that will do it for me. thanks for watching. i'll be back next sunday. follow us on x, instagram, tiktok, threads and blue sky, whatever other social media platform there might be out there that i don't know about it. using the handle. and catch clips on you cube. you can also listen to every episode as a podcast for free. just scan the qr code on your screen to follow. your screen to follow. tom dove: to try to solve this murder, we were going to set a trap for three people, and i wasn't sure if it was gonna work or not. it had to be perfect. craig melvin (voiceover): he was a family man who didn't seem to have an enemy in the world, right up until the night he was murdered.

daron wyatt: there was evidence of a violent struggle between jack and his killer. craig melvin (voiceover): someone was keeping secrets and police thought they knew who. their tone was just scary. craig melvin (voiceover): they thought they knew the motive too, but-- matter of proving it is a different story. craig melvin (voiceover): until someone found the perfect bait. could they set the perfect trap? patty dove: these people might literally get away with murder. [theme music] hello and welcome to "dateline." jack jessee was a doting granddad and the patriarch of a large blended and, by all appearances, loving family. but when he was stabbed to death in his southern california home, police wondered if the jesses weren't quite as happy as they seemed. the case went unsolved for years.

but those who loved jack never gave up hope, neither did the relentless detective who was determined to catch jack's killer. here's keith morrison with "deadly conspiracy." [music playing] keith morrison (voiceover): the game is called mousetrap. the little ball on its track, the tiny taunting mice, which unless every lever works in unison, will not be caught. and how often things go wrong to allow the mice to get away. so odd that what really happened could so eerily mimic a children's game. oh, how nice! keith morrison (voiceover): these are the people it happened to, the jessee clan of orange county, california. they vacationed together-- i'm tired. i'm ready to go home. keith morrison (voiceover): --shared birthdays-- this one's for bev. happy new year! keith morrison (voiceover): --even got together for a monthly game of 10 pins.

but what these grainy home videos don't show is what is yet to come, which is murder, conspiracy, one branch of the family against the other, a game so twisted-- mice so clever-- that crafting a trap to catch the plotters just might be impossible. to begin with, it was 1998. "shakespeare in love" won the oscar. monica lewinsky was freshly famous. it was a sweltering august night, hottest of the year, when cheryl deanda got a strange call from her dad, jack jesse. i was getting ready for bed and my phone rings. and it's my dad on the phone. what time was this? 20 after 9:00. keith morrison (voiceover): he was worried about his wife, sandra. she was missing. what did he think had happened? he just thought she maybe got in an accident or something. keith morrison (voiceover): she'd run to this nearby mall on a quick errand,

said cheryl's dad, but was gone so long. would cheryl please find her, asked her dad. went through there-- the lucky's, the burger king, where she was supposed to be, walmart. back, came back 15 minutes later. keith morrison (voiceover): and when she went back into her dad's house, she found-- cheryl deanda: one of the worst sites i've ever seen in my life. he was laying face down on the floor in a pool of blood. it was horrible. what did you think happened then? i thought he had fallen, because he had a big gash in the back of his head. i just went to the kitchen phone and called 911. keith morrison (voiceover): but when she rolled him over, she could see wounds all across his chest. he'd been stabbed many times. it was every time i started doing cpr to him, every time i breathed into him, i could hear like bubbling, and air escaping. then i could-- then i started hearing-- feeling it on-- on his chest. keith morrison (voiceover): it's not often little placentia, california has a murder. daron wyatt: about 10 o'clock at night when i got the call. keith morrison (voiceover): at the time,

