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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Doug Janis Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:12
Speaker 2: So he was murdered on this side. Yes, he was
0:15
Speaker 2: killed in Texas and she lived on the other side.
0:18
Speaker 2: She lived in Louisiana.
0:20
Speaker 3: We're driving across the Pendleton Bridge, the one that runs
0:23
Speaker 3: over the Sabine River and separates Texas and Louisiana. We're
0:27
Speaker 3: headed to remote spot on Toledo ben Lake, right across
0:31
Speaker 3: the Texas border in Hemple. It's the spot where on
0:35
Speaker 3: December thirteenth, twenty twenty, at five twenty eight pm, right
0:39
Speaker 3: before the sun disappeared behind the horizon, police in Sabine
0:43
Speaker 3: County got a call about a houseboat on fire. The
0:47
Speaker 3: houseboat was docked behind three point twenty two Echo Ridge
0:51
Speaker 3: off of Cedar Grove Road on Highway twenty one in
0:54
Speaker 3: the Pendleton area of Toledo Bend, and that scene very
0:58
Speaker 3: quickly descended into total chaos. The firefighters had trouble getting
1:03
Speaker 3: out to the remote location, so it took a while,
1:06
Speaker 3: and by the time they did get there, the boat
1:09
Speaker 3: was completely engulfed in flames. One person who commented on
1:14
Speaker 3: Facebook and claimed to have been one of the first
1:16
Speaker 3: responders on the scene wrote quote, when we arrived, we
1:20
Speaker 3: noticed a pickup truck and a four wheeler on sight,
1:23
Speaker 3: so we had a feeling someone may have been in there.
1:26
Speaker 1: House boat was fully.
1:27
Speaker 3: Engulfed, along with other multiple boats and docks, heavy fire
1:31
Speaker 3: and fuel.
1:31
Speaker 1: Oil burning on top of water.
1:33
Speaker 3: Once fire was knocked down, I had members sweep and
1:37
Speaker 3: noticed the remains end quote. Firefighters and paramedics rushed to
1:41
Speaker 3: the scene, but it was too late. By the time
1:44
Speaker 3: they got there, the walls had caved in and the
1:47
Speaker 3: boat had very quickly been completely obscerated by the flames.
1:52
Speaker 3: And then when they did dig through the remains, they
1:55
Speaker 3: found the body of sixty four year old Doug Janis.
1:59
Speaker 3: His charred remains were found in the bedroom of the boat.
2:04
Speaker 3: At first, they thought the house fire had been some
2:06
Speaker 3: kind of accident, that Doug had died as a result
2:09
Speaker 3: of a propane league, but then they took Doug's body
2:13
Speaker 3: in for an autopsy. At the forensic exam, they saw
2:17
Speaker 3: the two bullets in his head. Doug Janis had been murdered,
2:22
Speaker 3: and his much younger, estranged wife, April May Janis, was
2:26
Speaker 3: nowhere to be found. But Doug's death was just the
2:29
Speaker 3: beginning of a story that goes back twenty years and
2:32
Speaker 3: of all sex allegations of corruption and multiple murders.
2:38
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
2:39
Speaker 3: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
2:42
Speaker 3: Helen Gone, I have learned that there is no such
2:45
Speaker 3: thing as a small town where murder never happens. I
2:48
Speaker 3: have received hundreds of messages from people all around the
2:51
Speaker 3: country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
2:55
Speaker 3: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
2:59
Speaker 3: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
3:01
Speaker 3: can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone
3:03
Speaker 3: Murder line at six seven eight seven four four six
3:06
Speaker 3: one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
3:10
Speaker 3: six one four five, or you can send us a
3:13
Speaker 3: message on Instagram at Hell and Gone pod. This is
3:20
Speaker 3: Helen Gone Murder Line.
4:07
Speaker 4: Hello. Hey, this is Amy Propelling on. Hi. How are
4:12
Speaker 4: you doing good? Can you talk?
4:15
Speaker 3: Yes?
