True Crime Campfire - Dungeons & Dipshits: The Murder of Jane Bashara, Pt 2
Episode Date: June 12, 2020In part 1, we introduced you to Bob and Jane Bashara, a Grosse Point power couple with a picture perfect marriage on the outside—not so picture perfect on the inside. Not only had Bob run his real e...state business into the ground, forcing Jane to forego retirement and carry the family’s financial weight by herself—Bob was also deeply into the BDSM scene, something Jane had no interest in, and he was cheating on her left and right. Especially with his favorite mistress, Rachel, who thought he was already divorced and had begun planning a life with him. When we left you, Bob and Rachel had struck up a relationship with Janet, a woman in Oregon who they hoped would be willing to move to Grosse Point and be their “third” in a relationship where “Master Bob” would rule and the two women would be sexually and financially submissive to him. Bob flew out to Oregon to meet Janet, who was turned off by him from pretty much minute one. Janet was about to get an up-close look at what “Master Bob” was capable of. And so was Bob’s wife Jane. Join us now for part 2 of this bizarre true story.Note to our campers: This episode includes discussion of BDSM, abusive relationship dynamics, and non-consensual sexual violence. Please use discretion when choosing whether to listen, and please skip this one if you're under 18. Sources:Murder in Grosse Pointe Park: Privilege, Adultery, and the Killing of Jane Bashara by Steve MillerCNBC's "Deadly Rich," Episode "The Dungeon Master"Judge Vonda Evans' scathing sentencing of Bob Bashara: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaOakftTMDEFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, a free sticker and more!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: truecrimecampfirepod@gmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.
Transcript
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Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire.
In part one, we introduced you to Bob and Jane Bishara, a gross point power couple with a picture-perfect marriage on the outside.
Not so picture perfect on the inside.
Not only had Bob run his real estate business into the ground, forcing Jane to forgo retirement and carry the family's financial weight by herself, Bob was also deeply into the BDSM scene, something Jane had no interest in, and he was cheating on her, left, right, and center, especially with his favorite mistress, Rachel, who thought he was already divorced and had begun planning a life with him.
When we left you, Bob and Rachel had struck up a relationship with Janet, a woman in Oregon who they hoped would be willing to move to Gross Point and be their third in a relationship where Master Bob would rule and two women would be sexually and financially submissive to him.
Bob flew out to Oregon to meet Janet, who was turned off by him from pretty much minute one.
Janet was about to get an up-close look at what Master Bob was capable of.
And so was Bob's wife Jane.
Join us now for Part 2 of Dungeons and Dipshits, the Murder of Jane Bishara.
So from Janet's perspective, Bob wasn't turning out to be anything like who he'd presented himself to be before his visit.
He ordered her around in a distinctly unsexy way.
He couldn't keep up with her for any of the outdoor activities he'd promised to do with her.
He was an asshole to the waiters whenever they went out to eat, which, in my opinion, is a great metric by which to evaluate a person's character.
Because if you're an asshole to waitstaff, you're an asshole, period.
Yeah. I've never had that rule steer me wrong yet.
They'd agreed before the visit that the last night he was there would be the night they'd get into some sex stuff.
And I'm going to put in a content warning on this next park campers because it involves sex that gets violent in a non-consensual way.
I'm going to go into as little specific detail about this as I can, but I feel like we need to share at least some things to illustrate what a scary prick Bob Bashara is.
So if you need to skip ahead a minute or so, we will completely understand.
So the first odd thing was that Bob wanted to act out their BDSM scene in the garage.
That was a little weird, Janet thought, but okay, I mean, if that's what he wanted, that was okay with her.
She'd agreed to let him bind her into some light spanking and similar stuff, and at first that's all there was.
And that was fine.
But then, all of a sudden, Bob's eyes went totally black, cold.
She said she'd felt the change in the room, and she looked up at him, and when she saw his eyes,
word predator flashed through her mind.
In the next second, Bob was beating her, mercilessly, with a rope.