daron wyatt was the town's sole homicide detective. what did the crime scene itself look like? it was pretty bloody. there was evidence of a violent struggle between jack and his killer. the kind of thing that might happen if it was a home invasion, robbery, or something? or an assault between people who knew each other. protocol told him, look first at the person who reported the crime, which was his daughter, cheryl. daron wyatt: the daughter-- we had to look at her as a potential suspect. she was the one-- she was the one who found him. keith morrison (voiceover): back at the station, wyatt interviewed all of jack's relatives, including cheryl and jack's wife, sandra, who hadn't been missing at all, just out on a shopping trip. mrs. jessee came to the station with us voluntarily, told us that she would cooperate and wanted to help us solve the-- the murder of her husband. [cries] keith morrison (voiceover): and she told him about life with jack, married 14 years, blended family, four kids between them. jack was a patriarch in the jessee clan, she said, a teddy bear of a man-- well-liked, well-to-do. jack was a very, very loving person who--

who doting on his children, doted on his stepchildren, doted on his grandchildren. keith morrison (voiceover): but jack was ill, housebound after colon cancer surgery. sandra told the detective she'd been running a bit of a mercy mission for jack and dawdled too long at the mall. daron wyatt: she was very, very specific about where she had gone at what times and why she had gone there. keith morrison (voiceover): as for cheryl, she told detectives she'd do anything to find out what happened to her dad in those 15 minutes she was away from the house. daron wyatt: her actions were very, very consistent with somebody who understands the police are looking at me right now. i know i didn't do anything. i'm going to do everything i can and give full disclosure. and then the day after the jack jessee murder, a guy walked into a bar, sat down on the bar stool, and told the bartender a story about how the murder happened, about who did it,

about what the motive was-- the whole story. keith morrison (voiceover): but of course, that was just a story in a bar. detective wyatt didn't hear anything about it. and as he continued to dig for clues, he hit an unexpected wall. sandra announced she had now helped as much as she could. she was done. i was referred to her attorney, and she refused to meet with us again. keith morrison (voiceover): same thing happened with sandra's kids, jack's stepchildren, while jack's blood relations practically begged to help solve the case. so, what happened to that big, happy family in the video? a mirage, perhaps? in fact, living with sandra, said jack's daughters chere and cheryl, was like a fairy tale-- it's too late now. keith morrison (voiceover): --the kind written by the brothers grimm. oh, she was just mean to me. she wanted me completely gone. and she did everything she could to try to get rid of me. keith morrison (voiceover): but when it came to her own children, they said, sandra was indulgent, eerily so, with son tom.

cheryl deanda: he was a really big mama's boy to where-- to the point it was strange, very weird. very weird. just weird thing to watch. they were always walking into the other room and closing the door. yeah. keith morrison (voiceover): though jack seemed quite happy with sandra until the spring of '98, that is, just a few months before the murder when jack was diagnosed with colon cancer. a shock, of course-- but one of two shocks for sandra. and to those around her, the second seemed somehow worse. her beloved son tom up and moved to arizona. and she was flipping out about it. yeah. just-- she had to go there. keith morrison (voiceover): she demanded jack moved to arizona too. that woman was off her rocker. her tone was just scary. i never even-- it's like somebody else's voice coming out of her. keith morrison (voiceover): but surely that wasn't motive enough for murder. and with plenty of suspicion, but little else to go on,

wyatt spent months pouring over sandra and jack's phone records and bank statements, credit card bills, searching for-- well, he didn't know exactly what he was searching for. but he was getting basically nowhere. we couldn't establish a pattern that was suspicious. keith morrison (voiceover): then as wyatt's investigation sputtered, sandra left, sold jack's house here in california, moved to arizona to be near her son, tom. and soon her daughter followed too. and they all lived within a couple of blocks of each other in homes sandra helped purchase with jack's insurance money and savings. when everything was said and done, she got close to $700,000. keith morrison (voiceover): and as the months slipped past, leads failed to connect the investigation, hit one dead end after another. and wyatt was promoted out of homicide. the case bounced from the placentia pd to the orange county sheriff's department where before long it became a case to avoid, toxic, an unsolvable career killer.

