Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

Scott, was born seven weeks prematurely on September 9, 1988. Scott was very frail and doctors warned Sue and Bill that he might develop cerebral palsy or other problems. At first he seemed to be delicate because of his premature birth, but neonatal specialists tested him for other possible causes. When he was allowed to come home, Scott had to have a heart monitor and both Sue and Bill worried terribly about him, checking on him often to be sure he was still breathing. Scott was ultimately diagnosed with Noonan’s syndrome, a disorder that had only been isolated in 1963. It can compromise a number of body systems.
    No one was certain that Scott’s heart would be affected, and both his parents did their best to give their fragile baby boy the best care possible.
    Sue suffered the post-baby blues more than she had with Jenny, but that was to be expected; she was so concerned about Scott. Bill tried to tease her out of what was undoubtedly postpartum depression by threatening to call “people in little white uniforms” to come and take her away. He warned her, teasing her sadistically, that she wouldn’t be able to see her kids.
    Scott did have some cardiac problems and a few other, relatively minor side effects of Noonan’s. He was in and out of Children’s Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, and he developed pneumonia. Sue rarely slept, and she recognized the wisdom of signing herself into Overlake Hospital for a week for help with her depression.
    “I just felt as though I couldn’t deal with another loss,” Sue remembered, “so soon after losing my mother.”
    For months, it was touch and go whether Scott would survive, but he was a fighter and he made it. He was an adorable little boy, and both his parents devoted themselves to him. Bill couldn’t have been a better father for him. If there were things Scott couldn’t do, Bill was determined to find activities he could do.
    He helped Scott with his manual dexterity with special toys, rode him around on his back, and took both his children to ride the merry-go-round at a shopping mall in Bellevue. Both Jenny and Scott adored their father, and from an early age did their best to please him. As he grew, Scott idolized his father—this tall, husky man in the police uniform.
    This was especially true when Scott watched Bill on his motorcycle, and he and Scott shared a love of the big bikes. As soon as Scott could ride, Bill got him a small motorbike, and he was thrilled. Bill loved his small son and showed him more tenderness than he demonstrated even with his daughter or his wife. Jenny was feisty like her mother, and that sometimes irritated Bill, although he was very proud of her, too, and always enjoyed her company.
    As Jenny grew, she was the very epitome of a beautiful, blond girl. And Bill Jensen bragged about his perfect daughter.
    Bill Jensen’s two children might have been the best thing that ever happened to him. They admired him, loved him without question, and clung to all the good memories they had of their early years with their father. In their eyes, he could do no wrong.
     
    Still, for all positive images the Jensens’ marriage exhibited, there were darker events, things that Sue tried to hide. Usually she was able to do that, fearing that if she told anyone outside the walls of their home it would be breaking her commitment to Bill.
    But on December 9, 1988, Sue called her sister, Carol, and she was crying. Embarrassed to tell anyone else, Sue confessed to Carol that Bill had pulled hard on her shoulder and twisted her arm behind her back. She had bruises on both hands where he had held on to her, and she had bald spots where he had yanked out some of her hair. Carol insisted on taking Sue to her doctor.
    While Sue was being treated, a King County Police car pulled up outside the Jensens’ Newport Hills home. Bill had reported Sue as the instigator of their fight, and insisted that she had to be committed to be treated as a mentally ill patient. When Carol explained what had actually happened, the deputies pulled back and drove away.
    The next day, Sue discovered that Bill had withdrawn $25,000 from their house-sale account. He hadn’t mentioned it to her, and she was troubled that he had taken so much money out without their agreeing to it.
    “But Bill always took care of the bills, and our investments,” Sue recalled. “If I asked about any financial move he’d made or wondered about our accounts, he told me if I didn’t like the