It was so brutal and went on for so long that she thought he was going to kill her.
But finally he stopped, untied her, started talking kindly to her.
She thought it was over.
But then, again, totally without warning, his hands were around her throat.
He was choking her out.
And the next thing she knew, she was coming too, to the sound of Bob chuckling,
lightly like nothing whatsoever was wrong he said hey i didn't notice you were getting woozy there
janet was shaken to her core she said it was the worst experience of her life bless her heart i just
can't even imagine because she had told him specifically she was not into breath play she didn't consent to
any of that wow the next day she was black and blue she was so relieved to drop him off at the airport
she never wanted to see him again but when bob got home to rachel he told her it all went
great, and that Janet was planning to move to Gross Point to be with them before long.
He said they were going to call the house they were buying together, the cottage.
They'd be a happy little triad, a threple, ruled over by Master Bob.
And shortly after he got back from his trip to Oregon, Bob told one of his BDSM scene buddies
that the lifestyle was becoming more important to him. He said his wife Jane wasn't into it,
and he was thinking about divorce.
And then, he said,
it would be a lot easier to just kill the bitch, though.
Right?
His friend was put off, but he didn't take it super seriously.
Yeah, people never seem to.
Yeah, I mean, Bob could get weirdly intense and aggressive like that.
The guy figured maybe he saw it as part of Master Bob's persona.
In fact, some people in the scene had a...
invited Bob and Rachel to their parties, and then told them never to come back.
At one party, Bob and Rachel got into this creepy scene where Bob started beating her with
his belt, like hard, and then started running the tip of a dagger all over her body.
Rachel seemed fine with it, but it weirded people out.
The hosts told Bob he wouldn't be welcome at any more of their parties.
Yeah, and these were people who were into that scene.
They were into edgy sex, but it weirded everybody out.
Soon after this, I should just kill my bitch wife conversation,
Bob told another friend that he'd soon be coming into some money.
He didn't say how or why.
Huh.
Wonder what that's about.
So now we come to January 24, 2012.
Mike and the rest of the staff at the Hard Luck Lounge were surprised to see Big Bob Bishara
show up and start puttering around in the alley outside.
When a waitress asked what he was doing, he said, cleaning.
Now, that had never happened before.
Bob owned the building, but if he ever needed anything cleaned, he hired somebody to do it.
He didn't do it himself, but there he was, out there with a push broom or whatever, messing around.
The wait staff were even more confused after he left, though.
even though he'd been back there for quite a while, it didn't look like he'd done much.
Certainly, not enough to justify the amount of time he'd been out there.
He'd done a half-ass cleaning job, if that.
Maybe more like a quarter of an ass.
An eighth of an ass.
An eighth of an ass, yeah.
It wasn't a whole ass.
After cleaning, Bob headed home, and we already know what happened next.
No Jane, the 911 call.
and the SUV found by the tow truck driver,
with Jane's battered body inside.
Interestingly, Bob called Rachel
while all this was going on that night.
Rachel, who was still under the impression
that he and Jane were already divorced.
And Janet texted him from Oregon that night,
having finally worked up the courage to tell him
she didn't want anything more to do with him and Rachel.
Bless her heart.
Bob's response,
M.B. here, meaning math.
Master Bob.
Family emergency.
Stop all communication immediately.
He sent that text from his mom's phone, by the way.
Not his.
Also, campers, note that this text came in at 8 p.m.
Before Jane's body was found.
When the detectives notified Bob of Jane's murder, they were shocked at his reaction.
He was totally calm and casual, almost blazze.
One detective described.
described it as a non-reaction. And again, everybody reacts differently to trauma and grief,
but there is a difference between calm and casual, right? And I would think if you're an
experienced detective, you know that difference. Right. You can sense that difference. And Bob
started immediately rattling off his alibi, including cleaning the alley at the hard luck lounge,
red flag. He also started blathering about how common this kind of murder was in Detroit and how
his rental properties were losing money. Huh? Okay. Interesting, but not relevant. It wasn't until
Jane's murder hit the news that Rachel and Janet found out Bob and Jane were still married.