and so five years after his brother's murder, when david jessee met a detective named tom dove who said he picked up the case-- i said, oh, really? well, that's great. let me ask you a question. yeah? what are you gonna do? you gonna get my case for three, four, or five months, a year, and then move up? become a sergeant or something and move on? and tom dove says to me, listen, buddy, nobody likes me in my department. he says, i'm not going nowhere. [laughs] he says i've got five years to put in your brother's case. he says, then i retire, and i'm out of here. he said, but i'll give it my all. i will give everything to this case that i have. i looked over at him. i said, you're the man. keith morrison (voiceover): what david didn't know, but clearly sensed, was that detective tom dove was the real deal, a legendary law man, who seemed to have stepped out of his own primetime drama.

there wasn't a whole lot to go on. there wasn't any physical evidence. there wasn't any eyewitnesses. in other words, the perfect challenge. correct. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up-- that bartender with the customer who liked to talk, now he's talking too. this person had specific details unknown to the general public. craig melvin (voiceover): not only that, he's naming names. when "dateline" continues.

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keith morrison (voiceover): after five years and a string of homicide detectives, the jack jessee murder case had become a game to avoid. and then one day the whole impossible business was handed off to tom dove. tom dove: i can't tell you how many times that i thought, just move on. give up. move on. keith morrison (voiceover): there was no hope of any new evidence, of course, like fingerprints or dna. there was just the infuriating puzzle, which had become more difficult with each passing year. tom dove: after i reviewed the case, i had no feeling for the family, no feeling for jack jessee. keith morrison (voiceover): so to get his head in the game, dove met with the people closest to jack, like his brother david. and when i met with david, he inspired me. his determination not to let the love for his brother go was a-- a big motivating factor. keith morrison (voiceover): but david also

had some provocative information, something jack told him after arguing with sandra about moving to arizona. if anything ever happens to me, he says, it's her. keith morrison (voiceover): not the only time jack said such a thing, it turned out. he actually told me, i wouldn't be-- i wouldn't be surprised if the [bleep] killed me. he-- he said that. keith morrison (voiceover): and so dove picked through all the original files, hoping he might come across something that had been overlooked. and buried inside, he found this, a simple two-page report, apparently unread by any detective. remember the guy who walked into the bar, the one who told a story about the jessee murder? well, years later, when the case had gone cold, the bartender decided to call the placentia cops. an officer took the call, typed up the report, and stuck it away in the file, where it sat unseen until tom dove came along. two things caught my mind when i read it. one, whoever the caller is knew how

many stab wounds were involved. and two, the caller stated that the person had used a back door or a window to enter the residence that night. that was significant in that this person had specific details unknown to the general public about the murder of jack jessee. keith morrison (voiceover): most of the tipster's information was frustratingly vague, like a riddle, yet another game to be played. there were two killers, though he gave no names. one had a knife. the other had the getaway car. both worked at a big box department store. the man who told the story in the bar that day had been the driver of the car. and with the blood money, he'd bought a truck and a sea-doo. but on the question of who was behind the plot, that's when the story named names-- two of them. they were sandra's son tom, the mama's boy jack raised as his own, under the direction of the mastermind

herself, jack's wife, sandra. so with that new perspective on the case, dove revisited sandra's old interview, the hours of mostly useless chatter. keith morrison: how many times did you listen to that interview? at least 10 times. keith morrison (voiceover): and then it jumped out at him. right about here on the tape, sandra is going through slips of paper in her day planner. she looks at one and says-- listen to it again. "this is my son's friend." one phrase in hours of material, but it got dove's mind racing. if the bartender was right that the killers were friends of sandra's son, did that slip of paper hold the key to the case? dove tore through bags of evidence, and there it was, the day planner, seized five years earlier, just after the murder. i went through that day planner for probably a day or more, went through every scratch piece of paper, every notation.

