Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

drip down Bill Jensen’s face, but his voice remained steady. “That’s totally correct.”
    He admitted that he had told his attorney that he had written down some things, but he hadn’t asked anyone to bring it to the attention of the police or prosecutor’s office. He wasn’t yet ready to spring his trap.
    Cheryl Snow moved a little closer. “You didn’t write those notes until you sat in court here. Isn’t that true?”
    “What was your question again?”
    “You sat in court and reconstructed those notes, didn’t you, Mr. Jensen?”
    “What was that?” He seemed to have been suddenly struck deaf.
    She repeated the question.
    “No, I did not.”
    “You looked the jury in the eye and talked about how much you loved your family, and you provided someone that you thought wanted to kill them with all of the information necessary to do so?”
    “I did not really believe he was ever going to kill my family. I wasn’t going to give him enough money to do so. It was difficult to determine his intent, but she [Lisa/ Sharon] sure made it clear that he certainly wanted the down payment to go through with it—”
    “And you gave him all this personal information about this family that you tell us today you loved so much?”
    “I just said yes,” the defendant said petulantly.
    “You used your family as the bait to set these people up?”
    “Now, I didn’t have any choice because that’s what he already knew I was in jail for. So I couldn’t have used…nobody else could I have used.”
    Bill Jensen must have known that he had lost—that his ridiculous defense wasn’t convincing anyone. But he stubbornly answered the questions Cheryl Snow posed, each one more devastating to his case. He was angry, but he continued to come up with excuses.
    Now he offered another reason for dragging his finger across his throat in what might have appeared to have been a threat to his estranged wife. It hadn’t been a death threat at all; he was only harking back to the days when he and Sue were scuba divers.
    “It meant, I’m out of here—I’m out of air,” he offered lamely.
    Finally, Bill Jensen was out of air.
     
    On Friday, June 4, 2004, after hearing closing arguments, the jury retired to deliberate about the fate of William Jensen. They returned in less than four hours.
    The verdict was guilty of four counts of solicitation of first-degree murder.
    Six months later, December 10, 2004, while Christmas decorations adorned the King County Courthouse, the principals gathered once more in Superior Court judge Richard Jones’s courtroom.
    Jennifer Jensen, now a beautiful young woman, asked to address the Court before Judge Jones pronounced the sentence. She read what she had written, and if the circumstances were any different, her father might have been proud of her brilliance.
    “To this day, I simply cannot fathom what has happened to my precious family, that this man sitting before us conspired a plan to murder his wife, her sister, his own children. The depths of evil have taken over my father’s mind and soul in such a way that I deemed utterly impossible.
    “Not only will I forever live in fear and anxiety, but I will continue to fear for the life of my best friend and companion: my mother. She’s the most valuable person in the world to me, and the thought of having her taken from me brings a prolonged heartache to my soul.”
    Jenny’s voice broke, and Judge Jones told her to take her time, she was doing just fine.
    “I simply cannot let myself imagine this horror. This fear will remain a constant for my entire family until my father is securely locked in a prison cell as far away from us as possible.
    “What he’s done to me cannot be expressed in words, for there are no words that can explain the pain, trauma, and humiliation I have gone through. And to even think of what could have happened. I simply cannot go there.
    “The fact that such brutal and cruel thoughts flowed through my father’s mind and were actually intended to be carried out proves that this man deserves the maximum punishment to the furthest extent of the law.
    “My father once wore a badge of justice as an officer of the law. His punishment should serve in example for our society. He’s a disgrace not only to me as his daughter or to my family, but to the King County Police force and to the truly honorable policemen and -women in our country.”
    Jenny wrote of her almost palpable fear of being murdered. “Whenever