Page 6 - Sandra Jessee News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Mind you. there was a prosecutor too who shared his dogged conviction. a man named michael purchaseky 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? to some people? >> maybe to some people. >> reporter: so murray and dove cobbled together a legal long shot. they flew to phoenix, presented their evidence to a 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 going to try ...

That was a huge, huge quantum leap for us in putting this case to rest. >> reporter: 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, yes. >> reporter: 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 happe...

>> 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. >> reporter: meanwhile, dove would hop on flights back to orange county to pressure schrauben's friends for information. he was, of course, relentless. chased 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. >>...

>> we believed that if we did something to get these people uptight, 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 they didn't know we knew about brett schrauben. they're going to know something's up. >> reporter: sure enough, as soo...

An elaborate trap requiring the help of nearly 100 officers across two states. could the detective pull it off? or was he headed toward another dead end? here again is keith morrison. >> reporter: 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 had skipped the state, and detective dove's jurisdiction. >> we were so close. >> reporter: the jessee family sensed dove had been beaten and sandra jessee had won. had gotten away...