4:15
Speaker 4: Yes, I am fixing to get into a place away
4:18
Speaker 4: from my grandbaby. We have currently have no power because
4:21
Speaker 4: the hurricane the weather comes through and so so if
4:26
Speaker 4: I lose you, that's probably that's what's going to happen.
4:28
Speaker 1: Is our services just.
4:29
Speaker 4: I mean live out in the country.
4:31
Speaker 2: So okay.
4:33
Speaker 3: I heard about this case when a podcast listener reached
4:37
Speaker 3: out She was a friend of Doug's who said that
4:39
Speaker 3: Doug's death was all over the news in that rural
4:42
Speaker 3: region of East Texas, but then all of a sudden
4:45
Speaker 3: it wasn't. No one ever heard anymore about the death investigation.
4:51
Speaker 3: Her name is April, not to be confused with Doug's
4:54
Speaker 3: wife April. Doug's friend. April said that she knew Doug
4:58
Speaker 3: through church. She said that he was always friendly and kind,
5:01
Speaker 3: and that she believed he was a religious man. He
5:05
Speaker 3: said that in the final years of his life, Doug
5:07
Speaker 3: became very involved with a local Pentecostal church.
5:10
Speaker 1: That's where she knew him from.
5:12
Speaker 4: Doug gets not all a whole lot, a whole lot
5:14
Speaker 4: to our family, and we went to church together.
5:19
Speaker 3: There wasn't much information out there about Doug Janis's murder.
5:23
Speaker 3: Local news stations quoted an affidavit, but it was brief
5:26
Speaker 3: and just said the cause of death was due to
5:28
Speaker 3: Doug Janice being shot in the head. The houseboat, as
5:33
Speaker 3: we said before, had gone up in flames. At first,
5:36
Speaker 3: the police and paramedics thought it was some kind of
5:38
Speaker 3: a pro pain leak or freak accident. Doug was a
5:41
Speaker 3: very well known commercial cat fisherman in the area. He
5:44
Speaker 3: had not only built a houseboat over the years, he
5:47
Speaker 3: had also acquired several smaller houseboats. He kept them all together,
5:51
Speaker 3: so he had a lot of property down there. He
5:55
Speaker 3: also had a fireplace on that houseboat and pro pain tanks.
5:59
Speaker 3: But once they took Doug's body to Beaumont, Texas and
6:02
Speaker 3: did the autopsy, they saw the cause of death had
6:05
Speaker 3: been the fatal shots to his head, not the house fire,
6:09
Speaker 3: and right away people were asking questions about his wife,
6:12
Speaker 3: April May Janis and where she was at the time
6:14
Speaker 3: of the murder, because, according to Doug's friend April, Doug
6:19
Speaker 3: and his wife April were estranged. At the time of
6:21
Speaker 3: his death, they were not living together and they hadn't
6:24
Speaker 3: been living together for a long time. April first moved
6:28
Speaker 3: into a mobile home that was just up the hill
6:30
Speaker 3: from Doug's houseboat while he stayed on the water, but
6:33
Speaker 3: later she moved into her own place in Minnie, Louisiana,
6:37
Speaker 3: right across the bridge. Exactly when April relocated and what
6:42
Speaker 3: the story was there is something we're going to be
6:44
Speaker 3: diving into in future episodes. At the same time, there
6:48
Speaker 3: were rumors that witnesses had seen a vehicle rapidly speeding
6:52
Speaker 3: away from the houseboat, basically right before it blew up.
6:56
Speaker 3: We talked to Doug's friend, April about some of the
6:59
Speaker 3: irregularities at the crime scene.
7:01
Speaker 4: He lived on the boat and she lived in a
7:06
Speaker 4: mobile home up the hill from him. She did not
7:09
Speaker 4: even at that point, she was not even living in
7:12
Speaker 4: the same place with him, and he had He didn't
7:16
Speaker 4: even sleep in his own bed ever, he slept in
7:18
Speaker 4: a recliner because he had a bad hernia. I guess
7:22
Speaker 4: since he was a commercial fisherman, you know, he had
7:24
Speaker 4: to bend over the boat and lift heavy fish, you know,
7:27
Speaker 4: out of the water and stuff. And when they put
7:32
Speaker 4: the fire out and they found his body, it was
7:35
Speaker 4: in the bed with and he had two bullet holes
7:37
Speaker 4: in the back of the head.
