Cold Case Files - REOPENED: The Widow and the Wolf

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

In 1980, Jane Alexander was newly widowed. When a new man came into her life, telling stories of exotic world travels and an off-shore trust fund, Jane fell fast. What followed was a tale of exploitation, betrayal... and murder. Check out our great sponsors! Shopify: Go to shopify.com/coldcase for a FREE 14 day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features! SimpliSafe: Claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with Interactive Monitoring at SimpliSafe.com/coldcase  Progressive: Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive!

This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. Jane Alexander was 58 in July of 1980. She'd recently been widowed and was trying to adjust to life on her own. Naturally, she felt lonely. That was until she met Tom O'Donnell. The couple seemed to hit it off right away. This is Jane. He was very charming and he was very comforting and really a great companion. And we fell in love and planned to spend the rest of our lives together.

Tom shared the stories of his world travels with Jane, discovering gold in Rhodesia and mining for precious metals in South Africa. All of his adventures had earned Tom a small fortune. But unfortunately, he wasn't able to access it. He told me that he had put his assets into a trust fund in Switzerland. It was going to take about two or three years for the trust to mature, and when it did, he would get $1.2 million. Tom moved into Jane's expensive house and convinced her to take out a mortgage for the couple's expenses. The couple settled into their new lives.

Jane felt happy that she had found love again. Tom felt happy as well. Because his plan to steal Jane's money was working. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. On October 23rd, 1983, three years after Jane and Tom had started their lives together, the San Jose police called with unfortunate news. This is Jane again. And he said, well, I'm terribly sorry to have to inform you,

your aunt's been the victim of a homicide. An end of a chapter in my life forever. And I said, has she been shot? And he said no. Gertrude McCabe, Jane's aunt, was 88 years old. She had lived in the same apartment in San Jose for 15 years. Her neighbors became concerned. No one had seen Gertrude for days, so they shared their concerns with the police.

Sergeant Joe Brockman was the first to respond. She was lying on the floor to one side. There was a good amount of blood to the area in the carpet just below where her head was. The elderly woman had been stabbed and beaten to death. A bicycle lock was wrapped around her neck. Sergeant Brockman started his investigation of the scene. It appeared that the place had been ransacked by a murder. So when you process a crime scene, you're looking for evidence that will disclose

who was at the crime scene and committed it. And so you're literally looking for anything. Sergeant Brockman notified Gertrude's next of kin, her niece Jane, about the homicide. He, however, wouldn't share any further information over the phone. So, Jane, accompanied by Tom, made the trip to her Aunt Gertrude's home to try and make sense of things. Here's Jane again. When I first walked in the house, I looked to the left, which was the den where they had found her body, and I saw these huge bloodstains still on the carpet.

The investigators were puzzled. Several rooms in the house had been ransacked, which pointed to burglary as the likely motive. But there was no evidence of forced entry, and nothing had been stolen. Sergeant Brockman believed that the scene could be a setup, meaning that someone ransacked the rooms to hide their true intention, to murder Gertrude. If the sergeant's theory was correct, that made it likely that the killer was someone Gertrude knew. Brockman began to interview the people who spent the most time with the victim.

She had a habit of hiring, you know, occasional help to come into the home to either repair things or do odd jobs around the house. Many times she hired them literally off the street. Brockman interviewed every handyman, gardener, and housekeeper that Gertrude had hired. Here's Jane. They checked everyone. They checked workmen she had around the house. They

checked the gardener. They checked the paper boy. They checked the cab driver that used to drive her back from the grocery store. They checked everybody. And one by one, everybody was eliminated as a suspect. The detectives then turned to Gertrude's family. Here's Sergeant Brockman. You're not jumping to conclusions. You're not trying to look at somebody and get so focused that you become blind. So it's just a really methodical process of eliminating people and continuing to learn as much as you can about the victim, people that were close to the victim, and it was time to begin looking at friends and family.

Gertrude didn't have a lot of family, and only two of her family members would benefit financially from her death. Jane Alexander and Gertrude's 80-year-old cousin, who was living in San Francisco. Logically, the detectives focused in on Jane. During their investigation, the detectives discovered that there was a large mortgage payment passed due on Jane's home. The payment was due just before Gertrude's death, and Jane and Tom had no money in their checking account to pay it. The investigators decided to visit Jane and Tom's home.

Here's Jane again. He said he'd like to ask me a few questions. And I said, certainly. And the first question he asked, which I'll never forget, he said, Mrs. Alexander, what is your income? And Tom, of course, was sitting there. I said, oh, well, Tom handles all the finances in the house. So then I just threw the ball to Tom.

Tom told the detectives the same story that he'd been telling Jane for three years. He planned to cash in his Swiss trust for over $2 million. Jane didn't have any doubts or concerns about her or Tom's finances. I never in any way thought my house was in jeopardy, or that I was in jeopardy because we had this million twos sitting out there. It was just a question of time. Jane and Tom weren't contacted again by investigators until a month later. He wanted to know if we'd come down and get our fingerprints taken. And I was really

insulted when he asked me that. Why hadn't they taken our fingerprints six months, eight months ago? Weren't they working the case? I mean, I was indignant. The couple eventually agreed to be fingerprinted. While they were at the police station, the detectives asked Jane if she could identify a sample of lipstick found on a tissue at the crime scene. Jane was surprised when she saw the tissue. And I looked at the lipstick and said, oh, that's not Anchor's lipstick. That's my lipstick. That's the color of my lipstick. The police collected a sample of

Jane's lipstick and determined that it was the same type as the sample on the tissue. What they didn't tell Jane was that the tissue had been found next to the victim's body. The police believed that they had found their suspect. Eight months after Gertrude McCabe was murdered, detectives focused their investigation on her niece, Jane Alexander, who would financially benefit from her aunt's death. Jane and her partner, Tom, were in serious debt. The detectives believe the timing of the murder wasn't a coincidence. This is Sergeant Jeff Womet

from the San Jose Police Department. They were under the impression that Gertrude McCabe was going to leave Jane Alexander a lot of money, and that would get them out of debt. The investigators became even more suspicious when they found a tissue next to the victim with Jane's lipstick on it. They continued to search for evidence connecting Jane and Tom to the murder. Meanwhile, the couple, believing the inheritance would pay off their debts, planned a vacation. Jane went to her bank and received a loan for $10,000, which she handed over to Tom so he could book the trip.

Tom definitely surprised Jane with his travel plans, because the day after she gave him the money, Tom was gone. Two days later, Jane received a letter in the mail. My dearest love, you are undoubtedly the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. And 12 pages, handwritten, on a yellow legal pad. And his past had caught up with him, and he was involved in some kind of a diamond transaction in South Africa. And these people went to jail and they blamed him. Tom went on to tell Jane that both of their lives were in danger. He wrote,

They've been watching us for some time. They know our routines and habits. Then he said that he had to leave the United States and go back to Europe with his former associates. He ended by telling Jane that even if he were able to escape, Tom would never be able to come back to her, because they would be watching her. Jane was devastated. I cried. And of course his life was also in jeopardy, so he had to go with them.

That was the only way he could keep the wolf from my door. Even though Tom asked her not to in his letter, Jane immediately called the police. Sergeant Womet ran a background check on the missing man and learned the only person after Jane was Tom O'Donnell. This is Sergeant Womet. He'd done this kind of thing before. and learned the only person after Jane was Tom O'Donnell. This is Sergeant Womet. He'd done this kind of thing before. He basically would try to establish a relationship with a single woman,

or a widowed woman, or something along those lines, and use her to live on. It turned out that while Tom lived with Jane, without her knowledge, he had burned through $200,000. He'd borrowed the money against the mortgage he had convinced Jane to take out on her house. The investigators theorize that when he was unable to make the payments, he decided to search for another source of income and might have turned to murder. This is investigator Grant Cunningham from the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office. Due to this financial pressure, Tom centers in on the estate of Gertrude McCabe and begins to plot her murder so that Jane would benefit. And who's controlling Jane and Jane's checkbook? Tom O'Donnell. Tom O'Donnell was definitely a con artist who had defrauded a lonely widow.

But it was also possible that he was a murderer. The police needed to find him and hoped to use the fraud charge to bring him in. The problem was that Jane refused to file charges against Tom. The furthest thing from my mind was the fact that Tom would ever have committed a murder. I love this man. The detectives were understandably frustrated by the situation. They were able to look at the situation objectively. But Jane's decision had been clouded by her emotions. Here's Sergeant Womet.

It just was so far-fetched, it was unbelievable. And in fact, this thing was just completely made up. The reason he left was because he knew the police were starting to zero in on him as being a suspect in a murder case. It had nothing to do with being afraid of diamond smugglers. For five months, the investigators tried to convince Jane that Tom had manipulated her and stolen her money, so she would file charges of fraud against him. Jane couldn't be convinced,

so the detectives tried a different tactic. A tissue that had lipstick matching Jane's had been discovered next to Gertrude's body. Jane had identified the lipstick, even though the investigators never told her where the sample had been found. They decided it was time to confront her with it. Here's Jane again. He said, well, I just thought maybe you'd think about it and you explained to me how that lipstick on that Kleenex could have gotten beside your aunt's body, you know, at the crime scene.

Jane was confused as to how the tissue had ended up at the crime scene at first. However, the next evening she went to a Christmas party and while she was greeting a friend, she had a realization. And I walked up and I kissed him on the cheek and said, Merry Christmas. And I took a Kleenex out of my pocket and wiped the lipstick off his face and showed him the Kleenex. Jane had the habit of kissing Tom on the cheek. He would then wipe her lipstick off with the tissue and put it in his pocket. I had finally figured out that was the only way that my lipstick could have gotten into the house, which meant that Tom was there, that Tom did it.

How else could the lipstick get on the cleaning as it was found with the body? Jane was finally able to see how the pieces fit together. Tom had conned her out of her money, broken her heart, and likely killed her Aunt Gertrude. Well, that's when the word rage enters into the whole scenario. Because if I was upset before, it was nothing like I was

when I finally had to admit to myself that I was, that I had been totally conned by this man. And not only had he killed her, I mean, he killed part of me when he killed her. The investigators didn't have enough evidence to charge Tom with murder. But with Jane's cooperation,

they had a strong case for fraud and embezzlement. Here's Sergeant Womet again. He's taken her for basically all of her money. She loses her house. He supposedly was in love with her, and then he left her without anything. So besides the financial aspect, you know, he killed her aunt. So she was very motivated to see him

be put in prison. The investigators and Jane had to wait for Tom to show himself. They believed that it wouldn't take long for him to find another target to con. The investigation led the detectives to Las Vegas, where they arrested Tom O'Donnell and brought him back to California to face charges of fraud. Jane was relieved that he'd been arrested. She laid eyes on him for the first

time at his arraignment. That was wonderful to see them bring him in in shackles at the hearing and then for the trial. Tom was found guilty of four counts of fraud against Jane Alexander in a 10-day trial. He was sentenced to four years in prison. Jane was glad that Tom was being held accountable for fraud, but she still wanted justice for her Aunt Gertrude. This is a stepping stone to the real problem. The real problem is the homicide. I wanted him for the murder. The murder was the big thing.

In the two years following her aunt's death, Jane had lost so much. He took everything. I lost the house because of the mortgage. He took all the money. I had to file bankruptcy. I had to go out and get a job, which I had never worked in my life, really,

and support myself. It was kind of a cultural shock. Sergeant Womet visited the Los Angeles parole office and interviewed Tom O'Donnell about his whereabouts on the day Gertrude was murdered. He mistakenly believes that Jane is the sole heir of Gertrude McCabe's estate and then goes about creating a plan because of financial pressure and losses in the stock market to murder Gertrude McCain. Tom claimed to drive from Burbank to Los Angeles and back. So, Sergeant Womet tracked down the

receipts from the rental car Tom had used, paying special attention to the mileage. Then, the sergeant drove the route that his suspect claimed to have used the night Gertrude was murdered. The sergeant's mileage was 124 miles less than that of Tom's rental car. Womet then decided to compare the mileage of Tom's rental car to a different route, from Burbank to Gertrude's house and back. Here's Sergeant Womet again. We basically drove the exact same route, the quickest route to get from Burbank to Gertrude's house, and back. Here's Sergeant Womet again. We basically drove the exact same route, the quickest route to get from Burbank to Gertrude McCabe's house in San Jose and back

to Harry Carmichael's apartment and back to the Burbank airport, and the mileage was exact as the same mileage on the rental car. The evidence still didn't feel like enough to build a solid case against Tom, according to the prosecutor. The case of Gertrude's murder went cold. Circumstantial evidence requires a person to make some sort of inference. For example, if a person is in financial trouble, someone could reason that that was a motive to commit a crime.

Direct evidence is proof of something. For example, if someone testified that they saw the suspect at the crime scene, that would be considered direct evidence that they were at that location. The evidence against Tom O'Donnell for Gertrude's murder had all been considered circumstantial by the prosecutor in

1990. However, in 1995, Joyce Allegro took another look at the case. There were loan documents, bank records, things like that that were in the records. We had phone bills and just all sorts of pieces of paper. Two of the pieces of paper in the file were phone records of the calls that Tom had placed in 1983. The records hadn't been used in the original investigation, but DeAlegro believed they could be a potential lead. One of the phone calls Tom O'Donnell had made was to his nephew, a man who Tom owed $15,000. He talked to the nephew's wife and he told her that they would be getting money soon because Jane's aunt had died and left her some money.

D.A. Allegro noted that the call to Tom's nephew had been made on October 22nd, which was the day before Gertrude McCabe's body was discovered by the police. No one knew she was dead at that point, except for the killer. The second call that Tom had made was to Jane's son, Bill, and his wife, Roxanna. Jane had broken the news about her aunt's death and then put Tom on the phone. Here's Jane's son, Bill. Tom came on the phone and scribed for us the murder of my mom's aunt in some detail. And my wife upstairs was jotting down notes as he was speaking because it was basically a shocking call to the family telling them that

there was a murder committed. And during the course of that conversation, Tom used the term that she was garroted during the murder. During an investigation, there are pieces of information that aren't shared with the public, details that only the killer would know. In this case, it was the fact that Gertrude had a bicycle lock wrapped around her neck and that she had been garrotted, better known as strangled. The fact that Tom knew an unreleased detail helped tie the prosecution's case together. On December 20th, 1995, a warrant was issued charging Tom with Gertrude's murder. Sergeant Womet called and shared the news with Jane.

It was on 20th of December, and he called me and he said, Jane, I have a million-dollar warrant in my hand for Tom O'Donnell's arrest. Merry Christmas. Never forget that till I die. After five years and 26 courtroom delays, Tom O'Donnell finally stood trial for Gertrude's murder. The jury found him guilty and imposed a sentence of 25 years to life. Jane was satisfied with the verdict. Guilty. First degree murder. Just, what can I say? 13 years. I just felt that Anchor could rest in peace because

I just wasn't going to let that bastard get away with it once I was convinced that he did it. Justice was served. Jane learned a lot about the justice system and forged a new life using that knowledge. She co-founded a volunteer organization for the families of murder victims called Citizens Against Homicide. We always try to tell the victims that the bottom line is the police department, so we try very hard to keep them happy and to be friendly with them. One of the main things we do is talk to the victims, and the victims listen to us because we've been there.

In 2006, Jane received the Minerva Award, which honors women who have achieved extraordinary things. Her organization was credited with helping to solve crimes and lobbying local police departments to stay on top of cold murder cases. Tom O'Donnell's first parole hearing was scheduled for 2007, and 85-year-old Jane Alexander planned to attend. I work in the system now, and I certainly know what to do, and I know how to do it, and I know who to talk to, and I certainly will exert all of the influence I have to keep him behind bars. Jane Alexander died in December of 2008 at the age of 86 from cancer. Tom O'Donnell was denied parole at his 2007 hearing. He died in prison in January of 2010.

He was 81 years old. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie Magruder. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions

and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me at Brooke Giddings on Twitter and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at AETV.com slash real crime.