Page 3 - Jane Stru News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> it wasn't a pop, hesitation pop, hesitation pop? it was one, two, three? >> as jane talked to investigators into the early morning hours, the awful news was getting around. >> we got a call about 5:00 in the morning. >> what happens to a person? you go to bed at night and everything's fine. the phone rings at 5:00 in the morning, suddenly your life is a very different thing. >> it's like an earthquake. it just shakes your whole foundation and being. and things are never the same after. it was awful. >> he just fell to his knees. he was on the phone and he just began sobbing and saying, no, ...

Indicated it would be open to making a deal. >> and i was blown away. >> a plea deal? yes. and what a deal it was. said bamieh. if jane pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, she would be sentenced to just six years and would most likely serve only three. seemed like an admission of weakness from the prosecution. said bamieh. and the opportity of a lifetime for a woman facing first-degree murder and 50 to life. and so -- >> i gave her my strong recommendation that she take it. and she said no. i was just like -- i was stunned. i said, jane, i kept saying, do you understand it? she said i un...

Things began to make sense. >> we saw her less and less. >> more than two decades passed. helen had a long career as a social worker, and gradually lost touch with jane. >> i would always send her christmas cards and say, call me, whatever. and i would never hear from her. >> and then helen heard about dave's death. >> everybody was pointing to jane. and like a light bulb went off and i'm like, oh, my god, she was a battered wife. and you didn't get it. you didn't see it. >> but the very idea that jane was an abused spouse, that she killed dave in self-defense? absolutely ludicrous said the la...

>> defense attorney ron bamieh countered the real victim was jane laut, who suffered the utmost cruelty at the hands of her husband. >> he is not the hero of the olympics. he is the monster who abused her for 27 years. >> the defense called family and friends and neighbors who all testified jane was an abused spouse. but attorney bamieh said the most important witness was the defendant herself. >> if you're going to get a not guilty, which is what we're shooting for, she has to testify. >> the judge would not allow cameras to roll when for the first time publicly through tears jane told her st...

Play baseball. >> all those years jane was afraid to report dave. said bamieh, afraid of what he might do to her loved ones. so she covered up her abuse and her injuries. we obtained this summary of a police report from the 1980s in which jane reported that an intruder attacked her while she was alone at work. at the time, police found the injuries consistent with jane's story. in fact, said bamieh, dave inflicted those injuries. then ordered jane to lie, and blame a nonexistent intruder. a pattern of covering up dave's abuse, abuse which by the summer of 2009 was getting worse, said bamieh. >...