7:39
Speaker 3: This has been a difficult case. We have done multiple
7:43
Speaker 3: FOI requests, but the case file is not public information
7:46
Speaker 3: since this is still an active investigation. But that answered
7:50
Speaker 3: one important question for me. I knew Doug was shot
7:53
Speaker 3: in the head. Now we found out he was shot
7:56
Speaker 3: in the back of the head. This was definitely a
7:58
Speaker 3: murder case. Doug had been shot execution style, but who
8:04
Speaker 3: would have wanted to kill Doug Chamis, a man who
8:07
Speaker 3: everyone seemed to love in that neighborhood. We need to
8:10
Speaker 3: find more information about what Doug was doing on that houseboat,
8:14
Speaker 3: and also about his wife, about his relationship with his wife, April.
8:18
Speaker 3: We also need to find these witnesses who said they
8:21
Speaker 3: saw a car speeding away from the blazing houseboat.
8:24
Speaker 1: But even without the case file, we did get a
8:27
Speaker 1: few facts.
8:28
Speaker 3: The pathologists found two bullets lodged in Doug's brain and
8:32
Speaker 3: ruled the manner of death a homicide. So as we
8:35
Speaker 3: wait for more official police and forensic information to come,
8:39
Speaker 3: we need to ask who was Doug Janis. Everyone has
8:45
Speaker 3: secret parts of themselves they don't want others to see,
8:48
Speaker 3: and in a murder case, often those hidden dark sides
8:52
Speaker 3: become public when it comes to Doug Janis's murder. I
8:56
Speaker 3: can't remember a case I've ever investigated where it seems
8:59
Speaker 3: like the victim is so loved and so hated at
9:02
Speaker 3: the same time. Most of the news articles about Doug
9:06
Speaker 3: are really positive, but at the same time I noticed
9:09
Speaker 3: they're pretty vague. For example, the local news station KJAS
9:13
Speaker 3: dot com had an article that read quote Doug Janis
9:16
Speaker 3: was living the dream and doing what he loved along
9:19
Speaker 3: the banks of Toledo Ben Lake fishing. He was known
9:23
Speaker 3: by the fishing community as the Catfishman and well loved
9:26
Speaker 3: by all who met him end quote. So they painted
9:30
Speaker 3: a picture of Doug Janis as being this nice guy
9:32
Speaker 3: who was living out his golden years on a houseboat
9:34
Speaker 3: that he built himself. In all of the photos I
9:37
Speaker 3: can find of Doug, he has a huge smile on
9:40
Speaker 3: his face.
9:41
Speaker 1: Doug was fit. He spent a lot of time fishing.
9:44
Speaker 3: He also got a scuba diving certification and was a
9:47
Speaker 3: pretty avid diver for years in the Texas Gulf Coast area.
9:51
Speaker 1: Doug was always on the water.
9:52
Speaker 3: He was obsessed with the houseboat that he had designed
9:54
Speaker 3: and built himself. He loved showing his boat off to
9:57
Speaker 3: friends and family. I'm going to take a step back
10:00
Speaker 3: for a minute, because you can't unravel what happened to
10:03
Speaker 3: Doug Jannis without talking about the area where it happened.
10:08
Speaker 3: This infamous houseboat that sat on the Toledo Bend Reservoir.
10:12
Speaker 3: This reservoir is on the Sabine River. It sits on
10:15
Speaker 3: the border between Texas and Louisiana.
10:17
Speaker 1: It is a super.
10:18
Speaker 3: Rural area and the people who live there are kind
10:21
Speaker 3: of an eclectic combination. You've got families who've lived there
10:24
Speaker 3: for generations, also a lot of retired people and people
10:29
Speaker 3: who come there to fish on weekends. This area, the
10:31
Speaker 3: Toledo Bend Reservoir, by the way, is huge. It has
10:35
Speaker 3: an area of one hundred and eighty five thousand acres.
