Woman accused of killing husband to avoid paying cancer costs - didn't want to deplete 401(k)

[Liberal_in_LA]

Monday, June 22, 2009

Woman accused of killing husband to avoid paying cancer costs
The wife of Jack Jessee and her son are accused of conspiring to have him killed.

By ANDREW GALVIN
The Orange County Register

A woman and her son go on trial for murder this afternoon, accused of conspiring to kill the woman's third husband more than a decade ago.

Sandra Jessee, 58, formerly of Placentia, and her son, Thomas Dayton Aehlert, 39, of Gold Canyon, Ariz., are each charged with murder for financial gain and conspiracy in the Aug. 13, 1998, stabbing death of Jack Jessee.

According to prosecutors, Sandra Jessee wanted to have her husband of 15 years murdered because she didn't think that all of his cancer treatments would be covered by insurance and she didn't want to deplete their retirement savings.

She and Aehlert are accused of conspiring to hire a hitman to kill Jack Jessee, who was 56 years old at the time of his death. Jack Jesse, an engineer with Fujitsu Electronics, had been diagnosed with colon cancer in the spring of 1998.

According to prosecutors, Aehlert called a friend, Brett Schrauben, 37, in June 1998 to solicit the murder for $50,000. Sandra Jessee is accused of meeting Schrauben in a store parking lot in Placentia on June 24, 2008, and paying him $5,000 to kill her husband, prosecutors said.

At 8 p.m. Aug. 13, 1998, Sandra Jessee is accused of leaving her Placentia house with the knowledge that her husband would be murdered while she was gone. Schrauben and a friend, Thomas Garrick, then went to the house. Garrick is accused of entering the home and stabbing Jack Jessee several times, killing him. Schrauben then drove Garrick away from the scene, prosecutors said.

Sandra Jessee is accused of profiting from her husband's murder by selling the house she had shared with him and moving to Arizona. She also obtained his 401(k) death benefits and insurance, prosecutors said. Her take, including her profit on the home, totaled $650,000, prosecutors said.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/jessee-prosecutors-schrauben-2471222-sandra-murder

[Turbineguy]

1. I that that was the GOP Health Plan?

[havocmom]

2. Not condoning murder, or even neglect, but there is something wrong

with having to choose between medical care and financial ruin. I suppose lawmakers, like anti-choice zealots, won't adopt needy children sick people. Lawmakers are fine with ignoring the desperation out there, but no one of them has been spotted personally bailing a sick person out of economic hell.

[Deja Q]

3. That is wrong, on so MANY levels.

Except for the horrible joke I'm going to make about coming from Placenta; we all did that at one point or another...

[chollybocker]

4. Now she'll be getting comprehensive health

and three squares a day.