00:00:01
We had found her husband murdered and his body was in a field. They said that he had been shot.
00:00:08
It was unbelievable. I couldn't comprehend. I remember telling my mom, like, I'm going to get you through this.
00:00:15
And she looked me in the eyes and said, Jessica, how am I supposed to get through the rest of my life?
00:00:21
What do you find in his phone? Private pictures sent to him. Were they his wife?
00:00:26
They were not his wife. I was not the kind of wife that went through my husband's phone.
00:00:30
Did you think that maybe this other woman on Todd's phone might have had something to do with this murder?
00:00:35
We don't rule anyone out. We begin to get video from several different locations.
00:00:41
We see someone, same clothing, the glasses, the hat, going from place to place with the intent to conceal herself from us.
00:00:48
They started asking me a lot of questions. Do you recognize the gate? Do you recognize the way she's walking?
00:00:55
A big twist comes along in this case. Yeah, it was a big twist. Whoever this woman is has had this murder plan and very well planned.
00:01:05
It came as a shock, complete shock. Look carefully and ask yourself whether you can trust your own eyes.
00:01:18
Is this video of a man? A woman? A murderer? Did you think that was the killer in the video?
00:01:29
I don't know. Is it the same person here and here and here or not? Hard to say. And yet, everything hinged so much on these videos.
00:01:42
Correct. Everything included a murder trial that would be years in the making. and a mystery that began with a body in an almond grove just west of Bakersfield, California.
00:01:56
Farm workers who found the body of Todd Chance in this almond orchard the morning of August 25th.
00:02:02
The year was 2013. Todd Chance was 45. His wife, Janae, an elementary school principal, said looking back,
00:02:11
nothing stood out about that ordinary Sunday morning. August 25th. How did the day start out?
00:02:18
It was a typical day that was after the first week of school, and I was working on my school safe plan.
00:02:24
I had gotten up early that morning, came downstairs, and then I was surprised to hear Todd up.
00:02:30
And he just said that him and his dad were going to go to the gun show. When he walked out the door, I just said, later.
00:02:36
That was around 7.30 or 8, Janae said. She turned back to her work and said at some point her two teenage daughters, Sarah, then 15, and Samantha, then 13, came downstairs.
00:02:48
I was doing laundry, and I had a delivery coming in between 10 and 12 that day. The girls were down. We all put the groceries up together.
00:02:59
Later, Janae's oldest daughter from her first marriage, Jessica, stopped by to pick up some old furniture.
00:03:05
Jessica was there when detectives arrived. They had pulled up, and I looked at my mom, and she was just like, Jessica, wait here,
00:03:13
because we all three were outside by my car. So I had them stay outside with me.
00:03:16
And I just remember thinking, like, that's not normal. You have a difficult notification to make.
00:03:22
Yes, we do. Kern County homicide detective Kevin Brewer headed from the Almond Grove to the Chance house.
00:03:29
When me and my partner pulled up to the residence, Mrs. Chance was outside. We asked her to come inside. I had her sit down on a couch.
00:03:37
I totally assumed it was a car accident. But the detective told her Todd's death was no accident.
00:03:43
They said that he had been shot and that he had been left. Shot twice in the chest at point-blank range,
00:03:52
Janae's husband of 17 years had been murdered. That is a shocking piece of news.
00:03:58
It was unbelievable. I couldn't comprehend why would anyone want to kill him. That must have been immediately going through your mind.
00:04:08
Right. He was such a likable guy. He didn't hang out with a rough crowd. You know, he wasn't into drugs.
00:04:14
He wasn't into, you know, gambling. It's very baffling. Soon, her daughters heard the awful news, too.
00:04:22
Jessica was just crying the whole time. And my mom was just, she was shocked. It was a murder investigation.
00:04:31
The clock was ticking, and the detectives needed information. Shock or not, Janae had to help.
00:04:37
Janae, correct? I kept wanting to say Janae, but Janae. One of the detectives recorded the conversation as they asked Janae what Todd had been planning that day.
00:04:50
She said Todd told her he was going to pick up his dad on the way to the gun show.
00:04:59
Soon, Todd's parents, Travis and Diana, arrived. Are you sure that it's not? I mean, are you sure?
00:05:07
You got officers with badges and guns saying all of this, and you're looking around at the people in the house,
00:05:15
and in the back of your mind, you're thinking, this can't be true, this is a dream.
00:05:20
Detectives had questions for them, too, trying to establish a timeline. They soon noticed something wasn't right.
00:05:32
Travis hadn't talked with his son that morning about the gun show. And there was something else.
00:05:42
Todd's body was found west of town, the opposite direction from the gun show. In other words maybe whoever killed Todd brought him there Detectives didn have a lot to go on at this point so they kept asking questions
00:06:08
We know Todd was a gun lover. Did you check his guns to see if any of them were missing, just on a hunch?
00:06:17
We did. My partner asked Janae if there were any guns missing from the house and if she could go check.
00:06:22
and she told us she was sure they were all there and he asked her again, just please go check.
00:06:27
And she finally came back and told us that one of the revolvers was missing. And one of them is missing.
00:06:34
And that is the 38. Initially, I thought he might have taken the gun with him just for protection
00:06:42
or he may have taken it to the gun show to trade it. That's common. Or sell it. But there's no gun found with his body, correct?
00:06:51
That's correct. No gun found with his body. So this gun is now missing. Yes, it is.
00:06:56
A man who seemed to have no enemies had been shot to death on a bright Sunday morning.
00:07:02
No idea who did it or why or who might be next. Are you fearing for yourself or your family with the murderer on the loose?
00:07:13
Yes. Todd's body was right here. His wallet was still in his pocket. We noticed that the bottom of Todd Chance's tennis shoes had no dirt on them at all.
00:07:25
A curious set of clues. Where would they lead? It was my first thought that he had gone someplace and had been carjacked.
00:07:46
It can be a bucolic spot. This almond grove in Kern County, west of Bakersfield.
00:07:52
But on Sunday, August 25, 2013, it was anything but. Detectives and medical aid responded, found an obviously deceased male.
00:08:04
It took Detective Brewer only 15 minutes to get there. I get a phone call from our communications center that there's been a body,
00:08:11
dead body, located in a field actually not very far from my house. I was kind of worried that it might be somebody we knew.
00:08:19
Oh, wow. That probably doesn't happen very often. No, it don't. Does it happen very often at all that you would find a body in an almond grove like that?
00:08:28
In our county, yes. Far too often. Far too often. There are a lot of almond groves in Kern County, which is known for agriculture.
00:08:38
Almonds are one of its biggest crops. And the groves, crisscrossed with dirt roads, are a perfect place for a killer to hide a body.
00:08:47
Todd's body was right here. His sunglasses were right up here. To Brewer, it wasn't clear at first how Todd died, but there were clues.
00:08:59
He had obviously not been dead long. We could all see that. How long did it take to identify who this person was?
00:09:07
We identified him very quickly because his wallet was still in his pocket with his driver's license.
00:09:12
And nearly as fast as they found Todd's ID, they found his cell phone. Detective Brewer thought that seemed odd.
00:09:19
Cell phones are typically taken and used or discarded away from the body or just left.
00:09:27
It was odd that it was just 20 or 30 feet away. There was a bullet hole in Todd's hand, apparently a defensive wound.
00:09:37
And once Todd's shirt was off, Brewer could see he'd been shot twice in the chest.
00:09:41
No blood at the scene. None of the bullets were recovered at the scene. And in this dusty place, the soles of Todd's sneakers were clean.
00:09:53
What we thought was odd because of this very powdery dirt that's very common out here.
00:09:58
We noticed that the bottom of Todd Chance's tennis shoes had no dirt on them at all.
00:10:05
Todd hadn't walked in that almond grove. Not that day. To Brewer, it was clear he was shot somewhere else.
00:10:12
Driven there, dead or dying. Dragged from a car and just left. He was born about 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning.
00:10:21
It's ironic that he was killed on a Sunday. Todd Chance was a local boy. He and his younger brother Scott grew up just outside of Bakersfield.