10:38
Speaker 1: It's about eighty miles long.
10:40
Speaker 3: It's the largest man made body of water in the
10:42
Speaker 3: South and the fifth largest in the entire United States.
10:46
Speaker 1: The lake is.
10:47
Speaker 3: Well known as being amazing for fishing, especially for catfish,
10:50
Speaker 3: Doug's favorite, but the water is murky. Some people claim
10:55
Speaker 3: that although there is swimming there, it's not necessarily recommended
10:59
Speaker 3: in some areas due to alligators. When I see the
11:03
Speaker 3: trees that are sticking out of the water, it does
11:06
Speaker 3: look like a beautiful nature spot. I also can't help
11:10
Speaker 3: thinking about what could be floating in that lake, like
11:13
Speaker 3: alligators or dead bodies. And according to some Facebook postings
11:18
Speaker 3: by residents, the area is very remote. The nearest hospital
11:23
Speaker 3: is fifteen miles away and takes twenty five minutes to
11:26
Speaker 3: drive to. Even the fire department is several miles away.
11:30
Speaker 3: Across the bridge. The area looks a lot like the Ozarks,
11:34
Speaker 3: especially on the Texas side.
11:35
Speaker 1: The road is getting scared. I believe if fire drug
11:38
Speaker 1: made it for multiple fire troups.
11:40
Speaker 3: According to the obituary for Douglas Michael Janis, he was
11:43
Speaker 3: born August eighth, nineteen fifty six in Lake Jackson. He
11:47
Speaker 3: grew up with his mother, Wanda and his stepfather, Bill,
11:49
Speaker 3: who adopted him. Doug was the oldest of four siblings.
11:54
Speaker 3: His obituary red quote, Doug will be remembered as one
11:57
Speaker 3: who never minded a hard day's work and never shot
12:00
Speaker 3: away from a challenge. There was not a lazy bone
12:02
Speaker 3: in his body, and he was not afraid of hard work.
12:05
Speaker 3: He was energetic, always hustling, and never looked for a handout.
12:10
Speaker 3: Those who knew him best and loved him most never
12:12
Speaker 3: knew him not to be working end quote. Doug lived
12:16
Speaker 3: most of his life in Silsby. He worked as an
12:19
Speaker 3: insurance sales representative for Farm Bureau. He had apparently won
12:23
Speaker 3: awards for his work.
12:25
Speaker 1: Doug was busy.
12:26
Speaker 3: He did a lot of different jobs during his lifetime,
12:29
Speaker 3: most involving manual labor, including offshore drilling rigs in the
12:32
Speaker 3: Gulf of Mexico at one point, he installed satellite dishes
12:37
Speaker 3: in Austin, Texas. Doug was an entrepreneur. He ran several
12:40
Speaker 3: small businesses himself, including a fish market. As we said,
12:44
Speaker 3: he always had a fascination with a Toledo Bend Lake
12:47
Speaker 3: area because of the lake, he was obsessed with fishing,
12:51
Speaker 3: and eventually he moved there and worked as a commercial
12:54
Speaker 3: fisherman supplying local restaurants. Doug apparently made a lot of
12:58
Speaker 3: money at his craft. He was super industrious, and even
13:02
Speaker 3: though he lived on the Texas side of the border,
13:05
Speaker 3: there was a seventy five fish limit per day there,
13:07
Speaker 3: so Doug liked to fish on the Louisiana side where
13:10
Speaker 3: he could catch an unlimited amount of fish. Doug apparently
13:14
Speaker 3: made a lot of money and kept a lot of
13:16
Speaker 3: money on his boat. We'll get back to that later.
13:21
Speaker 3: Back to the obituary. The obituary continued, quote his friends
13:25
Speaker 3: and acquaintances knew him to be a man's man who
13:28
Speaker 3: was creative, independent, and could do anything he set his
13:31
Speaker 3: mind to do. He's never met a stranger and was
13:34
Speaker 3: known for his gregarious, outgoing personality.