there was a small piece of note paper with the name which appeared to me, at that time, to say "schreiber," with no telephone number or no significance to it. keith morrison: just said "schreiber," that's all it said. it just said, i thought, "schreiber," yes. keith morrison (voiceover): but where would he find this schreiber? dove went back to sandra's interview and unearthed one more clue. when asked by detective wyatt about tom's friend, sandra said the boys were once work buddies. so detective dove criss-crossed southern california, searching through the employment records of every target store for a guy named schreiber. but nobody had ever heard of him. tom dove: and we were starting to come to the end of our rope. we were getting to a dead end there. keith morrison (voiceover): that was about the time jack's daughter chere began getting strange packages in the mail, from sandra, who said they were keepsakes jack wanted his girls to have. like what? like little boxes of like ashtrays,

his bowling ball bag, just a bunch of junk. and it was just weird stuff that just kept coming. keith morrison (voiceover): which seemed designed to provoke exactly the reaction the sisters felt. oh. hatred. more than i had before. keith morrison (voiceover): sandra seemed to be telling them she'd beaten them, got away with it, won the game. we just said, are we cursed? is there something with this case, that it's just not going to be solved? keith morrison (voiceover): it's frustrating for him, putting all this work in and-- and to think these people might get away-- literally-- get away with murder. oh, isn't that the-- keith morrison (voiceover): patty is tom's wife, been together since high school, knows him better than anyone. she was used to his compulsive perfectionism. it's comforting to me, i think, to just know where things are and where we're going. keith morrison (voiceover): his nothing-out-of-place sense of order. patty dove: he's a very stubborn man, so for him to take a case, he's going to do it and-- and solve it. keith morrison (voiceover): and so detective dove decided to start over, take a different approach

this time. he immersed himself in sandra's old phone bills, seized by detective wyatt years before. what i did is i went to every telephone call on those phone records, looking for somebody related to this case. there had to be some communication. get anywhere? yeah. keith morrison (voiceover): what dove found, that had been overlooked before, was a cluster of calls not long before the murder, all short within minutes of each other. one of those calls was to a target store. one was to a pager, and one was to a boarding house. so he called that last number, asked if anybody there knew a guy named schreiber. and the landlady said, nope. but there was once a tenant named schrauben, she said. could he be the man the detective was looking for? it was brett schrauben. keith morrison (voiceover): not schreiber. schrauben. keith morrison (voiceover): dove tracked schrauben down to a distant suburb in the mojave desert.

and right there, parked in the driveway, was a 1999 pickup truck and a sea-doo, just what the anonymous bartender said. this was a huge break for us. we now had a name of somebody that's involved in jack jessee's murder. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up-- often people throw away valuable evidence. craig melvin (voiceover): detective dove finds treasure in trash. this is too good to be true. craig melvin (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... ...being me. keep being you... ...and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people—whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to undetectable—and stay there whether you're just starting or replacing your current treatment. research shows that taking h-i-v treatment as prescribed and getting to and staying undetectable

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the jack jessee investigation had been six years of dead ends, bad breaks, blind alleys. now on the trail of a suspect, tom dove was about to start a new game, one where he could write the rule book. but it would be very complicated, because dove wanted more than just a getaway driver brett schrauben. he wanted everyone connected to jack jessee's murder. tom dove: and the only way we could tie them together in this conspiracy was to do a wiretap. keith morrison (voiceover): but wiretaps are notoriously difficult to get. dove needed permission from a judge, and to get that, he needed to prove schrauben was still in contact with tom and tom's mother sandra. it was a catch-22. so time to get creative. it had been my experience when i had worked in the narcotics section of the sheriff's department that often people throw away valuable evidence.