Rachel was just in shock at first, and she tried to be supportive, but seeing Bob on the news
referring to Jane as his wife was hard. And she started to realize maybe she and Jane had more
in common than she'd realized. Maybe they'd both been getting played. Bob finally called Janet back in
Oregon and told her what was going on. And when she asked how his kids were doing, I shit you not,
Bob said, they're fine. In this like chipper, cheerful little casual voice, they're fine. And Janet
was just floored. Fine? Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're not fine, Bob. They just lost their mom.
But as far as Bob was concerned, they were cool. So Bob's first formal interview with the detectives
happened on January 26th. Bob showed up without a lawyer, seemingly very willing to talk. Again, he was
chipper, chatty. His affect
was all wrong for somebody who had just lost
his wife to murder. At one point
I am not making this up. He tried
to sell cleaning products, which was one of
his side hustles at the time, to the
detectives. His attitude
was not only casual, it was flippant,
it was jokey. It's
amazing, really, you would think he would be smart
enough to at least fake
grief. But maybe some
people just aren't capable of that.
I don't know. He also
told the detectives he and Jane
didn't have a lot of secrets, which is, ha, he said Jane smoked a little weed to deal with
menopause symptoms, and then he kind of chuckled and said, maybe she went out to buy some
marijuana and things went sideways. Here I am kind of slamming my poor wife, narcan on her.
And by the way, Bob was a longtime user of weed and cocaine himself.
And unsurprisingly, the detectives came away from this interview, feeling very suspicious.
Uh, yeah, this is one of the most baffling things to me that happens in
so many spouse murder cases, they can never seem to stop themselves from talking a little
shit. Oh, they can't help it. Absolutely. If my worst enemy was killed, you know who you are.
I think I could muster up some. Listen, we didn't always get along detectives. And she really hurt me,
but I would never imagine that anyone would do this to her. Yeah, you would be smart enough to fake it.
Right? Yeah, but no, they can't resist dissing on the,
dead spouse. It happens all the time. So the detectives noticed that Bob seemed to really love
the cameras, and he was always good for a quote or an interview in the days following Jane's
murder, and he was at least on TV every bit the grieving husband. His mom and his kids
usually stood there next to him, you know, a united front. And some of these interviews are
actually on YouTube, and there are some great examples of the old crying with no tears
trope that we see all the time in true crime.
When reporters asked if Bob thought he might be a suspect, he said, no, he and Jane had a wonderful
relationship.
She was the love of his life.
But that was fun for Rachel to see, right?
She was a love of my life.
Bob's family, his sister, his daughter, his mom, defended him staunchly.
He'd never do anything to hurt Jane.
Yeah.
So in a second interview with the detectives, Bob said, I love this so much,
How could I have killed Jane?
I was president of the Rotary Club.
What?
This might come as a surprise, Bob.
But it's actually physically possible to do bad things if you're the president of a charitable organization, you fucking loser.
Do you think your body would just shut down like a computer with a virus as you like go to commit the crime?
Like what the fuck?
Like an android who's programmed not to harm humans.
Exactly.
stupid yeah and he said you know he'd had some issues with infidelity eight years ago but that he and jane had gone to counseling they'd worked it all out there was no infidelity now everything was going great no cheating just the audacity of this prick and of course the detectives were already hearing talk of a girlfriend anonymous tips were rolling in to say that you know bob had been seen around town quite a lot with a quote full figured redhead which at the time was a pretty good description of rachel yeah and
And on January 28th, unbeknownst to Bob, Rachel came in and talked to the investigators of her own accord.
Now, she was hoping to clear Bob.
She was mad at him for lying to her, sure, but she still loved him.
And she didn't think he was capable of murder.
She wanted to be open and honest.
She thought she was helping him.
Bless her heart.
Right.
She didn't tell them anything about the BDSM stuff, but she copped to the relationship.
And this is heart-wracking. At one point, she said, I think the information I've been hearing on the news is wrong. He and Jane are divorced. Oh, honey.