13:36
Speaker 1: End quote.
13:38
Speaker 3: Because Doug was obsessed with fishing, especially catfishing, he loved
13:43
Speaker 3: cooking for friends, hanging out, and throwing barbecues for friends
13:46
Speaker 3: and family, and according to his obituary, he became kind
13:49
Speaker 3: of a local celebrity because of this self made houseboat.
13:52
Speaker 1: The obituary closes with.
13:54
Speaker 3: Quote, in his final moments, he was at home, in
13:57
Speaker 3: the place he loved and enjoyed most end quote. I
14:00
Speaker 3: think it's important to quote these things exactly because this
14:03
Speaker 3: was crafted by Doug's family, the people closest to him.
14:07
Speaker 3: They obviously loved him a lot, and this was the
14:09
Speaker 3: side of him that they saw. But like everyone, Doug
14:14
Speaker 3: Janis had another side to him. After Doug was cremated,
14:19
Speaker 3: his remains were given back to his family. The obituary
14:22
Speaker 3: states Doug's ashes were scattered in the same water where
14:25
Speaker 3: he used to feed alligators marshmallows. Meanwhile, police were trying
14:30
Speaker 3: to piece together Doug's personal life, and we tried to
14:33
Speaker 3: do the same, because it turned out it was complicated.
14:37
Speaker 3: Doug Janis's obituary leaves out a few pretty crucial things,
14:41
Speaker 3: and there were also things about the crime scene that,
14:43
Speaker 3: even on first impression, do not seem to make sense.
14:47
Speaker 3: First of all, Doug had recently had a hernia operation.
14:51
Speaker 3: Because of that, he would normally sleep in his recliner
14:54
Speaker 3: in the living room, and yet he was found with
14:57
Speaker 3: two gunshots in the head on his bed and the
15:00
Speaker 3: fire trucks came at five twenty eight pm. So why
15:04
Speaker 3: was he in the bedroom in the middle the afternoon,
15:06
Speaker 3: especially since he wasn't sleeping there?
15:08
Speaker 1: Apparently?
15:08
Speaker 3: In general, we also need to find out the layout
15:11
Speaker 3: of that boat, something else I noticed, because I'm always
15:15
Speaker 3: looking not just for the information obituaries provide, but for
15:18
Speaker 3: the information they leave out. As we know, everyone has
15:23
Speaker 3: their own version of the victim. The obituary mentions who
15:28
Speaker 3: Doug is survived by. It mentions his daughter, who we
15:31
Speaker 3: have spoken to, but she's a private person and obviously
15:34
Speaker 3: this has been traumatic for her, so I'm not mentioning
15:37
Speaker 3: her name here, as well as his son in law
15:39
Speaker 3: and grandchildren, his brother and sister, and other family members.
15:44
Speaker 3: The obituary even mentions the many grateful fish who eluded
15:47
Speaker 3: his capture, etc. But the obituary does not mention Doug's
15:51
Speaker 3: a strange wife, April. In fact, Doug's obituary doesn't mention
15:56
Speaker 3: any of Doug's former wives.
16:00
Speaker 1: For me, the omission of.
16:01
Speaker 3: The wife and the obituary was a potential clue. I
16:05
Speaker 3: wanted to understand their romantic history, and how April and
16:08
Speaker 3: Doug got together was a little bit of a mystery.
16:11
Speaker 3: It was not solved, either, as we said, by reading
16:14
Speaker 3: Doug's obituary or by the YouTube tribute memorial video that
16:18
Speaker 3: was made by the funeral home. I watched that video
16:22
Speaker 3: several times. We learned from Doug's daughter that he was
16:25
Speaker 3: married a total of five times, twice to the same woman,
16:29
Speaker 3: so he had four wives in total.
16:32
Speaker 1: I noticed there were several shots.