keith morrison (voiceover): dove asked his fellow detectives to help him because he decided to search schrauben's garbage. so what'd they tell you when you came up with that idea? you're crazy? i think their first idea was i'm really starting to lose it now. i'm gonna dig through somebody trash. keith morrison (voiceover): so faithfully, once a week on garbage pickup day, dove got up at daybreak and made the hour-long journey to brett schrauben's neighborhood, where a trash truck used just for schrauben's garbage, brought it to a nearby parking lot. we would have the truck dump the trash in a-- somewhat of a pile here, regardless of the size. right on the tarmac. right on the tarmac, scatter everything out, open every bag, get down on our hands, and knees and slowly sift through every piece of paper that looked like it might be a document of some kind. keith morrison (voiceover): and that's how dove's team found this coffee-stained phone bill, showing call after call from schrauben to sandra's son tom

in arizona. and that number-- tom's number-- popped-- how often would that pop up? i think the average we figured out was about 24 times in a billing cycle about a month, so anywhere from every day-- - so like almost every day. - --to every other day. - yeah. - correct. it was almost like going through a crime scene and finding pieces of evidence. it's-- it's an excitement that you-- that you realize this is gonna work. we are gonna find what we're looking for. keith morrison (voiceover): but there was yet again a problem. schrauben's phone was in someone else's name. and to get a wiretap, dove would have to prove schrauben was the primary user. so how would he do that? so what we ended up having to do was literally follow brent schrauben around until we saw him on his telephone. we later took that even further, in that i went into the target store that he was working at one day. i noticed he was stocking shelves in a certain section of the store. so i just started randomly picking up items and looking like i was interested in them.

at that point, i called on my cellular phone to one of my other investigators outside, and i said, put a call in now to the phone. and i heard him answer the phone. so i was able to say, that is his phone. he talks on it. we've put the phone in his hand. keith morrison (voiceover): but, as they continued to sift through trash week after week, they found something even more important than the phone bill, something quite unexpected-- this day planner. from the years '96, '97, and 1998. keith morrison (voiceover): what were the chances of that? here, six years later was the day planner from 1998, the year jack jessee was murdered-- crucial evidence tossed in schrauben's garbage. a treasure that we didn't expect to find, but what that day planner did was connected all the people back in 1998 that were associated with brett schrauben. what'd you think? this is too good to be true. i thought good things were gonna happen. somebody is back on our side again. and with this evidence, dove was able to get a judge to approve a wiretap on brett schrauben's phone.

and then, as dove waited for his wiretap to go into effect, he continued to go through schrauben's trash. he'd been lucky so far. maybe he'd find something more. and indeed, he did. and it turned the case upside down. he found rental listings in arizona. brett schrauben was moving out of the state, would be gone before the wiretap ruling took effect. and in arizona, a california warrant was worthless. this completely took all that work-- and we're talking probably six months of work-- and just threw it out the window. keith morrison (voiceover): the killers had slipped the trap-- game over. but the detective is not giving up. his team builds a new and better mousetrap. and guess who takes the bait? craig melvin (voiceover): coming up-- when "dateline" continues.

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hello. i'm christina ruffini, with the hour's top stories. the federal government is sending so-called drone detectors to new york state, following a request from local lawmakers. this comes after weeks of drone sightings across the northeast. including one that caused the closure of a new york airport. and five people were injured after a rare f1 tornado touch down in the city of santa cruz. also saw its first warning since 1950. but no twister materialized. no. " i'm craig melvin. detective tom dove had just secured a warrant to put a wiretap on a murder suspect brett schrauben's phone. but schrauben was moving to arizona. so the detective hatched yet another plan,

an elaborate trap using anonymous letters as the bait. could he spook his targets, spurring them to talk about jack jessee's slaying, or would his prey slip through the snare yet again? here again is keith morrison with "deadly conspiracy." keith morrison (voiceover): after two years of relentless police work, tom dove's investigation of the murder of jack jessee had generated enough evidence to fill this mail cart, all apparently for naught. the suspect and his key to cracking the case said skipped the state and detective dove's jurisdiction. we were so close. keith morrison (voiceover): the jessee family sensed dove had been beaten and sandra jessee had won, had gotten away with murder. chere williams: i'd put his pictures away. i couldn't sit-- it's just-- it's tough. because he was so-- he was so fantastic. keith morrison: put his pictures away? chere williams: i-- i had to. - yeah. keith morrison (voiceover): couldn't look at 'em? it just was too much. i couldn't look at 'em. keith morrison (voiceover): at the dove home,

