Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

Brame, the chief of police in Tacoma, Washington. The Brames had a son and a daughter, and in television coverage of Chief Brame’s activities, Crystal always appeared to be gazing at her husband with pride and love. But in truth, she had been living a life of desperate captivity, adhering to a positive public image under her husband’s orders, but held hostage in a marriage where she had no freedom at all. David Brame kept track of every single move Crystal made. He even made her weigh herself in front of him, warning her she must not get fat. She wasn’t even allowed to talk with her neighbors.
    Brame was so obsessed with controlling his wife that Crystal had reached a point where she could no longer stand to remain in her marriage.
    When she asked for a divorce, she had written her own death warrant. She had been warned, but with the help of a counselor and her family, she was trying to break free. When Crystal Brame wanted to leave, David Brame had followed her, choked her, threatened her life. He had warned her that he hadn’t even begun to punish her and that she hadn’t seen anything yet.
    On April 26, 2003, Crystal and the Brames’ two young children were in a shopping mall parking lot in Gig Harbor, where they lived. Crystal had spotted the Tacoma Police vehicle following her, and recognized her estranged husband. She didn’t have a chance. In front of horrified onlookers, David Brame shot his wife in the head with his department-issued handgun. And then he committed suicide, with a bullet to his own head.
    Their children were witnesses to the tragedy. Crystal Brame clung to life for seven days, and then she, too, died. Her death shook Washington residents, and there were outcries demanding to know why someone hadn’t foreseen David Brame’s dangerousness and done something before it was too late. Eventually, heads rolled in Tacoma city government.
    But Crystal Brame was still dead.
    Sue Jensen grieved for Crystal Brame and truly understood what it was like to have walked in the same shoes. She felt ice in her veins as she believed she was glimpsing her own future. There should have been some way for Crystal to protect herself, but there wasn’t. And there was no way for Sue to save herself.
    Every wall she put up had collapsed. Restraining orders were, in the end, useless when she was alone. She couldn’t be alert all the time. If Bill intended to kill her, she knew, he would find a way. What sleep she did find was permeated with horrible nightmares. Bill had told Jenny that her mother and her aunt Carol “deserved to die.” He had warned Scott that he would probably have to grow up without either of his parents, hinting broadly that they would both be dead.
    There was death all around her, and Sue could no longer see a way out.
    Sue’s attorney, John Compatore, was getting under Bill’s skin, and so he too became a target. Bill threatened him with violent reprisal. Compatore lived in a quiet neighborhood, a low-crime area. Sometime in April 2003, the tires on his wife’s car went flat after she’d driven only a block from their garage. On inspection, Compatore found nails had penetrated the side walls. He knew the garage floor was perfectly clean and there were no nails there. A month or so later, her tire went flat again. Again, there was a nail in it. Compatore detected signs shortly afterward that indicated someone had attempted to burglarize his home.
    Compatore wrote to county authorities, echoing Sue’s fears: “I am a retired police officer and I know that Bill Jensen is a dangerous man. I would trust implicitly what Susan Jensen can tell you about her husband.”
    After wading through a morass of delays, postponements, and roadblocks Bill Jensen had thrown up to stop Sue from getting a divorce, even Compatore began to wonder if Bill would ever be convicted for any of his acts of harassment.
    Jensen had now threatened Sue and both of her attorneys. He had gone through five attorneys himself, scaring them away when they learned of his harassment and when he lied to them consistently. He had told at least two witnesses that he understood how someone could “go postal.”
    It was May 2003, and Sue feared that even her death might not be enough to satisfy Bill’s rage. “Going postal” was a term that suggested an episode of mass murder. She wondered if it would take a bloodbath of major-headline proportions to satisfy Bill.
    There was a warrant out for Bill’s arrest for