16:34
Speaker 3: In the memorial video of Doug's former wives and of
16:37
Speaker 3: him with his children when they were young, but there
16:39
Speaker 3: was only one quick flash near the end, one single
16:43
Speaker 3: shot of April. And in that photo, Doug is wearing
16:46
Speaker 3: a Hawaiian shirt. He's very tanned, he's got silver hair,
16:50
Speaker 3: He's older but still obviously a very fit man, with
16:53
Speaker 3: a huge smile on his face. April is standing next
16:56
Speaker 3: to him with what I can best describe a completely
17:00
Speaker 3: blank expression. As I looked at April, I couldn't get
17:04
Speaker 3: any sense of her and Doug's were life relationship. I
17:06
Speaker 3: wanted to know more since April was nowhere to be
17:10
Speaker 3: seen in the obituary. It seemed that Doug's family was
17:13
Speaker 3: suspicious of April, but they were not the only ones.
17:18
Speaker 1: Police were suspicious of April two.
17:20
Speaker 3: And on January fourteenth, twenty twenty one, April may Janis
17:24
Speaker 3: was arrested and charged with Doug's murder. On January fourteenth,
17:37
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, almost exactly a month after Doug Janis
17:41
Speaker 3: was fatally shot on his houseboat, his estranged wife, April
17:44
Speaker 3: may Janis, was charged with his murder. We learned from
17:48
Speaker 3: friends of Doug's that at the time of his death,
17:50
Speaker 3: April and Doug were not living together. Doug was living
17:53
Speaker 3: on his houseboat, while April had been staying on a
17:56
Speaker 3: mobile trailer elsewhere on the property. This is a big
17:59
Speaker 3: property that spans quite a few acres. Doug owned more
18:04
Speaker 3: than one piece of prime property. He also owned a
18:07
Speaker 3: second residence in Louisiana on the other side of the border.
18:10
Speaker 3: We learned that April had been living there. She relocated
18:14
Speaker 3: to that property a while back. My research assistant Amy
18:18
Speaker 3: and I talked about this case a lot.
18:21
Speaker 2: This is the bridge that divides Texas and Louisiana.
18:25
Speaker 1: Across the water divides the lake and.
18:30
Speaker 2: If you believe that April committed this crime. She would
18:35
Speaker 2: have had to cross this bridge, and the fire department
18:38
Speaker 2: would have had to cross this bridge as well, and
18:41
Speaker 2: it's a long bridge.
18:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were trying to figure out what exactly went down.
18:47
Speaker 3: Since this murder happened right on the Texas Louisiana border,
18:51
Speaker 3: we knew that this case might have involved multiple counties. So,
18:55
Speaker 3: according to the affidavit, police became suspicious of April for
18:58
Speaker 3: several reasons. First of all, when they interviewed her, they
19:02
Speaker 3: did not believe she appeared to be grieving at all.
19:06
Speaker 3: They believed she was showing signs of deception during that interview,
19:09
Speaker 3: and when they asked her if she killed her husband,
19:11
Speaker 3: she would quote nod yes, but say no end quote.
19:15
Speaker 3: Police also noted that April did not show any shock
19:18
Speaker 3: or grief when she was told that the boat burning
19:21
Speaker 3: down was to cover up a homicide, not an accident.
19:24
Speaker 3: The officer who scored the affidavit wrote he discovered that
19:27
Speaker 3: April had a boyfriend in Louisiana who she was in
19:30
Speaker 3: love with and intimate with. Police also discovered a potential motive.
19:35
Speaker 3: Doug kept a lot of cash on his houseboat. Police
19:39
Speaker 3: also found out that there was apparently an insurance policy
19:41
Speaker 3: on Doug. In the affidavit, they said that there was
19:44
Speaker 3: a one hundred thousand dollars policy that paid out in
19:47
Speaker 3: the event of Doug's death and April was the sole beneficiary.