Yeah. She was still hoping maybe all this was somehow just a mistake. So the detectives had to break it to her that Bob and Jane had still been married at the time of her death. Yeah, I'm sure when he went on TV and said, my wife Jane is the love of my life, it was just a slip of the tongue and what he really meant to say.
was my girlfriend, Rachel, is the love of my life, and Jane and I are divorced.
Yeah.
Honey bless your heart.
No.
God.
So the next day, January 29th, Bob took and failed a polygraph test.
He got super indignant when they told him he failed.
And when the detectives asked if there was anyone he thought might have had it in for him and Jane, he mentioned for the first time five days.
Five days after the murder.
A handyman who had done some work for him.
His name was Joe Gents.
The guy was pissed off over a roofing project that went tits up
and because of a dispute over the electric bill at Gens's apartment,
which he rented from Bob.
Gens had made some veiled threats, he said.
So the detectives wrote down the name and said they'd look into it.
Soon, the family held Jane's funeral, and of course, Bob was there.
But rather than spend the time in quiet reflection or crying in the arms of his family,
Bob used Jane's funeral as an opportunity to make sure nobody made him look bad to the detectives.
Oh, my God.
This man took his teenage son aside and said,
Now, be sure to say nice things about me at the press conference later.
Oh, fuck you.
Oh, my God.
This young man is at his mother's funeral.
Oh, I hate this guy.
He also told some of the people who owned rental properties with him to make sure and tell the tenants that if they talk to the detectives, especially if they mentioned Rachel, they'd be evicted.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, nice witness tampering there, Bob.
Mm-hmm.
He also started following this poor waitress from the hard luck lounge to ask her to be.
be sure to tell the cops he was there cleaning the night Jane was killed.
She was scared, shitless.
He was showing up at her house at 10 o'clock at night,
popping out of the bushes to say, hey, make sure you tell him I was there that night.
Yikes. Yikes.
And then on January 31st, at 4.30 a.m., an enormous Ron Perlman, hellboy-looking bear of a man,
walked into the Gross Point Park Police Station and announced,
I'm here to confess to the murder of Jane Bishara.
It was a conspiracy.
So they sat him down in an interview room and asked him to tell them his name.
It was Joe Gents, the handyman that Bob had mentioned in his last interview.
And Gens had a hell of a story to spill.
He said Bob Bishara had made him kill Jane.
He'd pestered him to do it for weeks.
He said, I kept saying no, no, no, but Bob had kept at him, offering him $8,000 and a Cadillac.
Gens said he wanted no part of it, just kept saying, no, no, no.
Now, we don't have time to give you a ton of background on Joe Gents.
If you want more, you can read Murder in Grosse Point Park by Steve Miller, which was one of our main sources for this episode.
For now, we'll just give you a thumbnail sketch.
So, Joe was a huge guy of 6'4, about 260 pounds, with a look kind of like a 1950s tough guy.
He was a merchant marine at one point.
He'd been married several times.
He had a daughter who he's always fighting over with his ex for custody.
and Joe had some challenges
he had an intellectual disability
and IQ in the 50s
and he didn't have great impulse control
he'd pop off at people a lot
so he was the guy in the bar
who'd see you glance in his direction
and be all what are you looking at
you know that guy
sometimes he'd even threaten to go get a gun
and come back and shoot everybody
but people would kind of learn
not to take him seriously
he was a blow hard
but he had anger issues for sure
which his family attribute to his disability
and he'd been pretty heavily
into drugs and drinking off and on for most of his life. He'd had a few run-ins with the law,
mostly for fighting and theft. But the state of Michigan's Department of Human Services had
also tried to terminate his parental rights after CPS got involved with him, his ex-wife, and his
daughter. Their house was absolutely filthy. The little girl seemed neglected, and a psychological
evaluation of Joe was worrying, to say the least. For one thing, he was really paranoid
and seemed to have no impulse control.
Not a good combo.
