe's statement, there is a deadline. >> when you connect the dots, the wife, jane, is odd woman out. >> basically jane is in the way. >> we confronted bashara with the three-way theory when we talked to him before his arrest on the gentz solicitation charge. >> the math didn't work. it was one woman too many and that's why she is dead. >> absolutely not. it is so untrue. >> that becomes, what the the theory for motivation for the prosecution. >> absolutely. it is not. >> the prosecutor's office did its own math, the gentz confession and conviction coupled with bashara's hit on gentz and the back story of the dungeon and the sex playmates with the looming deadline and the authorities were finally ready after a 16-month investigation to lower the boom on big bob. >> today robert bashara is charged with one count of first degree premeditated murder. >> he pleaded not guilty.
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a trial date could be set later this year, a trial expected to layout in steamy detail master bob's sexual lifestyle and gentz's account of being forced to commit a murder in the garage. >> it is such a tragedy first and foremost because jane bashara is gone and her family members will never get over that. i think what happened here is that you had a guy who was mr. grosse pointe who thought he was invincible, who thought that he could live this secret life and nobody would figure it out. >> he is just not bob bashara, he is big bob, he is higher and better than anybody else. i think that's what he thought, he is above everybody and everybody else is below him. today everybody else was above him and he is in the bottom running right now. >> a man that reportedly had a taste for dungeons found an all expenses paid one with the state of michigan. whether it is home for a few years or perhaps the rest of his life, waits to be seen.
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>> that's all for now. i am lester holt. thanks for joining us. our key issues and people this week. spying showdown. president obama orders changes to u.s. surveillance programs and faces tough questions about the nsa leaker. >> i don't think mr. snowden was a patriot. >> the debate over the future of u.s. spying programs. mike mccaul, the head of the house homeland security committee. analysis from ted koppel of nbc news and "the washington post's" barton gellman. then presidential orders. strong words from the commander in chief this week about stamping out sexual assault in the military. the pentagon is preparing new rules, but there is an agreement on how to end the crisis. i go one-on-one with one of the lawmakers pushing for change, missouri senator claire mccaskill. the immigration debate. a critical time for reform as members of congress head back to their districts to prepare for
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the fall fight. what are the prospects for passage? talk to both sides including the congressmen leading the fight against reform. end of an era. the venerable "the washington post" is sold to amazon's jeff bez bezos. was what does it say about the future of traditional media? inside analyst from "the washington post's" david ignatius and david gross of "the new york times". all of that ahead on me"meet th press" this sunday morning, august 11th. good sunday morning. president obama is on vacation, congress is out of town, and although we are in the dog days of summer, the battle to win the hearts and minds of the american people on a range of issues is is in full force. the obama administration is finding tough opposition to its agenda, while the gop is divided as well on how to move ahead. friday, president obama announced changes to the u.s.
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surveillance program so many people are talking about, including a change in how the nsa collects phone records, more transparency by the secret foreign intelligence court, that's the fisa court, and the creation of a task force of private citizens. joining me this morning barton gellman of "the washington post" who has been writing extensively about edward snowden and the nsa, special correspondent for nbc news ted koppel, and the chairman of the house homeland security committee, republican congressman mike mccaul. barton gellman, let me start with you. has edward snowden won? has he accomplished what he set out to do, which is not only get a debate going but force change in these programs? >> he has accomplished far more than anyone in his position could have reasonably hoped to have accomplished. he told me his greatest fear was that he would come out and do this and whole story would be -- you know, roiling around for a day and it would be gone. now you have president obama being forced to say that he welcomes the debate, whh
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