tom's wife, patty, began to worry about her husband's health. patty dove: he tends to hold things in, and you can't hold in that kind of frustration and emotion without it starting to affect you. i mean, with that kind of stress, it takes a toll on them physically and mentally. that's what you worry about? mhm. exactly what i worry about. keith morrison (voiceover): because she knew if he didn't solve the jessee case, he might die trying. patty dove: he's like a dog with a bone. he's gonna take it, and he's gonna do it until it gets done. keith morrison (voiceover): dove was not alone, mind you. there was a prosecutor too who shared his dogged conviction, a man named michael murray who wanted sandra jessee and her group just as badly as dove. this case seemed to be full of obstacles. it would have been probably forgivable just to let it go at that stage, on some level. maybe to some people. keith morrison (voiceover): so murray and dove cobbled together a legal long shot. they flew to phoenix, presented their evidence to the state attorney general, pleaded for an arizona wiretap warrant.

and they got it. the game was back on-- if they could make it work. we were gonna try to set a trap for three people and keep track of those three people, and i wasn't sure if it was gonna work or not. if it didn't? in the back of my mind, i gave it probably a 30% chance of success. but you're giving yourself a 70% chance of being a goat at the end of the day. it had to be perfect. we were only gonna get one try. keith morrison (voiceover): so tom began to compile a team of investigators, even called daron wyatt, the first detective on the case, to see if the placentia pd wanted in. and i just said, let me fall at your feet and do what we can to help. [laughs] you know, i felt like, hey, look, this is-- this is gonna be good. keith morrison (voiceover): the phoenix pd also provided scores of officers. so by game day, dove had close to 100 cops working the case. i reminded them of that mouse trap game

you played when you were a kid and that this huge ball bearing was gonna have to go through a tremendous amount of obstacles that were kind of thrown together in order to lower the trap and catch the mouse. and anywhere along the line, there could be a snag. there could be something that we hadn't planned for that could throw this ball completely off the board. keith morrison: ok, so what was the plan? what was the nature of your trap, with your mousetrap? we believed that if we did something to get these people up tight, if we were able to rattle the tree, if we were able to put some fear into them, that maybe the police were on to them, that they would talk about the murder of jack jessee. so what was the little piece of cheese you put into that trap? we nailed a simple copy of the newspaper article when jack jessee was murdered, anonymously to sandra jessee, tom aehlert, and brett schrauben.

the significance of that was that they didn't know we knew about brett schrauben. and if-- they're gonna know something's up. keith morrison (voiceover): and sure enough, as soon as tom heard brett got an anonymous letter, he called his mother sandra. next, dove started poking brett's friends in california who, of course, called brett.

brett, in turn, called tom. that little mouse trap ball was making its way through the maze. but after a few days of the game, sandra, tom, and brett began to wonder if they were getting played, suspected their phones were tapped, maybe even their houses bugged. and so they started meeting in shopping centers.

tom dove: we decided to put surveillance teams on each of the individuals-- sandra jessee, tom aehlert, and bree schrauben-- during the duration of the wiretap to capture some things they may do that may not be normal while the wiretap was in place. they'd stand shoulder to shoulder in a parking lot, watching out in the parking lot and not looking at each other. keith morrison (voiceover): there's it was, like a scene from some mafia movie. the suspect out of range of recording devices, apparently deep in conversation, as they peered out into the parking lot. i think the photographs of tom aehlert and sandra jessee was worth a million words as to the depth of their involvement, and how far they would go to conceal what they had done. in their minds, they had thought they got away with the perfect crime. keith morrison (voiceover): meanwhile, dove would hop on flights back to orange county to pressure schrauben's friends for information. he was, of course, relentless, chase