And on top of all that, people who knew him well say Joe Gents was really easy influence.
Like, always wanting to please and impress people.
And he was a type of guy who, if somebody dared him to do something, no matter how stupid it was or how dangerous, he'd do it.
Because he just couldn't not.
He had to save face.
And he was awful about not taking responsibility for anything he did wrong.
His family actually had a family joke that if Joe got into trouble,
it was always a long story
and the end of the long story
was always some bullshit reason why it wasn't
Joe's fault, right?
So Joe met Bob Bishara
in 2011 through
a local used furniture salesman that they
both knew. At the time, he was
in the middle of a nasty custody battle over his
daughter. He was only making about
$1,000 a month so he was in dire
financial straits. Joe
needed a leg up, badly.
And he thought he'd found it
in Bob, who said he needed some handyman
work done on some of his rental properties.
Now, Bob claims he recognized that Ghentz was a guy dealing with some significant limitations,
and he wanted to help him.
In reality, it seems very clear that Joe was someone he knew he could manipulate and use.
Was Bob already planning to kill Jane at this point?
Did he see Ghentz as the answer to his problems?
I think it's very likely.
Yeah, me too.
Whatever the truth is, Bob soon became aware that Gents, A, needed work, and B, was being evicted and needed a place to live.
So he swooped in, like a guardian angel, to provide both.
He hired Joe to be his handyman, and he vouched for him as the ideal tenant for an apartment owned by one of his friends.
Yeah, and to me, this is one of the stronger pieces of evidence that Bob was planning on using Joe Gents to kill Jane from day one.
because why would Bob go out of his way to vouch for a guy he just met?
I mean, Bob's friend took one look at Joe's credit rating and his history and was like, yeah, I don't think so, Bob.
This was a $750 a month apartment, and Joe made $1,000 a month, right?
But Bob was adamant that the guy gave Joe a chance, and he was so adamant he even offered to co-sign on the lease, which is way above and beyond, right?
Now, come on, why would he do that?
He just met this dude.
Of course, Bob says it was all about Christian charity.
Yeah, sure, bud.
I'm not sure Bob would know Christian charity if it's spit in his mouth.
Yeah, he would not.
So, Joe moved in and started working for Bob.
Shortly thereafter, Joe called a lady friend of his, all excited.
He said he was going to be getting a brand new Cadillac soon.
His friend was like, oh, wow, how are you getting a new caddy?
and Joe said
A guy I know is going to give it to me
His friend was
reasonably skeptical
She said Joe
People don't tend to just give cars away
And Joe said
Oh no no
He's not just giving it to me
He wants me to set up a hit on somebody
The car is going to be part of the payment
Now
Everybody who knew Joe
said he tended to make up wild stories
For example, his new lady friend
had lost her daughter to a drug overdose not long before they met, and Joe had tried to impress
her by saying he could find the dealer who sold her the drugs and beat him up. He told her he had
friends in high places and FBI connections. Okay, here we go with this shit again. Look,
nobody has FBI connections. Okay, campers, just like nobody worked for the CIA. Let's just shut
this down. For God's sake. Yeah, the FBI does not have friends. That's just not how it works.
So because Joe spun tall tales all the time, his friend didn't really take him seriously with this hitman shit.
Even when he told her the name of the man who wanted him to kill his wife, she didn't quite catch it.
But she said it sounded like Bashar or Bashir, something like that.
She says she didn't take any of this seriously until January 25th when she saw a news report about the brutal murder.
of Jane Bashara. Her stomach dropped in that moment. She had a bad, bad feeling. Bob tried for months
to get Joe to kill Jane for him. He hounded him constantly. Every time he saw him. He started having
Joe over to the house to do handyman work for him and Jane, and every time he'd work on him about it.
Either you need to kill her, or you need to find me someone who will. According to Joe, he
tried to put Bob off. He didn't want to kill Jane. At one point, he asked a friend of his
if he wanted to be part of a hit on someone. But the guy laughed it off and Joe hadn't pursued
it. But Bob was relentless. Yeah, just like he was with his girlfriends when they tried to tell him
no, Bob did not accept no. And on January 24th, Bob had Joe come to the house in Gross Point.
