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The Man Behind the Picture-Perfect Family Was a Stranger to Everyone | True Crime · Crime Uncovered

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The trial opens on October 7, 2014, before Judge Vonda
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Evans at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Over 10 weeks, prosecutors Lisa Lindsay and Robert Moran call
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: 74 witnesses and present about 460 exhibits. Rachel Gillette takes
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the stand. She describes the dungeon, the lies, the plans
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: for the house, and she says something heartbreaking. that she
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: feared she was the reason Jane had been killed. A
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: former tenant testifies that Bob, high on cocaine in a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: car in Detroit, started sobbing and suggested he'd had his
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: wife killed because a divorce would cost too much. Bob
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: had also offered this man money to call in a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: fake tip, and Steve Tobar's recordings are played for the jury.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Then come the children. Jessie, the daughter who held her
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: father's hand on national television, takes the stand for the prosecution.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: She testifies about catching him on BDSM websites. About explicit
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: messages with his girlfriend. About his insistence that her mother
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: must have been carjacked. She does not look at him.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Bobby testifies too. The defense argues that Joe Gent was
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a violent, unreliable man who acted alone. That Bob already
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: had the life he wanted and no reason to kill,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: that the Grosse Pointe Park detectives were inexperienced. Bob does
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: not testify. In closing, Robert Moran turns to the jury
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and asks, what kind of man makes his elderly mother
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hide a gun for him? And what kind of man
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: brings two women into the marital bed while his wife
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is out of town? There was, he said, a ton
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of motive. December 18, 2014, the jury returns its verdict.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Guilty on all five counts that reach the jury, including
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: first-degree premeditated murder. Bob covers his face with his hand.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: On January 15, 2015, he returns for sentencing. And this
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: is where Jane's mother, Lorraine, stands and faces him directly.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: She says she wants him to live a while so
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: that every day she lives, she can think of him
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: rotting in jail. And she asks him a question that echoes,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: why hadn't he just gone off to his dungeon life
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and left her daughter and her grandchildren alone? Bob tells
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: the court he had absolutely nothing to do with his
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: wife's death and that he loved his Jane dearly. Judge
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Evans calls him a master of manipulation with a dark
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: heart and sentences him to mandatory life in prison without
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the possibility of parole. So how do you convict a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: man of murder when no forensic evidence puts his hands
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: on the victim and the only eyewitness refuses to speak?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: You build a wall out of everything else. Prosecutors organize
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: their case around three pillars. Motive, opportunity, and consciousness of guilt.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Motive was documented in painful detail. The affair. More than
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a thousand phone calls. A house closing three days after
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the murder. A planned household with a third woman. And
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: repeated statements that divorce was just too expensive. Opportunity came
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: from phone records tracking contact between Bob and Gent around
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the time of the killing and from Bob's shifting alibi.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: But the strongest evidence of all came from Bob himself,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the recorded plot to kill Gent, and his guilty plea
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to it. The defense argued he wanted revenge against his
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: wife's confessed killer. The jury didn't buy it. They accepted
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the prosecution's explanation. He was eliminating a witness. Even the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: staging of the scene was telling. Leaving the SUV in
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: an impoverished area, purse dumped, key inside, was meant to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: suggest a random crime, to invite someone to take the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: car and contaminate the evidence. But the valuables left behind
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: undermined the robbery theory from the first hours. And yet,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the investigation had real weaknesses. A small suburban police department
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: that rarely handled homicides. Jane's clothing was Potentially critical trace
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: evidence lost after being released to a funeral home, and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Jen's account kept shifting. The promised payment went from $ 2, 000
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and a Cadillac to $ 8, 000 and more. The details of
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Bob's role changed from one statement to the next. In
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the end, the DNA under Jane's fingernail proved who strangled her.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Only the surrounding circumstances established who wanted her dead. Now
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the people. What emerges from the record
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: is a pattern of compartmentalization and control. Bob Beshara kept
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: two complete identities, the Rotary President and Church Usher, and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Master Bob. He kept them apart through constant lies, tailored
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to each audience. To Rachel, he was a widower, then separated,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: then divorced. To Lydia, his wife had agreed to a divorce.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: To his community, he was a devoted husband. Control is
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the thread running through all of it. In his hidden life,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: he cast himself as the dominant figure over women who
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: submitted to him. At home, he complained of feeling emasculated
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and criticized. Prosecutors framed the murder as an extension of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that need. Rather than accept the financial cost and the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: loss of status a divorce would bring, he removed the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: person standing in his way. Even his choice of accomplice fits.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Joe Gent was intellectually impaired, financially dependent, and easily intimidated.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Someone who could be pressured, and if necessary, discredited. And
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: when Gent became a threat, Bob tried to have him killed.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: After the murder, notice how Bob behaved. A heavy investment
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: in public image. He sought out cameras. he talked at
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: length to national media, he placed his own daughter beside
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: him on television. Judge Evans believed those interviews may have
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: sealed his fate. Instead of retreating, he tried to control
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the narrative, and in doing so, exposed himself to the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: very people who knew his other identity. At sentencing, he
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: followed the same script, complete denial, a declaration of love
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: for his Jane, a claim that his trial had been unfair.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: There was no acknowledgement of any responsibility. Joe Gent presents
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a very different profile. Limited capacity. High susceptibility to pressure.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: A reported history of threatening behavior toward neighbors. His shifting
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: statements reflect both his vulnerability to manipulation and his unreliability
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: as a witness. And in this case, those two traits
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: made him useful to Bob and dangerous to him at
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the very same time. Bob never accepted the verdict. In 2015,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: he asked for a new trial, claiming his lawyers had
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: been ineffective. At a hearing before Judge Evans, he testified
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: under oath for the first time. He said he entered
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the BDSM world to protect women who'd been mistreated by
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: rough men. He claimed Jane had permitted his affairs. Under cross-examination,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: he admitted he hadn't told the full truth. In January 2016,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: his defense produced a sworn affidavit from Joe Gent, claiming
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Bob was innocent and that Gent had acted alone during
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: a break-in. Then, in April 2016, Gent took the stand
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: and gave his most graphic account yet. Bob handed him
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a gun, he said, and told him to shut her up.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: He said he'd signed the affidavit out of spite. Judge
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Evans denied the motions. The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the convictions in 2017. The Michigan Supreme Court declined to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: hear the case in 2018. And what about the family
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: left behind? For Bobby and Jesse, this meant losing both parents,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: their mother to murder, their father to prison after standing
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: beside him and then testifying against him. Judge Evans later
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: said the most heartbreaking moment of the entire trial was
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: watching those two young people testify, knowing that half their
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: DNA came from Bob. On August 17, 2020, Bob Beshara
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: died at the Woodland Center Correctional Facility. He was 62
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: years old and still challenging his conviction in federal court.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Jane's great-aunt said his death would bring closure. Her sister
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Julie said eight years was not long enough for everything
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: he had ruined. Joe Gent remains in prison, and the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: building that held the hard luck lounge in its basement,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: it was later gutted by a five-alarm fire. Some questions
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: were never resolved. The exact price Bob paid, his precise
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: role in that garage, what happened to Jane's clothing, and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: how much Jane really knew about the man she married.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But here's what remains certain. