Did Richmond senior Jean Ann James slit the throat of a woman she thought was sleeping with her husband back in 1992?
Or did the 72-year-old falsely confess to the murder after an undercover police operative posing as a crime boss offered her the chance to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in his gang?
Justice Catherine Bruce urged jurors Thursday to carefully consider whether the evidence supports the Crown or defence versions of the June 24, 1992 murder of heiress Gladys Wakabayashi, 41.
The jurors began deliberations about 3 p.m. Thursday after a four-week B.C. Supreme Court trial.
Bruce spent the much of the day summarizing both the defence and prosecution positions, as well as the witness testimony during the sensational murder trial at the Vancouver Law Courts.
Wakabayashi, the daughter of a Taiwanese billionaire, was found in the master suite of her home at 6868 Selkirk Street in Vancouver by her estranged husband and 12-year-old daughter.
James was a suspect from the beginning, though there was no forensic evidence linking her to the slaying. In 2007, the unsolved homicide unit mounted an undercover operation targeting James. They used several police officers posing as employees of an organized crime ring who befriended James over several months and involved her in a series of criminal activities before she finally confessed to the murder in a Montreal hotel room on Nov. 27, 2008.
The gang offered her $233,333 of the expected profits from a "job," as well as the chance for her aspiring actor son Adam to get a role.
"Ms. James was treated to lavish restaurant meals and entertainment and given gifts to show her that the organization was rich and powerful," Bruce noted. "The two most important carrots held out to encourage Ms. James to be part of the criminal organization were the prospect of a large score that could be a third share in $700,000 or more, and the prospect of furthering Adam's acting career."
Bruce told jurors to review a videotape of James' confession, paying close attention to James' demeanour and details of what she claimed.
And she reminded jurors about testimony related to the other "scenarios" with the undercover operatives, including a fake kidnapping and beating in October 2008 of someone who owed the gang money.
Witnesses said James was not rattled by the kidnapping or apparent injuries of the victim and told the operatives they didn't go far enough with the man. "When he had gone, Ms. James said that he got off too easy, she did not like his attitude and suggested that she could put raw meat on his crotch and let her dogs eat it off," Bruce said. "She had never done this before, but believed that her dogs would have lunged at the meat."
The judge also noted that James had said "she would curl [the victim's] penis with a curling iron."
"When asked about her suggestions as to what to do with [the victim,] Ms. James replied that they should cut his knackers off," Bruce said.
The judge also warned jurors that they couldn't use the fact James was willing to do illegal activities for the fake organization as proof of her involvement in Wakabayashi's murder.
Bruce said defence lawyer Aseem Dosanjh argued his client's confession was false and that she was under pressure to please the man she thought was a crime boss.
"The defence argues that the alleged confession to the crime boss cannot be regarded as in any way reliable for a host of reasons," Bruce said. "There were many complicated reasons why Ms. James would lie about the murder."
The defence said James "was also under financial pressure and would greatly benefit from her one third share in $700,000. She was fixated on this big score," Bruce noted.
The defence also pointed to inconsistencies in James' confession, like a comment that she burned her clothes at a school incinerator and never went into the master bathroom.
"She lied about her finances being rosy; there was no incinerator at the Tyee School where Adam attended in 1992 contrary to Ms. James statement that she burned her clothes in an incinerator at the school, there was a shoe print and blood splatter in the bathroom of the deceased's residence but Ms. James said she did not go into the bathroom," Bruce summarized.
She also summarized the Crown's position, which urged jurors "to call upon your collective wisdom and experience to understand the evidence in this case and to draw common sense inferences from that evidence."
"The Crown's theory is that Ms. James believed her husband was having an affair with the deceased and her anger and her jealousy led her to murder the deceased in a horrific manner," Bruce said. "The Crown argues that its theory is borne out by the confession Ms. James made - during the crime boss interview and, further, that this confession is supported by other independent evidence in many respects."