He was in the garage, and from the moment Joe got there, he was all worked up.
He told Joe, look, it's got to be now. You've got to kill her now. I'm running out of time.
He kept saying, I have a deadline. I have a deadline. Jane had to die today.
And right then, Jane came bursting into the garage. She was mad because Bob had been promising to get a bunch of clutter out of the garage and he hadn't done it.
She was kind of getting loud about it. Like, Bob, you said you were going to clean this stuff out today. Get it out of here.
and according to Joe Gents, Bob took out a gun, and he turned to Joe and he said,
Shut the woman up, now.
Joe told the detectives, he pointed the gun at me, and he said, do it now, or you're going to
die right here with her.
Choker, I want you to take her out.
Please don't do that were Jane Bishara's last words.
The six-foot-four hugely built Joe Gantz punched her in the face, and they struggled for a few moments.
Jane got in a good punch to Gens' jaw, bless her heart.
and I'm so proud of her for it.
But he quickly knocked her down
and then crushed her throat
with his size 12 red wing boot.
She fought hard, but not long.
And that was it.
A wife and mother and daughter and friend
gone.
Joe and Bob put Jane's body into the SUV
and drove her to where she was found.
They scattered her purse all over the car
and they left her there.
This was Joe's story.
The detectives were skeptical at first,
but the more they talked,
the more they realized that Ghent's new specifics about this crime
and the crime scene that only somebody involved could know.
They were starting to believe him, but there were some issues.
First of all, he hadn't been properly Mirandized
because, to be frank, they hadn't taken him seriously right away.
He seemed kind of unhinged, and people make false confessions
all the time in high-profile murder cases.
There was also a competency issue because Joe was clearly somewhat mentally disadvantaged,
so after a while they had to cut him loose.
and promptly the details of his confession got leaked to the media.
So very quickly, of course, Bob became aware of all this
and of the fact that anonymous tips were flooding in about his BDSM lifestyle
in the dungeon, but he kept on doing interviews.
He was just shocked and appalled that Joe Gents would ever hurt Jane.
He couldn't believe it. It was all so terrible, even though he had just told the police,
like, A, if it's anybody, it's this guy.
And then the cops found Gens's blood, along with Jane,
in the garage. And this, of course, corroborated Gents' confession. So they arrested him,
charged him not only with the murder of Jane Bishara, but with conspiracy to commit murder.
Now, everybody knew who the co-conspirator was, right? And quickly decided to get Gens evaluated
to see if he was competent to stand trial. And this, Camper's, was when Bob Bishara
lost his damn mind even worse than he'd already done. That conspiracy charge was a punch in the gut.
He knew they were going to be coming for him
and that they believed he'd been the one that was pulling the strings with Jane's murder.
Oh, no.
His perfect house of cards.
What a tragedy.
He was so smart about this, too.
God.
Soon, Bob started harassing the shit out of Rachel.
She wanted nothing more to do with him by now
after watching him publicly deny their affair
and say that Jane meant everything.
to him. She says she still loved him, though, and she didn't think he was capable of murder.
Rachel, girl, for God's sake, honey. Bless your heart. Rachel, the bar is too low.
I don't know, right? Raise it up a little bit. So Bob really ramped up the creep factor here.
He was basically stalking Rachel, going through her trash, leaving notes in her mailbox, constant
text and calls, trying to get other people to talk sense into her. Oh, God.
Meanwhile, she was also being hounded by detectives.
Rachel eventually filed a restraining order against Bob.
Guffa her.
Guffa her.
And Bobby Boy was unraveling.
He looked like hell, all unkempt and haggard.
He upped his cocaine consumption quite a bit.
Oh, great, because that's what you need when you're falling apart emotionally is speed.
That's really going to help with the paranoia, too.
Jesus, Murphy, dude.
Life choice, Bob. Way to go, bud.
