A jury convicted senior Jean Ann James of first-degree murder Friday in the death of a woman she thought was sleeping with her husband back in 1992.
James, 72, looked calm after learning jurors had reached a verdict after eight hours of deliberations.
The Richmond resident was found guilty of slitting the throat of her best friend, 41-year-old Gladys Wakabayashi, with a box cutter on June 24, 1992, in a jealous rage after she discovered the woman was having an affair with her husband.
James pleaded not guilty. She was charged after an 11-month "Mr. Big" sting operation that began in 2007.
She confessed to the murder to an undercover cop posing as the boss of a criminal organization bent on recruiting her to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in his gang.
The Vancouver courtroom heard her detailed confession, which was secretly videotaped at a Montreal hotel in November 2008.
In it, James admitted to killing Wakabayashi before destroying all evidence after the crime.
During final submissions earlier this week, Crown counsel Kerr Clark told the B.C. Supreme Court jury that James felt betrayed after discovering the affair and drove to Wakabayashi's upscale Vancouver home where she attacked her friend.
Wakabayashi was found dead by her husband and 12-year-old daughter, the courtroom heard.
But Aseem Dosanjh, James' lawyer, told the jury Wednesday that Mr. Big investigations result in confessions which, by their very nature, are unreliable.
James was befriended by the undercover cops posing as criminals and only confessed to the murder after she was offered $233,333 to work for the gang.
The case hinged on the videotaped confession, as James was not linked to the crime by DNA, fingerprints or any other physical evidence.
The trial before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce lasted for four weeks.