00:10:33
in a farming town called Shafter. It was here the chances learned to love the outdoors,
00:10:39
whether on horses or off-roaders or raising pigs. They come in from school one day and said,
00:10:47
hey, we want to buy some pigs and get into the FFA. You want a what? Diana and Travis got their boys those pigs
00:10:58
and a membership in the Future Farmers of America. And that was only the beginning.
00:11:03
Was Todd a country boy? He was a cowboy. What was it about that lifestyle that he liked so much?
00:11:08
The romantic part of it, I guess, being a cowboy. He liked the boots and hats, didn't he?
00:11:14
The boots, the hats, the shirts, the pants, just the lifestyle of it. Like his dad, Travis, Cowboy Todd also loved fast cars.
00:11:27
Mustangs. We had a 76 Cobra II when Todd became of age to drive, and we just gave it to him.
00:11:34
Everybody liked that car. It didn't have the big motor in it, but it had all the good stuff,
00:11:40
disc brakes and air conditioning and power steering. What about the girls? Did it do well with the ladies?
00:11:46
Oh, it was a chick magnet, yes. Every day there were notes on the windshield of the car
00:11:53
from some little girl that wanted to have him call her liked his car thought he was cute It wasn his car though that caught Janae Buhlman attention
00:12:06
It was his cowboy ways. They'd met when they'd both worked at a local drugstore.
00:12:11
I was a cashier, among other things, and he was in asset protection. And then casual conversation, I was going to a concert.
00:12:20
I walked by and said, I should have invited you. You're a cowboy. because none of my friends listened to country music, except for I did.
00:12:29
From that moment, says Janae, Todd was smitten. And so then he pursued me. But Janae had been burned by her ex, who left her while she was pregnant with Jessica.
00:12:41
So she was cautious with Todd. He was very good looking. I kind of thought he was a ladies' man and a player, and I wasn't interested in that at all.
00:12:49
I had already been married once, and I kind of had come to the conclusion and I wanted to find some ugly fat man that would cherish me.
00:12:57
But Todd surprised her. He was, you know, very doting, very, you know, opened the door for me and anything I needed.
00:13:04
A gentleman? Yeah, very much so, a gentleman. When this gentleman eventually proposed,
00:13:11
Janae said yes. At the wedding, Todd made sure Jessica knew they were a family. Here we go, one, two, three.
00:13:20
I was the miniature bride. I had a white gown on with my mom, and we had our hair the exact same way.
00:13:27
And I was presented with a bracelet from Todd. You kind of hit the jackpot with stepdads.
00:13:34
Oh, 100%. 100%. The 1976 Cobra was long gone by the time Todd was killed, but not his love for cars.
00:13:43
By then, he drove a souped-up 2011 Mustang. He loved cars. and he was just like, he would always call us when he's a little bit from the house and be like,
00:13:52
can you hear my exhaust? Was it like, I've arrived. Telling everybody, the whole neighborhood.
00:13:58
This was your dad's fourth child? Yeah. Todd babied his car. He had a lot of fun with that car.
00:14:09
And Detective Brewer thought maybe someone else wanted to have fun with it too. Are you starting to think that perhaps someone wanted Todd's car? It was a nice car.
00:14:19
Yes. It was my first thought that he had gone someplace maybe and stopped for gas or food in the morning and had been carjacked.
00:14:26
So you put a bulletin out? Absolutely, yes. A lot of law enforcement looking for that car that morning.
00:14:32
Soon, detectives got their first big break. We get a call from our communications center and we're told that Todd's car has been found.
00:14:41
This is a big deal. Yes, it is. A big deal that was about to drive the case in a whole new direction.
00:14:56
The car is a little dusty, but it's a very, very pristine shape. How odd is that that this car is dumped and Todd's gun is right there?
00:15:05
Yeah, it's very odd. Did he ever carry a loaded gun in his car? Never. Yeah, never.
00:15:11
Todd Chance loved being a dad. They were stuck at the hip, him and his girls. I can't imagine him not ever having kids.
00:15:33
Todd and Janae didn't stay at that drugstore. Todd got work as a truck driver, and as the girls got bigger,
00:15:39
he only drove routes that kept him close to home. Janae was the ambitious one. Even while working as a cashier,
00:15:45
she'd been going to college pursuing an education degree. After graduation, Janae found work as a teacher.
00:15:52
She worked her way up, and in 2009 was promoted to principal of a big elementary school in Bakersfield.
00:15:58
Janae's job was demanding, so Todd became the parent who would care for a sick child.
00:16:03
He would stay home. He would be the one staying home. Yeah, he'd always volunteer if there was a sick child.
00:16:07
Oh, I'll stay home. It's me. Yeah. Janae said she couldn't have gotten so far in her career without Todd.
00:16:14
I've had people tell me before, how do you do what you do? Because I did put in a lot of hours.
00:16:23
I'd bring a lot of things home and work on it. And how do you do that? And it's because I have a fantastic husband at home
00:16:28
that helps me meet all the needs of my family and be able to do this job. That seemed to be just the way Todd wanted it.
00:16:37
Was he happy being that girl dad? I think so. He never complained or said that he wanted boys with us.
00:16:45
I mean, I did tons of stuff with him like that. Sarah was his boy. Sarah loved shooting and off-roading with her dad.
00:16:54
Samantha often came along for the ride. Usually, Janae worked in the summer, but the summer of 2013, she didn't,
00:17:01
and the entire family carved out time for each other. We went to the beach. We went to San Francisco.
00:17:07
We went to Vegas. It was perfect timing, and we had the money. And it was a really good summer, probably the best summer I've had.
00:17:18
It was a happy time for the chances. Probably felt like it would never end. But it did, that terrible Sunday in August.
00:17:26
So how is it here in the house now without your rock, without Todd? It's very difficult.
00:17:32
just different milestones that you come across not even thinking that you're coming across
00:17:39
you get in the refrigerator and there's something that was only his that he's the only one who eats that
00:17:48
and it's still there there are so many ways people can react when a loved one is killed
00:17:54
some cry uncontrollably some just can function but that wasn Janae In a crisis like that she make a list That just how she is I think that her coping mechanism is just to keep busy
00:18:09
On the day her husband was killed, the detectives asked Janae for some help. She says that was just what she needed.
00:18:16
You guys have separate accounts? They wanted me to go onto my bank account and to see what purchases he had made.
00:18:25
that day and then also on the 24th. And then they asked me to pull up his text messages
00:18:32
through my cell phone provider. And I felt like they're giving me something to try to figure out what happened.
00:18:45
Janay gathered phone and bank records for the detectives. I feel like I should remember something else.
00:18:57
But I, I don't know. Is this just a regular day? Oh my God. Same old method. And then the detectives left to check out the report that someone had found Todd's car.
00:19:10
What we found here, parked against the curb, here and facing this way, was the victim Todd Chance's black Mustang.
00:19:18
Todd's car had been left 20 miles from the Almond Orchard on a residential street called Tiger Flower.
00:19:23
but had seen better days. Neighbors had called the police to report a parked car
00:19:29
that seemed too nice for the area. They were worried that someone might steal this car.
00:19:34
And we're told just kind of right up front by the neighbors as soon as we arrived that it's a location
00:19:42
where a lot of the drug addicts and the homeless people gather. What is the condition of the car?
00:19:48
The car is a little dusty. It looks like it's been outside town, But it's a very, really pristine shape.
00:19:56
Brewer peered in the window. He saw a car key on the floor and a gun that fit the description of the one missing from the Chance house.
00:20:04
And he noticed the car was unlocked. We found the gun in the car and not just in the car.
00:20:11
It was in the driver's floorboard, half of it sticking out from the floor mat where it was just really visible.
00:20:18
How odd is that that this car is dumped and Todd's gun is right there? Yeah, it's very odd.
00:20:25
Usually the gun, if it's not taken by the suspect, it's at least concealed or attempted to be destroyed.
00:20:32
Here's the thing. According to Todd's daughters, he was really careful with his guns and kept them secured.
00:20:38
Did he ever carry a loaded gun in his car? Never. Yeah, never. He would always load them once we got there and then take them out when we're like finished.
00:20:47
Yeah, they're always in the back. This was all about his safety? Yes. The car in pristine condition with its key on the floor,
00:20:55
a gun that could be the murder weapon left in plain sight. To Brewer, the scene didn't add up.
00:21:01
Well, our carjacking theory now is showing less and less evidence, especially with the car being left open and the gun left inside it.
00:21:10
That was just so rare and unheard of that carjacking now is not in my mind anymore.
00:21:17
It's something else. The detective thought it looked like part of a plan, as if someone left the car and the gun in that spot on purpose,
00:21:25
hoping they'd get stolen. And now you're thinking Todd might actually have been targeted.
00:21:31
Yes, that's correct. The plot really thickens with this turn of events. Yes, it does.
00:21:38
His family had assured the detectives Todd had no enemies, but it was starting to look like they were wrong.
00:21:47
What do you find in his phone? It appeared to be private pictures sent to him of nude and partially nude females.
00:21:54
Were they his wife? They were not his wife. A mystery woman in Todd's phone and another on camera.
00:22:01
See a middle-aged woman get out of this car and walk around the corner. The first night after Todd Chance was found dead was a hard one for his family.
00:22:24
And of course, all my girls, we all slept in bed together, and I couldn't sleep.
00:22:29
Janae wasn't the only one losing sleep over her husband's death. At the sheriff's department, Detective Brewer and his team were working overtime to figure out who killed Todd.
00:22:38
They needed to turn over every rock and consider every scenario. For example, according to Janae, Todd said he was going to the gun show with his dad,
00:22:48
but Todd's dad hadn't heard from him. Do you think that it was possible that Todd had lied to Janae
00:22:56
and was actually going somewhere else and used that as an excuse? Yes. I thought that might be a possibility also.
00:23:03
I try not to rule anything out. I can't rule that out, that Todd's maybe got another destination he's headed to and it's not his father's.
00:23:11
That he's not sharing with his wife? Yes. If Todd was hiding something from his wife, what was it?
00:23:18
Soon enough, Todd's cell phone, which police found not too far from his body in the almond grove, revealed a clue.
00:23:25
What do you find in his phone? We find a lot of just general text messages between him and his wife and him and his children.
00:23:32
There's a normal vacation pictures and pictures of the daughters. And then, near the end of the camera roll,
00:23:39
we find some very odd pictures. What were they? It appeared to be private pictures sent to him
00:23:46
of nude and partially nude female. Were they his wife? They were not his wife. What does that tell you right there?
00:23:55
Things weren't so perfect in the Chance household? Yes. Do you immediately... At least suspect that Todd is having an affair?
00:24:03
I think it's possible at this point. We need, of course, to identify who she is.
00:24:08
Detectives needed to track down that unknown woman. And soon, there was another clue about who may have parked Todd's car.
00:24:16
The neighbors across the street see a middle-aged woman get out of this car and walk around the corner.
00:24:24
They said the woman was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, carrying something.
00:24:29
The neighbor said around 9 a.m. she scurried off on foot, heading south on a street called Denon.
00:24:35
So this becomes another piece of your timeline. Yes, it does. As you start to put these pieces together, where do you go about looking for video?
00:24:44
Everywhere. Right away, they found a house with two security cameras and more clues.
00:24:50
Here, at 9.03 a.m., the day Todd was killed, you can see a person heading south at a good clip from the direction of Todd's car.
00:25:00
Hard to tell if it's a man or a woman, but based on the eyewitness accounts of a woman leaving Todd's car,
00:25:07
the fact that few people walk in Bakersfield, and this person was walking in the right direction at just the right time,
00:25:13
Brewer believed it had to be her. Anything identifiable on the woman? The videos are taken from across the street,
00:25:22
and it's difficult to make a facial identification, but she's got kind of a distinctive, very fast-paced walk.
00:25:28
It's kind of like the arm swing was up and away from the waist. Aside from that distinctive walk, it was hard to see much.
00:25:38
But this person seems to be carrying a plastic bag and backpack. When we leave the video on and you don't see her walk back,
00:25:45
then we know that she's gone. At this case, it was south. And the street she's on is going to dead end into a major thoroughfare.
00:25:54
Denon Street dead ends at Panama Lane, which goes on for miles in two directions.
00:25:59
She's either got to go east or west. So the detectives are sent out both directions.
00:26:05
They found security video from a gas station to the west shortly after 9 a.m., but no mystery woman.
00:26:12
So the attention now is moved to the east. and that's over the overpass of Highway 99
00:26:19
and down into a pretty good-sized shopping center. Where they found lots of security cameras and lots of video.
00:26:28
We began to get video from several different locations in that shopping center, which included a Starbucks, a Lowe's, and the Walmart.
00:26:37
Do you see anyone fitting that description in the video that you obtained? We do.
00:26:42
We begin to see someone, same clothing, the glasses, the hat. There's the plastic bag and the backpack.
00:26:51
And then she does something, of course, in Starbucks. It's just extremely bizarre.
00:26:55
What did she do? She goes to the bathroom and then she comes out wearing different clothes with dark colored sweats over the top of them with the same backpack and the same white bag.
00:27:08
Look behind the woman paying. That's their suspect. And she's changed shoes also.
00:27:16
Wow. What is going through your mind as you're watching this video unfold? Once I saw that she did not make a purchase,
00:27:24
that it's now very obvious to me that this woman went in with the intent to change clothes
00:27:29
and conceal herself from us or anyone else that would see her leave in that area.
00:27:33
Is this a hot day in Bakersfield? August is extremely hot. Yes. Even people that jog usually don't wear sweats in this weather in our town.
00:27:44
Long clothing, and especially clothing over clothing, very unordinary. That stood out to you?
00:27:50
Yes, it did. But there were more subtle clues that took the detectives some time to see.
00:27:56
We, of course, viewed the video, me and my partner and other detectives, over and over.
00:28:02
And we all kind of key in on what looks like a yellow, round lid that's visible through the light-colored white plastic bag she's carrying.
00:28:12
Detective Brewer believed that was a canister of disinfecting wipes. And if you're leaving a crime scene, I know what you did with those.
00:28:20
You're wiping your crime scene behind you. I was not the kind of wife that went through my husband's phone.
00:28:28
Todd's mystery woman revealed. And that woman on camera? What's she up to now? Whoever this woman is has had this murder planned and very well planned.
00:28:54
Diana and Travis Chance had just lost their oldest son, Todd. In those first days, it was hard to know what to do.
00:29:01
So they just tried to be there for Janae and their granddaughters. Every night after the murder, we were at their house as much as we could be there.
00:29:11
And just, you know, to be with the girls and console her and the girls and just for ourselves, too.
00:29:22
Meanwhile, the investigation was moving fast. Detectives found video from a gas station near the Almond Grove of a car that looked like Todd's Mustang.
00:29:31
Can you see who's driving the car? He cannot. The windows are up and the cameras are just not clear enough to see.
00:29:40
It's barely clear enough to make out the car, but just at the right time, 8 a.m., it's heading toward the Almond Grove.
00:29:48
And then, 26 minutes later, the car is seen heading back toward town. Another 30 minutes go by It 8 a just about the time Todd body was found Here his car again passing a gas station around the corner from the spot where it was abandoned
00:30:06
The more detectives looked, the more video they found. Here's their suspect after leaving Starbucks in different clothing, crossing the parking lot and heading toward a nearby Lowe's.
00:30:17
It's hard to make out until the suspect gets closer to the store. Now, the dark shirt, baseball cap, backpack, and plastic bag
00:30:25
that Brewer believe held the disinfecting wipes can all be seen. They're not perfect, but they certainly are telling you a story.
00:30:33
Yes, they are. And they're giving us a very good timeline as to what happened after this car was dropped off in a neighborhood.
00:30:42
To Brewer, it seemed his suspect knew her steps ahead of time. This woman is going from place to place.
00:30:48
she's doing something everywhere she goes that we get video. She's changing clothes at Starbucks.
00:30:55
She's what appears to be discarding items in front of the Lowe's. She's putting her purse inside the backpack at Lowe's,
00:31:04
bent over behind a bunch of crates of manure. Then at 9.22, the suspect leaves Lowe's and heads toward Walmart.
00:31:15
Then she walks into the side door of the Walmart and straight to the pay phone. And pulls out a piece of paper.
00:31:22
She's already got numbers wrote down indicating that whoever this woman is has had this murder planned for some time
00:31:28
and very well planned. She then discards evidence. She goes outside past the store
00:31:36
and she walks someplace there's no cameras. And a few seconds later she comes back
00:31:43
and we no longer see the bleach white bottle. So we're thinking that she's gone to a trash can.
00:31:51
Her next step seemed to have been planned out, too. Twenty-three minutes after she made that phone call, a taxi arrived and whisked her away.
00:31:59
Now Brewer needed to figure out where. Back at the Chance home, Janae said she tried to keep track of the fast-moving investigation.
00:32:11
Are you asking them, do you have any leads? Do you have any suspects? Yes. And what answers are you getting?
00:32:17
Nothing. We're working on it. Nothing. We're working on it. I mean, it was very consistent.
00:32:21
Nothing. We're working on it. We'll let you know. And that's all I could get. It's not unusual for detectives to play their cards close to the vest.
00:32:30
All the while, they were uncovering more information. Like the identity of the woman who'd sent the racy photos to Todd's phone.
00:32:39
It was his old girlfriend, a woman named Carrie, whom he'd met in the early 90s while cruising in that 76 Cobra.
00:32:47
She became his first big love. He really fell for her, I think, harder than I thought he did
00:32:55
because the first thing I realized was they were going to get an apartment together.
00:33:01
And I said, okay. But it wasn't okay. You didn't want him to leave yet? No, I didn't want him to leave yet.
00:33:10
Ton and Carrie were together for five years. And then in 1995, it was over. By 96, Janae and Todd were getting married.
00:33:19
Was he, to your knowledge, having any communication with this woman? No. No, it was just a name that I had known for many, many years before.
00:33:27
What did he tell you about her? We would only talk about her like at the beginning of our relationship,
00:33:31
talking about past relationships. But it was someone that he was involved with, but they broke up.
00:33:38
But now police told Janae, based on their investigation, Todd had recently been in touch with Carrie, and it wasn't just a, hey, how are you?
00:33:47
It was rated R. I was not the kind of wife that went through my husband's phone.
00:33:52
I didn't. In my mind, I was thinking he could have hid stuff from me because I never paid attention.
00:33:57
I was never looking for anything like that because I was so secure in my relationship.
00:34:02
But then, Janae said she started to wonder. Did you believe, though, maybe there was a chance he was living some kind of double life?
00:34:08
I was contemplating it, but it was terrible because I'm thinking, why do I need to know all this, you know?
00:34:14
Do I want to wake up with a memory of my husband that I had on the 25th when I woke up that morning, you know?
00:34:22
Maybe she didn't know her husband as well as she thought. Did you think that maybe this other woman might have had something to do with this murder?
00:34:33
Absolutely. If there's some kind of an affair actually going on, there could be a reason why Carrie would kill him.
00:34:40
At this point, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she did it. Investigators believe the prime suspect in Todd Chance's murder had been caught on video.
00:35:02
But who was it? And where was their suspect going? His widow, Janae, thought she might know the answer.
00:35:08
At this point, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she did it. She, meaning Todd's ex, Carrie.
00:35:15
To Janae, it was the only person she could think of who might have a grudge against him.
00:35:20
Todd's parents knew there had been issues in the past. It had been an ugly breakup.
00:35:25
Things didn't turn out so well for Todd and Carrie. I don't want to get into that.
00:35:31
They parted ways we don't really know exactly what the circumstances were. We would ask Todd, and he just didn't want to talk about it.
00:35:40
But detectives needed to know. Did you think that maybe this other woman that you found on Todd's phone
00:35:45
might have had something to do with his murder? Absolutely. We don't rule anyone out until we have an absolute suspect,
00:35:52
and we absolutely couldn't rule Carrie out. Detective Brewer learned that after years of not talking In May of 2012 Carrie now a dental assistant and single mom connected with Todd on social media
00:36:05
As the detective looked through their exchanges, he noticed they started off innocently enough.
00:36:11
But then, something caught his attention from April 2013. Todd asked Carrie, want to play?
00:36:18
She responded, no way, married man. But remember, Carrie had sent those racy photos detectives found on Todd's phone.
00:36:26
Do you kind of just run through what a possible motive could be for someone like that?
00:36:30
Oh, absolutely. If there's some kind of an affair actually going on between Carrie and Todd,
00:36:35
that there could be a reason why Carrie would kill him. So Detective Brewer went to talk to Carrie.
00:36:43
And as his investigation continued, he called Janae to the sheriff's department with some news.
00:36:47
and the police ask you to come in? Yes. Actually, they asked me to come in to pick the car up.
00:36:55
They said they were releasing the car. And so I called my father-in-law and I said,
00:36:59
because it's a stick and I don't drive it. I never drove his car. After all this, I really didn't want to drive his car either.
00:37:05
And she called me and said, they're going to release Todd's car. Will you go with me to pick it up?
00:37:12
She said, take it to your house. I don't want to ever see it again. So we went over to the house.
00:37:17
Diane stayed there, and I went with her. Janae and Travis drove together. We walked in, and they put us in this little concrete room.
00:37:30
If you guys just have a seat right in here, we'll be with you in a few minutes, okay?
00:37:33
And I'm looking around, I'm going, man, this looks more like an interrogation room than a waiting room.
00:37:39
Though Travis and Janae both sensed something was off, they didn't have much choice, so they waited.
00:37:45
It doesn't seem like we're picking up a car. If the police did know something, they weren't sharing.
00:37:52
But Janae offered her own theory about why her husband might have been killed. It was like gang related.
00:37:58
They'll have these little 14-year-olds that will come and say they did it all to take the heat because they don't get in as much trouble.
00:38:04
I can't imagine something like that to Todd. It was four days after the murder, and Travis was still visibly shaken.
00:38:13
A lady out at night thinking about it. Wake up in the morning or in the middle of the night.
00:38:22
Everything's kind of a blur, but a detective walked in and said, we're going to have you guys look at videos and Mr. Chance, we want you to look first.
00:38:32
Investigators wanted him to look at all the security camera footage they had gathered.
00:38:36
What did you see in the video? I saw a lady walking down the street, different things.
00:38:43
They're just saying, do you recognize her? Travis told them he didn't. They also asked Janae.
00:38:50
The video's from up overhead, and just walking back and forth. And they kept telling me, they go, do you recognize the gate?
00:39:00
Do you recognize the way she's walking? That distinctive walk Brewer had noticed.
00:39:06
But Janae says she didn't recognize it or anything about the person in the video.
00:39:10
I was totally thinking when I was watching that I was looking for the other woman.
00:39:17
The other woman, meaning Todd's ex, Carrie. But if Janae thought they were asking her to help ID Carrie in the video, she was dead wrong.
00:39:29
Detectives have their eyes on someone else. Someone much closer to home. Are you joking? It came as a shock. Complete shock.
00:39:40
Todd Chance had been murdered, and his family was trying to understand life without him.
00:39:57
I mean, he's everywhere in this house. What do you miss most about him? Just having him to talk to.
00:40:03
That was like when we went to bed at night. That was our downtime. No kids around.
00:40:08
and just talk about, you know, what was going on for the next day and our plans.
00:40:16
That's what I miss. Four days after Todd's murder, Janae and her father-in-law had gone down to the sheriff's office to pick up Todd's car.
00:40:25
That's what they thought anyway. That's what I was asking him. I said, when am I going to get his phone back?
00:40:31
Because I feel like if I had his phone, then I could look at all his text messages and things.
00:40:36
I guess they're going to have his phone. Yeah. They're going to get that back to you today or something.
00:40:41
Travis and Janae had both said they didn't recognize the woman in the videos. But detectives kept asking Janae questions.
00:40:48
I really thought, they're still trying to help me out. They're trying to solve this for me.
00:40:52
As Janae sat there watching video of the person detectives believed killed her husband,
00:40:57
she says it gradually began to dawn on her. Todd's ex-girlfriend wasn't the suspect at all.
00:41:03
And I realized, oh my goodness, they think it's me. She was right. Detectives told her flat out.
00:41:10
They thought she was the woman in the videos. They thought she was the one who killed Todd.
00:41:16
Suddenly, Janae was in the hot seat. She said they began pressing her. They were getting gruff with me, but I handle gruff well.
00:41:25
I'm a principal of an elementary school. I get parents that come in and they are mad as anything.
00:41:31
That's fine. They're not mad at me. They're mad at the situation. I can handle that.
00:41:35
But Janae said detectives kept at her I've never been talked to like the way he was yelling at me
00:41:40
And then I just I did ask him to stop yelling at me And he wouldn't And so then I said I want an attorney
00:41:48
And then they arrested me Janae was charged with Todd's murder It turned out when detectives asked her To come pick up her husband car They had other plans all along So this was a bit of a ruse to get her in Yes
00:42:05
It may have seemed like a sudden turn of events, but the thing was, Detective Brewer had suspicions about Janae from the very beginning.
00:42:13
He thought her reaction to the news of her husband's murder didn't seem quite right.
00:42:18
That's why investigators decided to secretly turn on an audio recorder as they talked to her on that first day.
00:42:23
Have you guys had any medical problems lately? No. No? Everything's the same. We get along.
00:42:29
Okay. Yes, we always do. Later, as Brewer watched and re-watched those videos, he became convinced that the woman who'd been caught on camera was Janae.
00:42:40
When he confronted her with the videos at the police station, her reaction only confirmed his suspicion.
00:42:46
Usually, if it's not you in the video, I get an outburst of anger. Like, who is that woman?
00:42:52
You think that's me. And what I get at one point from her is, well, that can't be me.
00:42:59
That woman's too heavy. Are you convinced at this point that Janae is your killer?
00:43:04
Absolutely. Absolutely. While Janae was being booked for murder, her house was getting turned upside down by detectives looking for evidence.
00:43:15
Todd's mom was there. I think it dawned on me then when they did the search warrant because they were taking all the computers.
00:43:22
and all the cell phones, all the electronic stuff. And I thought, oh my gosh. They suspect her.
00:43:32
That's got to be a huge blow. It was. Now, along with mourning their son's death,
00:43:39
Diana and Travis had to stomach the idea that their daughter-in-law might be involved in his murder.
00:43:44
But Janae's daughters weren't having it. Are you joking? It came as a shock, complete shock.
00:43:49
Oh, I know. The girls were in danger of losing the only parent they had left. It was hard. Everything was just being thrown at us.
00:43:58
It was crazy. I just wanted to see her and hug her. That was it. That was all I was thinking about.
00:44:03
The case was soon the talk of Bakersfield. Deputies arrested Chance's wife, Leslie Janae, the principal at Fairview Elementary School.
00:44:11
What was it like for you being in jail? It was the worst, worst experience. I'm thinking, how can this happen in America?
00:44:21
And then I was so worried because of what was going on at my house with my girls.
00:44:25
There was nothing Janae could do but wait for her arraignment. She figured Jessica would be in court and was anxious about being able to see her.
00:44:33
I know she's going to want me to look at her, and I can't see, because I didn't have my contacts and I didn't have my glasses were taken away from me,
00:44:40
and they wouldn't let me take them to court. I wanted to look at my daughter. I wanted to look at a familiar face.
00:44:44
But that didn't happen because Janae never made it inside that courtroom. So you arrest Janae, you have her in custody, and then four days later, a big twist comes along in this case.
00:44:56
It was for me, yeah. It was a big twist. Are you capable of murdering someone? No. No.
00:45:04
Did you plan the murder of your husband? No. A turn in the case. Did detectives jump the gun?
00:45:11
What they did, I believe, is arrest now and investigate later. How much did you miss him?
00:45:31
Oh, tons. I still miss him. After Todd Chance's murder, his daughters were consumed by their loss.
00:45:39
Stuff that pops up and you're like, God, he would have loved that. I would see something and be like, and my immediate thought was, oh, I got to tell my dad.
00:45:47
And I can't. Then, just four days after losing their dad, their mom was taken away too.
00:45:55
She was under arrest, charged with Todd's murder. But just as Janae's daughters prepared themselves for her court appearance, they got some good news.
00:46:04
The DA decided not to file charges against Janae. Prosecutors thought the blurry videos wouldn't be enough to convince a jury
00:46:12
and told the detectives to go back to the drawing board. People who knew Janae as a principal told our affiliate KGET in Bakersfield
00:46:19
there was no way she was a killer. She's well-respected. She's hardworking. Loved by her students and staff.
00:46:28
After four nights in jail, Janae was free to go. We sat down with her three months later in November of 2013.
00:46:36
She talked about the moment her lawyer broke the news to her. He said, you'll be going home.
00:46:41
And the weight just lifted off me. She was relieved, but also annoyed that police wasted precious time on her
00:46:49
instead of following other leads. What they did is, I believe, it's arrest now and investigate later.
00:46:57
They always look at the spouse. And I knew that, right. That was perfectly fine with me.
00:47:02
Get me out of the way so you can get on to bigger and better things. I had no problem with that because I had nothing to hide.
00:47:08
They're looking at me like crazy. Look at me. I'm the most boring person in the world.
00:47:14
Detectives weren't buying it. They believe Janae knew months before Todd was killed that he had connected with his ex, Carrie.
00:47:21
Is it possible that you were seeking revenge on your husband? That you were angry with him?
00:47:25
It's not possible because I didn't know. I would have talked to Todd about it. I mean, that's no ifs, ands, or buts.
00:47:33
you know, I've been married before. I've been in that situation before. And I walked away. We
00:47:39
separated. And that was what was that's what happened. Are you capable of murdering someone?
00:47:44
No, no. Did you plan the murder of your husband? Did you kill your husband? No, no. I love my husband very much.
00:47:54
She says her daughters were eyewitnesses who could prove her innocence because they were home with her the
00:48:00
Morning Todd was killed. What time did your daughter wake up, or what time can you be placed here by someone?
00:48:06
That I know of, I believe my daughter saw me around 10, but I believe my other daughter,
00:48:14
she told my attorney that she came down at 9.30 and just came down the stairs and saw me working over on the table
00:48:20
and then went up and went back to bed, and I didn't even know she came downstairs.
00:48:24
The support of her girls never wavered, but her in-laws, that was another story.
00:48:30
Do they think you're guilty? I think they do. I think the police officers or the investigators have told them such that there's,
00:48:37
I think they've just told them, no ifs, ands, or buts, we know it's her. And they've believed that, which is tough.
00:48:43
Diana and Travis did indeed believe that their daughter-in-law, who vowed to love, honor, and cherish their oldest son, had done the unthinkable.
00:48:52
When it first started, I didn't want to think it was her. I got all these thoughts running through my head.
00:48:56
I didn't want to think that she could kill my son. But Travis, who had initially not identified the woman in the videos as Janae,
00:49:07
had come to a painful conclusion. He now believed it was her. Is this a shock? Well, it's coming pretty fast.
00:49:16
This is like them telling you your son's dead. You don't want to believe that. And then they tell you that his wife is the one that did it.
00:49:24
You don't want to believe that either. is just kind of like a nightmare. You keep wanting somebody to slap you and wake you up.
00:49:32
While her in-laws suspected her, Janae still wondered about Todd's ex, Carrie. But detectives had already gotten past her.
00:49:41
Carrie and Todd had stopped communicating months before his murder. They never had an affair or even met in person.
00:49:48
And the mystery woman in the video, Brewer said, didn't look like Carrie. There was just some things about Carrie
00:49:53
and the way Carrie walked. carried herself and her physical features that told me that this is not the same woman on these videos.
00:50:01
Most importantly, she was with her daughter and some friends several hours away near the Mission San Juan Capistrano
00:50:07
when Todd was killed. And combine that with her car getting a parking ticket because she parked somewhere she shouldn't have,
00:50:13
we were also able to confirm the parking ticket with the date and time. As far as police were concerned, Carrie was in the clear.
00:50:21
But Janae was more determined than ever to clear her own name and find her husband's killer.
00:50:26
As much as I have brought up my girls, it doesn't matter what other people think.
00:50:33
It matters what other people think. It does. It matters for my family and my community to know.
00:50:45
Plus, we deserve to know the answers. What happened to this great man? Janae told us a cold case wasn't an option,
00:50:52
And it wasn't for Detective Brewer either. He kept digging. We found after searching her home that there was several life insurance policies
00:51:01
that had been taken out for Todd. Several? Several. Totaling how much money? We totaled, I think, three or four of them at close to a half a million dollars.
00:51:11
As suspicious as that sounds, Janaye said she and her husband had each taken out policies
00:51:16
naming the other as beneficiary. They were taken out eight and ten years ago. All her policies are very old.
00:51:24
Janae was also the main breadwinner of the family. She said she didn't need the money.
00:51:29
Did you receive or are you going to receive any life insurance money? I have not received any life insurance money,
00:51:34
and that's because the investigators have put a halt to that. I wish I could get my insurance policies just to hire an investigator and do this right.
00:51:41
But I am frustrated at this point, extremely frustrated. She wasn't the only one.
00:51:46
It would be three years before anything changed with Todd's case. But a whole lot would change with Janae.
00:51:53
Just wait until you see her. How much do you miss him? I miss him. When we spoke to Janae Chance in 2013, she was out of jail,
00:52:13
but still the prime suspect in the murder of her husband, Todd. Does your gut tell you that they're going to arrest you again?
00:52:21
No. No. It doesn't, but I still have that uneasiness. I feel confident in my innocence that I think there's no way.
00:52:31
They can't. And she was right. They hadn't. Years passed, Todd's murder remained unsolved,
00:52:38
and Janae began to collect on his life insurance policies. Except for one policy that Todd's parents found out about
00:52:46
and thought they could contest. We paid a lawyer to tell us how to take that away from Janae
00:52:53
and give it to the girls. And we went to court. We did too. It was 2016, three years after we first met Janae.
00:53:05
When she arrived at court, we barely recognized her. That slim woman in dark pants and a polka dot top is Janae.
00:53:14
She shed nearly 100 pounds from lap band surgery. A woman transformed. She strode confidently into court.
00:53:21
But once inside, she agreed to a settlement. We'll have to release the funds for the minor as well.
00:53:30
Travis and Diana got what they wanted. The money went to their grandkids, not Janae.
00:53:35
All in all, it was a good day. We accomplished what we've been trying to do for over a year.
00:53:41
Trying to keep her from getting the money. To keep her from being rewarded for what we think she's done.
00:53:51
They hadn't seen Janae in a while either. Were you shocked at her weight loss Yeah yeah We saw her at some Sarah softball games and we were standing about 50 feet from her and didn recognize her
00:54:06
And I said, she's less than half the person that she was before. Janae's daughters say the weight loss
00:54:13
brought their mother obvious joy. Did you notice a change in your mom's? Yeah, yeah.
00:54:18
You know, a skip in her step? Yeah. She was a lot happier. You can just see she was more herself.
00:54:24
Like, she wasn't holding back at all. She would dance and, like, just be... Just more confident.
00:54:29
Yeah, exactly. More confident. Three years after Todd's death, Janae seemed to be moving on.
00:54:36
But Detective Brewer wasn't. Months turned into years as he slowly gathered evidence,
00:54:42
trying to nail down every detail. I would get up and think of, did we think of this?
00:54:47
Did we think of that? And about every two or three months, something else would pop up that we didn't notice right up front.
00:54:53
Like the time he was looking through photos from the search of the Chance House,
00:54:57
and something caught his eye. It's a picture of Todd and Janae and their two girls.
00:55:01
They're in some type of a crime scene dress-up. So as I go through the financial records,
00:55:07
I notice an expenditure to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was from that great summer before Todd died,
00:55:16
when the Chances took all those vacations. And I see CSI, the experience, and I've never heard of it.
00:55:23
It's based on the popular TV crime drama. Brewer raced to Las Vegas to see it for himself.
00:55:29
It was a huge exhibit with three different scenarios. And of course, one of them is a woman who murders her husband and dumps his body in the desert.
00:55:38
Wow. Yes, that's exactly what I said. Wow. Brewer saw parallels to his real investigation.
00:55:46
The CSI exhibit showed how detectives can track a suspect's cell phone. The suspect in the video used a payphone at the Walmart.
00:55:55
Another display showcased shoe prints at a crime scene. Remember how the suspect in the video changed her shoes at the Starbucks?
00:56:02
Was it almost like the principal had gone to some form of, like, murder school? Exactly.
00:56:09
If Janae had learned how to wipe down a crime scene, it might explain why investigators were only able to get one fingerprint off Todd's Mustang.
00:56:17
Whose fingerprint was it? Janae's. What made it suspicious was that it was on the driver's side door.
00:56:24
Did she ever drive Todd's car? She told us she hadn't. Something she told me, too.
00:56:29
Because it's a stick and I don't drive it. But the evidence inside the car told investigators something different.
00:56:35
They found Janae's DNA on both the steering wheel and the gear shift knob. Places that it should not be if you're not the driver.
00:56:44
She also told everyone she hated guns. Yet that summer of fun included a family shooting trip just weeks before Todd died.
00:56:52
Here's Janae with the very gun found inside Todd's Mustang. The gun police proved was the murder weapon.
00:56:59
All of this evidence was circumstantial, of course. But some evidence was harder to explain away.
00:57:06
Investigators had found more security videos. This one showed where the taxi took their suspect after it left Walmart.
00:57:13
She gets dropped off at a Sam's Club in the front. And she walks away from there.
00:57:18
That location was key because it was only a mile away from Todd and Janae's house.
00:57:23
The next camera captures the suspect even closer to their house. It's 10.10 a.m. on the day Todd was killed.
00:57:30
The figure is in different clothes and appears to be running. And in the suspect's hand, you can see a piece of paper.
00:57:37
I'm thinking that's probably the numbers for the taxi cab that she's going to discard.
00:57:42
She doesn't want to be caught with that. Here, just around the corner from the Chance house, a few minutes later, another fleeting image.
00:57:50
Brewer thought that was Janae racing to get home and that she had to be the killer.
00:57:55
The videos alone hadn't been enough for the DA before, so Brewer kept digging. He discovered that three weeks before the murder, Janae made a purchase at a Walmart she never otherwise shopped at,
00:58:06
the one where the suspect had used the payphone. So we went back to Walmart, of course, and pulled the video for that transaction.
00:58:13
The video clearly showed Janae at the Walmart. And we find something that's just really, really bizarre.
00:58:20
And for me, it was the absolute turning point of the case. What was it? She walks up to the greeter and she begins to talk to him.
00:58:29
And she raises her hand up to her ear like this. What do you think she was doing?
00:58:34
I believe she asked that greeter where the payphone was. The detective knew Janae had a work cell and a personal cell.
00:58:40
so he believed there was only one reason she would need a payphone to make her plan work.
00:58:47
And then he got the last piece of the puzzle. Her laptop had been sent to the FBI lab for analysis,
00:58:54
the one she'd said she'd been using when Todd was killed. Finally, the results came back.
00:58:59
No one had been manually manipulating that computer until about 11 o'clock in the morning.
00:59:06
No one's typing on keys or searching. No one's moving the mouse. No one's typing keys.
00:59:12
But that was her story, that she was on the computer? That's correct. The alibi is now gone.
00:59:17
December 1st, 2016, more than three years after Todd's murder, they had enough to arrest Janae again.
00:59:25
How did it go down? We had a team follow her back from her office, and she was stopped by a patrol car.
00:59:33
The officer told her that she was stopped for a traffic violation. And then I just walked up as he got her out of the car and told her that she was under
00:59:40
arrest for the murder of her husband. Wow. And what was her reaction? She said, are you kidding me?
00:59:49
And I said, no, ma'am, we are not kidding you. You like freeze it Janae daughter Jessica Detectives have some questions to ask and some video to show That your mother Janay Chance was under arrest again for the murder of her husband Todd
01:00:29
She sat down with me in early 2020. Tell us about that moment. um surprise dumbfounded i thought this will all be corrected it will all be corrected and and i'll
01:00:41
you know be home so let's talk a little bit about like how things have changed since 2013 you've
01:00:47
lost well over 100 pounds yes yes i was working towards trying to lose weight um prior to my
01:00:54
husband's death but after my husband passed away my my weight just melted off she'd had the lap
01:01:01
surgery before Todd's death. But if Janae was hoping to start a new life, now it was shattered.
01:01:08
On the day of her arrest, detectives questioned her daughters. Detective Brewer asked Jessica
01:01:13
about Janae's behavior the day Todd was murdered. How about your mom? Was she reacting the way you
01:01:18
would think a wife would react? Yeah. She just got told her husband was murdered. Jessica stood by
01:01:25
her mom. Then Detective Brewer showed her those security videos. It was the first time Jessica
01:01:31
had ever seen them. And right away, something jumped out at her. Can you, like, freeze it, please?
01:01:37
Remember the backpack the suspect was carrying? In most of the videos, the color is hard to see.
01:01:43
But here, it sort of looks red. Jessica thought she recognized it. Do you have that backpack?
01:01:52
Because I'm telling you if it was the backpack that I think it is. It's very distinctive.
01:01:56
When she saw the backpack, something seemed to click. Is that your mother? Jessica, who had been one of her mom's most ardent supporters, appeared to come all at
01:02:10
once to a terrible realization. Is that your mother? Yes. I think we both know that.
01:02:18
Is that your mother in all the videos? I believe so. And she went a step further, much further, when Detective Brewer asked her about the video from Walmart.
01:02:40
It seemed that Jessica had done a 180 and now believed her mom had killed her stepdad.
01:02:49
That day, anyway, by the time we interviewed her four years later, Jessica had done another about face.
01:02:55
She now says investigators duped her by showing her the Walmart video along with all the others.
01:03:01
They showed me a video that is very clearly of my mother. And I thought, well, yeah, that's her.
01:03:07
And then I just started bawling because I was like, well, if that's her in the last one, it's her in all of them.
01:03:11
Because I thought they were all the same day. If Jessica ever doubted her mother's innocence, she says she doesn't anymore.
01:03:18
Did part of you worry or think maybe this could be my mom? I mean, your mind goes there, but when you look at it, it's just it's not her.
01:03:27
and everything that's transpired from everything. And there's no way. No way. All three of Janae's daughters told me the person in the videos was not their mom.
01:03:38
And that despite what Detective Brewer says, maybe not even a woman. There's no way to know.
01:03:43
Especially the last one when the guy's running across the street. It looks like a male.
01:03:48
You also say that your mom was not a runner. Never run. Never ran. Or jaywalked.
01:03:54
Never jaywalked. That was a big deal. Like, she would walk forever just to go on a crosswalk.
01:04:00
As for the backpack? You even recognize the red backpack? Yeah, growing up there was a red backpack around, but I hadn't seen it in years prior to that.
01:04:09
Janae couldn't believe police still thought she killed her husband. I'm an elementary school principal, and, you know, for anyone to believe that I would do this,
01:04:20
I understand that the investigators don't know the relationship between my husband and myself,
01:04:24
but they are investigators. They should have researched and known this. I'm going to go through at least some of the evidence in this case.
01:04:33
Janae's trial began on December 9th, 2019. Kern County prosecutors Andrea Kohler and Art Norris
01:04:39
told the jury that the elementary school principal had not only killed her husband,
01:04:44
she'd enrolled herself in Murder 101. Leslie Janae Chance, through her actions, prepared a very involved and detailed lesson plan on how to kill her husband, how to murder him, how to murder Todd Chance.
01:04:59
And in fact, on August 25th, 2013, that's exactly what she did. The prosecutors believe there were multiple motives. Jealousy.
01:05:10
You're going to hear, ladies and gentlemen, that those photos were sent to the cell phone of Todd Chance.
01:05:18
Money. You're going to hear about some life insurance policies. And something more complicated.
01:05:24
We both think that her love for Todd had died long before that trigger was pulled.
01:05:30
She had plenty of photographs in her office of her kids and everything else, but not one single photo anywhere of her husband.
01:05:43
You're going to hear that. They told the jurors about the videos, the gun, how Todd's shoes had no dust.
01:05:48
And then the prosecution called a key witness, a woman who had been visiting Todd and Janae neighbor the morning of the murder She testified that she saw the Mustang pull out of the garage with Todd driving But he wasn alone Next to him was a woman wearing a cap and large sunglasses
01:06:06
I just happened to glance into the car and it was a male and a female and the female
01:06:10
glanced my way and then that's when I turned away. I would say that she was the single most
01:06:18
important witness we had because quite frankly, if you believe her, we're done. There's no other
01:06:27
explanation. According to Brewer and the prosecutors, it all added up to murder.
01:06:33
What I believe happened is that she at some point had confronted Todd about the photographs
01:06:40
and probably told him, we're not going to be able to argue out this inside the house with the kids.
01:06:45
so let's go for a drive. They left the house together clearly. They drove out to the Almond Grove.
01:06:55
As soon as he pulled over, I think she shot him. He had raised one arm up as he seized the gun
01:07:01
in a defensive manner, shot through the hand and then into the chest and then a second shot into
01:07:06
the chest. Pulled his body out of the car, laid his body in the dirt with his wallet there so that
01:07:15
he would be identified, and that's important, so that they could then go to the house and notify her,
01:07:22
and she would be at home. And then she drove somewhere and cleaned the car up with the bleach wipes.
01:07:31
She then left that location and parked her car in front of essentially a drug house
01:07:39
with the gun and the car key clearly visible so that a person possibly leaving this drug house would see it
01:07:48
and think, hey, I've just basically won the lottery. And then the location to location begins
01:07:57
just trying to keep us from ever finding out who she is. It was a great example of a case where all of the evidence just fit together.
01:08:06
Many court hearings. Not so fast, said the defense. Janae has been wanting her day in court, and here it is.
01:08:14
Janae's attorney said he had actual proof she was innocent. And his star witness, no surprise, was Janae herself.
01:08:25
You brought into question the credibility of the detective. We did. Within four days, Detective Brewer was convinced that it was her.
01:08:31
Was this a rush to judgment? All eyes would be on the stand. And Janae Chance. I spoke the truth.
01:08:39
I spoke my truth. There is a body. Murder cases are often circumstantial. The prosecution tries to assemble a bunch of small puzzle pieces into one big picture.
01:09:03
And the defense, its job is to tear it apart. That's exactly what Janae's attorney, Tony Lidgett, aimed to do.
01:09:10
I believe if any married person gets killed, the spouse is number one suspect, no matter what.
01:09:20
Within four days, Detective Brewer was convinced that it was her. That's true. Brewer had arrested Janae just four days after the murder
01:09:28
and had to release her because there wasn't enough evidence. You brought into question the credibility of the detective.
01:09:34
We did. The defense said Detective Brewer had tunnel vision and ignored key evidence,
01:09:39
like the fact that Janae had an alibi. Daughter Sarah said she saw her mom working at home around the time Todd was killed.
01:09:46
And she stated that when she woke up, she saw her mom. Her mom was downstairs doing what she always does every Sunday, which is laundry.
01:10:00
She was watching TV, doing laundry, and looked like she was doing work at the same time.
01:10:08
Not only that, the defense accused the detective of hiding evidence. Detective Brewer had interviewed friends and colleagues of Janae's who watched the security videos and couldn't identify her.
01:10:20
It was never checked into evidence. Of them looking at the surveillance video and saying?
01:10:25
Saying that it wasn't her. And, said the defense, the prosecution's key eyewitness was wrong.
01:10:32
There was no way Janae could have been in the passenger seat of Todd's car as it was backing out of the garage.
01:10:37
The defense said Todd wouldn't let anyone get in the car in the garage because the door was too close to the wall.
01:10:43
You can't get in the passenger side where the car is parked. You actually have to back out and people have to get in.
01:10:49
There's just not enough room. Janae was way too big. Then, Janae herself made what may have been the most critical decision of the trial.
01:10:58
You decided to take the stand. Yes. Why did you feel so strongly about that? Because I know my truth.
01:11:03
Janae spent days on the witness stand and told the jury her side. That she loved her husband, that she had no idea there were naked photos on his phone,
01:11:12
so she had nothing to be jealous of. That as the breadwinner in her family, she didn't need a life insurance payout.