Like, I've not, I've never murdered anyone, nor do I intend to.
But I would think that I would want to, like, shut my brain down.
Mm-hmm.
I already do all the time.
I'm like, please give me a Xanax so I can take a nap.
Anyway, enter Steve Tibido.
This was the furniture store owner who had introduced Bob to Joe Gents in the first place.
Tibido had a Jersey accent, and the buzz around town was that he was from an old Sicilian family that had mob ties.
I'm just picturing every single person from Jersey must have mob ties then.
That must be the case.
So he dressed the part, and he had the soprano's accent.
So it's understandable that people thought that.
He seemed to enjoy it, actually.
Oh, yeah, he was definitely getting off on that.
In April of 2012, Bob approached Tibido looking rough.
He said, Steve, can I talk to you about something in strict confidence?
Sure, Tibido said, you look like hell man.
What can I do to help?
Bob said, look, I got to get rid of Joe.
If I don't, it's my life.
If Gens was found competent to stand trial, Bob said.
He was screwed.
Now this is important, y'all. It wasn't he killed Jane and I want the bastard dead. It was, I'm screwed if he's found competent to stand trial. Big difference, right? It's not, I want revenge because he killed my wife. It's I'm scared of what he's going to say. Yep. And he asked if Tibido could arrange a jailhouse hit. Now, Bob didn't say he'd killed Jane. In fact, he said he wasn't involved. But he said Joe Gansom.
was a loose cannon who was blaming him.
Tipido might have cultivated his gangster air,
but he wanted no part of this shit.
Plus, he thought Bob was a blowhard and a slum lord,
and he didn't like the guy.
So as soon as Bob left, he went to the cops and agreed to wear a wire.
How many times do we have to tell you?
Hit men also don't exist.
They're like unicorns,
or like the nightstocker's toothbrush
and man did tibito have fun with this
over the next week or two he set the price
for the jailhouse hit on Joe 20 grand
and strung bob along with all kinds of the most
outlandish stuff you've ever heard in your life
he was like the hitman could put ground glass
and gents his salt or sugar so he'd bleed to death
internally they could take him out with a rocket launcher
while gents was like taking his exercise out in the yard
a rocket launcher campers
if that ain't some wily coyote shit right there
I just love that Tibido was clearly having a blast
helping them nab Bob like he'd probably hated the guy for years
and this was just delightful like ooh I'm gonna enjoy this
imagine like somebody that you think is a total asshole
and like now you have an opportunity
you know what I mean
to like nab him be on the side of right
oh it'd be so much fun so he got creative with it
And I can't blame him.
We all need a little fun in our lives, y'all.
Little whimsy, you know.
We only live once, right?
Here's what we're going to do, Bobby.
We're going to let him chase us and then run through a tunnel.
We painted on the wall to find the laws of God and the universe.
And when he gets to it, he's going to run right into the brick wall.
I don't know if that was a Jersey accent or a southern accent, but I'm here for it.
It was all of the above.
I am an actor.
And Bob bought it all, which I think tells you all you need to know, really, about his mental state at the time, you know, that was the Coke.
I can only assume that was the Coke binge, but also he's real dumb.
But he was also super paranoid, and at one point he asked Tibido if he was wearing a wire, and again, in the spirit of having fun with it,
Tibido pretended to be all offended and that his, like, Sicilian pride was wounded, and he stripped down all the way to his boxers to prove he wasn't wearing a wire, which is,
wasn't, by the way. The recording device was in his key fob. Clever. And finally, they got a perfect
recording of Bashara paying Tibido the money. And it was so good they could even hear the little
swish, swish of him counting out the bills, right? So Bob was arrested for solicitation of murder.
Not Jane's murder at this point, but Joe Gens's. So, campers, we don't have time to get into
all the courtroom drama, although there was quite a bit. Gens worked out a plea for second-degree
murder in exchange for testifying against Bob, and then he didn't end up doing it because he was
so scared that Bob was going to get to him in prison and have him offed, because he heard about
the stuff with Tibadoe. So he was like, I'm not going to testify.