down anybody who knew the man, followed one tip to another. until dove finally encountered the man he'd been hunting for years-- the bartender who called in the anonymous tip years earlier. and the first words out of my mouth were, hi, mike. i'm here about brett. and his face went completely flush. and he said, i knew you were going to find me sooner or later. what story did he tell you? that schrauben for whatever reason had confided in him and told him specific details of the murder of jack jessee, including his involvement. that was a huge, huge quantum leap for us in putting this case to rest. keith morrison (voiceover): now the time had come to spring the trap. brett schrauben was arrested, and soon thereafter sandra jessee herself was in handcuffs, finally to be held accountable for jack jessee's murder. that was wonderful. best three-day weekend i had. oh, me too.

that was a pretty good day. keith morrison (voiceover): it didn't last. for one thing, tom was not arrested-- insufficient evidence, said the prosecutor. and then as he rolled out the case against the others, that little ball came off the track again. this time it happened at sandra's preliminary hearing. a judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence to hold her. she was free to go. oh, i-- i sobbed all the way home. i don't even know how i made it back to murrieta from santa ana. keith morrison (voiceover): only brett schrauben was to face a murder trial it was the summer of 2006, eight years after jack jessee's murder. and justice? not yet, if ever. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up-- finally, the break detectives had been waiting for. the information that he provided would blow the case wide open. craig melvin (voiceover): until something slammed it shut again. when "dateline" continues.

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ask your eczema specialist keith morrison (voiceover): sitting in a cell month after month can do a lot to alter a person's take on the world, even more so if the inmate is looking at a possible life sentence. and that's when brett schrauben had an epiphany, just days before his murder trial was to begin. he said he was finally willing to testify against tom and sandra, but he wanted out now. the deal had to be for time served or nothing at all. keith morrison: what'd you think when you heard what he wanted in order to get his cooperation?

i thought it was outrageous, but it's not a perfect world. and the people who are likely to have some of the best, most detailed information about what takes place inside a conspiracy is a co-conspirator. we needed brett schrauben. so what was his story? the story was a pretty-- pretty detailed and amazing story. keith morrison (voiceover): schrauben described the whole affair on tape, laid it out in all its chilling detail, the anatomy of a murder. the conspiracy was launched, he said, with a phone call from tom. schrauben said he met with sandra in a parking lot. she gave him a $5,000 deposit. schrauben said he hired his good friend, a local drifter, to be the getaway driver. and on the afternoon of august 13, 1998,

while sandra was out having her nails done, schrauben claimed he and his friend drove to the jessee house to murder jack. and according to schrauben, tom called back within minutes with a backup plan. so they returned that night about 9:00 o'clock. schrauben's story was that he dropped his friend off at the house then drove around the neighborhood

while his friend snuck inside and stabbed jack jessee to death. the information that he provided, if we could corroborate what he said, would blow the case wide open. keith morrison (voiceover): police questioned schrauben's friend. he denied everything. he said he wasn't in the car, wasn't at the scene. he didn't kill jack jessee. and there was no evidence to indicate he was involved at all. police let him go. investigators focused on building their case against tom and sandra by documenting money transfers, phone calls, air travel. so when you had all that together, what'd you think? i thought we were starting to put together a pretty good case. keith morrison (voiceover): good enough that murray had tom and sandra arrested. and in the summer of 2009, 11 years

after the murder, the mother and son team went on trial for the murder of jack jessee. going to court was like going to my dad's funeral every day. i mean, it really was. to be around people that you know killed your dad. it was a ridiculous feeling. you can't even put it into words, just soul-wrenching. schrauben testified against them. in court, it was argued sandra had a variety of motives for killing jack. she wanted his money before medical bills ate up their savings. and she couldn't bear being away from her son, tom. do you think the case had gone well? i thought the case had gone extremely well. keith morrison (voiceover): except, once again, that little ball came off the track. what happened? craig melvin (voiceover): "dateline" returns after the break. ooo! our car's value went up! [theme music] maybe we should track all our cars' value on carvana?