01:11:18
And perhaps most important, she had proof that the woman in the video could not be her.
01:11:24
The reason was very simple to understand, her attorney said. She had to wear glasses or she was virtually blind.
01:11:34
Janae Chance was extremely nearsighted. No way she could have navigated the streets of Bakersfield without her glasses.
01:11:42
And since Janae didn't wear contacts and didn't own prescription sunglasses, the defense said the woman in the big sunglasses was not Janay.
01:11:51
Detective Brewer had been on the case for more than six years. He even delayed his retirement to see it through.
01:11:57
Now, seeing Janay testify, he's been on the case for more than six years. need to pray. There are certain things that the Lord is just going to have to take control of,
01:12:06
and that's what this is. We're going to need some real help here. You specifically hoped
01:12:11
that she would be caught in a lie, and you turned to God for that. I did, and she was.
01:12:17
The lie involved that very specific and critical detail in Janae's testimony. She had made such a big deal about the fact that she could not see without glasses,
01:12:28
that she did not like contact lenses. It had been years since she had tried contact lenses.
01:12:35
And they really played that. Janae's defense attorney even brought records from her eye doctor.
01:12:40
They proved she had bad eyesight and never bought prescription sunglasses. But then the prosecutor looked through the same records and found something else, something big.
01:12:51
Sure enough, it showed that, in fact, in July of 2013, a month before the murder that she had obtained two boxes of contact lenses.
01:13:01
On cross-examination, Kohler confronted Janae with Janae's own medical records. Watching in the courtroom, Detective Brewer knew this was the moment he prayed for.
01:13:12
It was an absolute lie, and she was just absolutely caught in it and right in front of the jury.
01:13:18
Cameras weren't allowed during testimony, so the moment wasn't captured on video.
01:13:22
But I asked Janae about it. What was your vision like at the time of the murder?
01:13:27
Are you still wearing glasses, contacts? Oh, glasses. Don't answer that question.
01:13:34
That's Janae's attorney off camera counseling her not to respond. She ignored him.
01:13:39
I spoke the truth. I spoke my truth there. And I know I was never wearing contacts during 2013.
01:13:48
But remember, Janae talked to us in 2013. You were not wearing glasses in our interview, which was just not too long after you got out of jail.
01:13:59
Were you wearing contacts? I know. No, absolutely not. I do know that there was a time that I would take my glasses off for pictures because I thought I looked better without the glasses.
01:14:11
But it wasn't just the interview. You didn't seem to be struggling or even in our walk in the yard, you seemed fine without the glasses.
01:14:18
I just don't recall that. But you might recall another thing she told us back then about wanting to see her daughter Jessica in court I know she going to want me to look at her and I can see because I didn have my contacts and I didn have my glasses Did you catch that Let play it again
01:14:34
And I can't see because I didn't have my contacts and I didn't have my glasses. The big lie about her contacts undercut Janae's credibility.
01:14:43
And prosecutors said there was something else Janae couldn't hide, her unmistakable walk.
01:14:48
The defendant had a very distinct walk, a very distinct gait. She swung her arm. She walked very forcefully, kind of a large step walk.
01:14:58
Much like the suspect in those security videos, said the prosecution. The body appearance is very similar, and absolutely the walk was absolutely similar.
01:15:10
The jury, of course, didn't hear about our experience with Janae, but they had heard plenty.
01:15:15
After Janae was caught in that lie about the contacts by the prosecution, Her lawyer tried to repair the damage in closing arguments.
01:15:23
We brought in the records. There were no prescription sunglasses, but yeah, there were contacts that were purchased.
01:15:32
But there are 10,000 photos, and every photo has her with glasses. She always wore glasses.
01:15:40
She didn't like contacts. The prosecution told the jury it wasn't just the contacts.
01:15:46
Janae Chance was lying about everything. So, ladies and gentlemen, based on all of the evidence in this case, I would ask you to find the defendant, Leslie Janae Chance, guilty of the first degree premeditated and deliberated murder of Todd Chance.
01:16:04
Now, six years after Todd's murder, the case was in the hands of the jury. I thought, my goodness, they're not only going to stand up and say she's not guilty,
01:16:15
they're going to say she's innocent and this was a ridiculous case. Eight days of deliberation later, would they?
01:16:24
When it gets past three days, I begin to worry. When it gets past four or five, I'm really worried.
01:16:39
Janay Chance had spent three years in jail awaiting trial for the murder of her husband
01:16:48
Todd By the time the case went to the jury it looked like the odds were against her But Janay didn think so She could almost taste freedom How were you feeling I was very confident I expected to go back the next day and it be done Actually when I would lay
01:17:05
in bed at night, I thought, my goodness, they're not only going to stand up and say she's not guilty,
01:17:09
they're going to say she's innocent and this was a ridiculous case. Todd and Janae's daughters, who visited their mother twice a week,
01:17:17
couldn't wait to get her home. Yeah, we even have her favorite ice cream. This is the thing that she really wanted when she got out.
01:17:26
So it's here waiting for her? Oh, yeah. They got her room ready and hung her clothes in the closet.
01:17:32
Meanwhile, the jury deliberated. How nervous were you waiting for the verdict? More than normal.
01:17:38
When it gets past three days, I begin to worry. When it gets past four or five, I'm really worried.
01:17:44
After eight days, the call finally came in. Everyone headed to court. The jury comes back from deliberating. How are you two holding up?
01:17:55
Oh, I am squeezing the hand of the DA's victim's advocate. I looked at each one of the jury members and I thought, is it going to be guilty or hung jury or what?
01:18:09
When the verdict came in, I thought I heard it wrong. I seriously thought I heard it wrong.
01:18:15
Wrong. We, the jury, find the defendant, Leslie Janae Chance, guilty of a felony.
01:18:22
The jury convicted Janae of murder in the first degree. This is the moment you've been waiting for for years.
01:18:32
How are you feeling? Mixed emotions because we're thinking about the girls. The justice for Todd was good, but nobody really won.
01:18:41
Everybody lost because of what she did. For a while, Travis and Diana felt like they had lost their granddaughters too.
01:18:49
That's got to be heartbreaking. Oh, it's very heartbreaking. Is there anything you would say to them if they're listening?
01:18:59
I love them very much. We love them unconditionally. Your grandparents, Todd's parents, have not supported your mom.
01:19:10
How has that affected your relationship? We try to keep a relationship with them.
01:19:14
They are my grandparents. I'm always going to love them, have love for them. But the way that they see how things are with this it makes it very difficult sometimes They told us they miss you Do you have any reaction to that
01:19:35
I don't know. I don't know what to say. It's complicated. It really is. It's going to take time.
01:19:41
Yeah. Jessica blames herself. She thinks she sealed her mom's fate when she told detectives the woman in the videos
01:19:49
was Janae. First of all, is that your mother? I carry around this enormous amount of guilt.
01:19:58
If I wasn't stupid in 2016 and said that comment, maybe mom would be home. This isn't because of you.
01:20:09
I don't think it was just that comment. They've been gunning fur for years. We all have to spend a lot.
01:20:17
and I don't want my fur, my bad. Then she did something wrong. Yeah. You all were forced to endure a lot
01:20:28
in a really short amount of time. It's still not over. We're still fighting. Yeah.
01:20:34
Janae was sentenced to 50 years to life. She'll be eligible for a parole hearing
01:20:38
after serving just 20 years under California's elderly parole program. Our second interview with her happened in jail.
01:20:46
After the verdict, I would go to bed thinking I'm going to wake up and it's all, this was all a bad dream.
01:20:52
It truly has been a bad dream. What do you say to anyone who might say, well, she's crying now because she was found guilty, not because of her husband?
01:21:04
I cried then. I just didn't cry out in front of everybody. You know, I did, I mourn my husband.
01:21:12
For Diana and Travis, the fight is over. They finally got the justice they wanted.
01:21:21
But the loss of their son Todd remains. This last seven years has been really hard,
01:21:27
and I hope he understands that we did everything we could to make sure that he got justice.
01:21:39
His dad does find comfort in one thing. Well, I got to tell him I loved him many times.
01:21:46
Love you too, Dad.