Rachel testified it was a whole big circus. At one point, she told the court that before Bob
started lying to her about having divorced Jane, she told him she wasn't going to be the other woman
much longer. She told Bob she was giving him a deadline. Was it that Bob had yelled at Joe that day in the
garage? I have a deadline. I have a deadline. She has to die today. Yep. So not only had his mistress made
it clear to him that she wasn't going to stay with him if he stayed married to Jane, he'd also
picked out that $300,000 house with her. They were planning on moving in. So, yeah, Bob definitely had
deadline. And so did poor Jane. Thank God. Bob got convicted and sentenced to a mandatory
life in prison. The judge in this case, Vonda Evans, is a queen. Queen Vonda. And we invite all of you
to watch her sentencing of Bob Bashara because it is epic. I was literally yelling with like joy.
Oh my God. She goes after him like he's made out of cheesecake. It is a glory to behold. And I just love
to the depths of my soul that the judge who sentenced him was a woman
and like a confident goddess of a woman at that
she was not having one atom of bullshit from Master Bob
she mopped the floor of that courtroom with him from one end to the other
and it seemed like she really wanted to rub it in that Master Bob
whose whole driving force in life was power over women
that he wasn't even going to get to decide when to take a pee-pee for himself anymore
He wasn't going to have control over anybody ever again.
Yes, ma'am.
The prosecution were a dream team, too.
Oh, definitely.
And I love this.
One of them, Lisa Lindsay, gave Jane's family copies of the book, The Sociopath Next Door, to help them understand Bob and how all this happened to them, which I just think is lovely and compassionate.
I know.
I love that, too.
As for Joe Gens, he ended up sentenced to 17 to 28 years as a result of his.
plea deal. I'm not sure how I feel about Joe. How much of his story, I believe. He claims he only
killed Jane because he had a gun on him and Bob was threatening to kill him if he didn't. Do we believe
that? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's certainly possible. We know Bob had a violent streak and we know
he didn't take no for an answer and I could see him just getting kind of like panicky and deciding
like it's now or never. But then I think about Joe bragging to his lady friend about that new catty he was
about to get in exchange for setting up a hit on somebody. And that makes me wonder if he was really
as opposed to the idea as he claimed to be. So I don't know. What is your take on this?
I don't think he was forced to kill her at gunpoint. I genuinely don't. It seems farfetched,
doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I think because why wouldn't Bob have just shot her there, you know?
Yeah, because it's not like he's got an alibi. He's sitting right there. Yeah. He's standing right there in
the garage. So what's the point of hiring a hitman if you're going to be in the room with
the hitman when he kills the victim i don't understand that yeah so i think he had a he had a history
of making like embellishing stories at least i really don't think he was i think he said the gunpoint
thing to kind of lessen his guilt or lessen his culpability yeah but then at the same time i don't
understand why he would go in and confess and he kept saying in the media i want justice i want
justice for jane it's just weird maybe he just panicked and thought bob's going to give
me up and I mean Bob did you know he said it's handyman Joe Gents it's also possible he just
he started believing his lie that's true he might have just convinced himself because his family
said he has a history of not taking responsibility and it's always a long story and it always
ends with some reason why it's not Joe's fault so yeah I think it's rather far-fetched as well
and Bob Ishara this shouldn't surprise anybody still maintains his innocence and the author of
the book that I read on this case believes that he may have actually
convinced himself he didn't do it. And I think there are some killers who are capable of that.
But at trial, it came out that he'd confessed to his Coke dealer after taking too much and getting
weepy. Now, the defense tried to discredit the guy because he's a drug dealer, but to my mind,
being a drug dealer doesn't affect your ears. And I don't see what his motivation would be to lie. It's
not like they gave him anything. He didn't want to lose a paying customer. So honestly, I believe him
just fine, drug dealer or no. Yeah. Yeah.
so that was a wild one right campers you know we're going to have another one for you next week
but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the
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