19:52
Speaker 3: Police talked to witnesses and found one who told authorities
19:55
Speaker 3: that on Sunday, December thirteenth, twenty twenty, the night of
19:58
Speaker 3: the murder, they saw April leaving Doug's boat sometime between
20:03
Speaker 3: four thirty to five thirty pm. They said that it
20:06
Speaker 3: was dusk, but that they could still clearly see that
20:09
Speaker 3: it was April. They said that April left home and
20:12
Speaker 3: passed by the witness's house fifteen to twenty minutes before
20:16
Speaker 3: the first fire truck arrived on scene. The witness said
20:19
Speaker 3: they were sure it was April. They had known April
20:21
Speaker 3: for a long time, since she was a little girl.
20:24
Speaker 3: They definitely recognized her. They saw her driving her blue
20:27
Speaker 3: Dodge truck. The affidavit red quote the information collected and
20:32
Speaker 3: the eyewitness statement places the defendant at the crime scene
20:35
Speaker 3: while the houseboat was on fire and just before the
20:37
Speaker 3: fire truck arrived end quote, which would have been in
20:41
Speaker 3: the minutes leading up to when the fire was called
20:43
Speaker 3: in at five twenty eight pm. After April Janis was
20:47
Speaker 3: arrested and charged with murder on January fourteenth, things seemed
20:51
Speaker 3: to be moving toward trial. Prosecutors seemed confident in their case.
20:56
Speaker 3: A ten million dollar bond was set on April, but
20:59
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, everything changed. First, quietly, the
21:07
Speaker 3: judge lowered the bail amount in April's case from ten
21:10
Speaker 3: million dollars to two hundred thousand, which meant that she
21:13
Speaker 3: would only need to come up with about twenty thousand
21:15
Speaker 3: dollars to bond out. And that's what happened. April was
21:19
Speaker 3: released on bail, and then there was nothing.
21:23
Speaker 1: No more news.
21:24
Speaker 3: Stories about the case, no updates. We were able to
21:27
Speaker 3: get a list of April's bond conditions and we learned
21:30
Speaker 3: that pretty much all of the restrictions were removed. All
21:33
Speaker 3: she had to do was surrender her passport and basically
21:36
Speaker 3: agree to not leave the country.
21:38
Speaker 1: She didn't have to report to anyone. She was free.
21:42
Speaker 3: The prosecutors apparently thought they just didn't have enough evidence
21:45
Speaker 3: to pursue the case. That's the official story, and we
21:47
Speaker 3: know that sometimes this happens in these cases. The bar
21:51
Speaker 3: to take someone to trial and to convict someone of
21:53
Speaker 3: murder is very high and that's a good thing.
21:57
Speaker 1: But I couldn't figure this case out.
21:59
Speaker 3: I know it's circumstantial, but there appear to be a
22:03
Speaker 3: lot of facts that could have led towards April being
22:06
Speaker 3: taken to trial. You have a witness who apparently saw
22:09
Speaker 3: at the crime scene around the time of the murder.
22:11
Speaker 3: You have the fact that there's a life insurance policy
22:13
Speaker 3: of which, according to police, she's the sole beneficiary one
22:17
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars. There was marital infidelity. She had a
22:21
Speaker 3: boyfriend in Louisiana, and according to the source we talked to,
22:25
Speaker 3: April and Doug were not living in the home together.
22:27
Speaker 3: She was living somewhere else, So you have a separation.
22:32
Speaker 3: And then we found out something else. It turned out
22:35
Speaker 3: that Doug was not the first person close to April
22:39
Speaker 3: who died violently under mysterious circumstances. Years earlier, April's mother,
22:47
Speaker 3: Anna Thompson, was also fatally shot. We're going to get
22:55
Speaker 3: a lot more into April Janis's family history next week,
22:59
Speaker 3: but for now we can say April grew up in
23:02
Speaker 3: the hemp Hill, Texas area with her mom Anna and
23:04
Speaker 3: her father, Bob Thompson, who, by the way, was a
23:07
Speaker 3: character in his own right. Bob was an army veteran
23:10
Speaker 3: who later ran a trucking company. Bob was known around
23:13
Speaker 3: town as the one armed biker. This was said with
23:16
Speaker 3: affection because he had had an arm amputated after an injury,
23:20
Speaker 3: but he loved to constantly ride his motorcycle around. Like Doug,
23:24
Speaker 3: Bob was into hunting and fishing and going out on
23:27
Speaker 3: the lake. So we're going to go down to the
23:29
Speaker 3: area where Doug Janis was murdered and see what we
23:32
Speaker 3: can find out. We've been worn. This could be dangerous.