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welcome back to "dateline." brett schrauben had struck a deal with prosecutors. in exchange for his release, he detailed how sandra jessee and her son tom orchestrated a murder for hire to kill jack jessee and how he and his friend carried out the plan. now, the case was in the hands of the jury, and there were still a couple of big surprises in store. with the conclusion of a "deadly conspiracy,"

here's keith morrison. keith morrison (voiceover): when the jury went into seclusion to deliberate, the jessee family thought justice was just hours away. but as the sun set on the courthouse-- nothing, no word, same thing again next day and the day after that. the problem? there was a hold out. juror 1: yeah. juror 2: it got very heated. juror 1: yes. in the deliberation room. these members of the jury told us 11 voted for conviction, but there was one lone juror who felt some level of compassion for sandra. she related to the sandra jessee's concern that jack jessee's illness would eat up their nest egg. i kind of felt like she was enjoying the control she had. there was nothing, nothing we could do or say. people were getting so heated, and there was so much anger that she started to shut down even more. keith morrison (voiceover): that scene played out for 3 and 1/2 days until the judge said, enough,

and declared a mistrial. i was in tears. yeah, i was too. and thinking of the family and what they've gone through. that was heartache, just heartache. juror 3: mhm. [sighs] i thought i was going to pass out. cheryl deanda: yeah. it was horrible. it was just soul-- soul-eating. cheryl deanda: it was like the-- like the whole night happened all over again. that one juror, you know, i saw her. i went and talked to her. what'd you say? i said she was an idiot. it was certainly difficult for me. it was far more difficult for the family. keith morrison (voiceover): murray promised the family justice, spent two years putting a new case together. and just weeks before trial, he got a call. it was from tom's attorney, saying his client was ready to cut the apron strings and testify against his mom. there's no way that we ever suspected that tom aehlert would ever turn on his mother. he was known to be a mama's boy. keith morrison (voiceover): but a mama's boy who decided he

didn't want to die in prison. tom pleaded guilty to second degree murder, got 15 to life. besides helping connect the crime to his mother, tom had someone else he wanted to give up, that friend of brett schrauben's, the one brett claimed drove with him in the car and killed jack jessee. despite the fact there was no forensic evidence to indicate he was involved, his case went to trial. in february 2013, a jury found him not guilty. his defense attorney believes he's been set up to take the fall as part of the conspiracy. that friend is now a free man. as for sandra, her case went to court one month after her son went state's evidence. the question was, would a jury believe tom's story? and as the jury deliberated and the family waited, there was no euphoria. they knew from bitter experience that anything could happen. it's a lot harder this time, just not knowing what's going to happen. keith morrison (voiceover): on the second day, they got word.

the jury had a verdict. oh, my stomach's in knots. yeah, i'm shaking. we're just really very nervous at this moment. keith morrison (voiceover): 13 years after jack jessee's murder, sandra jessee was found guilty. finally, that little ball stayed on its track. the key mouse was caught. i hope that she rots in hell. i just really do. i'm glad it wasn't the death penalty. i want her to stay there and suffer with all the other miserable people that go to prison. keith morrison: what does it feel like to get justice finally? oh, it feels good. it feels good, but not complete. not complete. not all the way there yet. we lost a guy, the nicest guy i ever met. keith morrison (voiceover): and for tom dove, he's now retired from the sheriff's department. and at his going away party, his fellow detectives

gave him this-- it honors his commitment to the jessee case. tom dove: it means more to me than any other plaque or award i've ever received in my life. keith morrison (voiceover): in retirement, tom planned to set up a shelter for stray dogs. the urge to rescue runs deep. stop, you goofy dog. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. [theme music] . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." craig melvin: with a life full of mystery to match. thomas testa: she was a stunner, physically. she was able to say "jump" and the men would say "how high." craig melvin: married to a wealthy lawyer. he always said, she has this hold over me.