23:36
Speaker 3: This is a part of the world where things burned
23:38
Speaker 3: to the ground, suspicious fires, flying bullets, violent weather, and
23:42
Speaker 3: alligators are not rare occurrences. But we found out several
23:47
Speaker 3: things that, in my opinion, are completely groundbreaking and could
23:51
Speaker 3: change everything in this case. Several things that make me
23:54
Speaker 3: question how and why this case is apparently going cold
23:58
Speaker 3: rather than being actively investigated. One was that April Janis
24:02
Speaker 3: was not just much younger than her husband. We've heard
24:06
Speaker 3: April was a teenager when she started dating Doug. Doug's friend.
24:10
Speaker 3: April actually addressed this. She said she noticed how young
24:13
Speaker 3: April looked next to Doug when she first met them.
24:17
Speaker 4: This is hilarious because I got they started calling me
24:20
Speaker 4: big April and her little Aprils to keep the two
24:22
Speaker 4: us separate. But I thought that she was his daughter
24:27
Speaker 4: or granddaughter by chance or something, because the first time
24:30
Speaker 4: he came to church with her, she was a kid.
24:33
Speaker 4: She was just a child. And I went and I
24:35
Speaker 4: seld him. I says, good, see Doug. And so he
24:38
Speaker 4: was like, it's okay. We get this all the time.
24:40
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I'm like, okay. But he was. He
24:44
Speaker 4: was a good man.
24:46
Speaker 3: Some of his friends seemed to kind of gloss over
24:49
Speaker 3: the fact that April was so young, but they may
24:51
Speaker 3: be unaware of just how young April was when she
24:55
Speaker 3: started becoming involved with Doug. According to people who knew
24:58
Speaker 3: April and Doug well, April and Doug started dating when
25:02
Speaker 3: she was very young. She was just thirteen years old
25:06
Speaker 3: at that time. Doug would have been in his forties. Obviously,
25:10
Speaker 3: we're not here to blame victims, but I do think
25:13
Speaker 3: it's important to develop a complete picture of Doug Janis
25:16
Speaker 3: in order to understand why someone would have wanted to
25:19
Speaker 3: murder him execution style, and a big piece of that
25:22
Speaker 3: puzzle is understanding what his exact relationship was with April.
25:28
Speaker 3: Bob Thompson, April's father, wrote an entire book about April's
25:31
Speaker 3: life and the night her mother, Anna was killed, Bob
25:35
Speaker 3: passed away. We're going to be reading excerpts from his
25:38
Speaker 3: book and we're going to try to piece this story together.
25:42
Speaker 3: We're going to talk to someone very close to April,
25:44
Speaker 3: and we're going to track down the witness who saw
25:46
Speaker 3: Doug's boat burn into the ground. We're going to try
25:49
Speaker 3: to find the person who allegedly saw April leaving the scene,
25:53
Speaker 3: and we're going to try to figure out what happened
25:56
Speaker 3: in that remote lakeside area way back in the woods.
26:00
Speaker 3: We will also get into Anna Thompson's death a lot
26:03
Speaker 3: more next week, but a lot of the records in
26:05
Speaker 3: this case are sealed. From what we've been able to
26:08
Speaker 3: figure out, it turns out that twenty one years ago,
26:12
Speaker 3: Anna Thompson was shot in the back of the head,
26:16
Speaker 3: just like Doug Janis.
26:18
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
26:19
Speaker 3: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
26:24
Speaker 3: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
26:27
Speaker 3: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
26:30
Speaker 3: by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
26:34
Speaker 3: research assistance. This episode was sound designed and mixed by
26:37
Speaker 3: Noah Kameron. Our theme song is by Ben Sale, Executive
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Speaker 3: producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Else Crowley. Listen
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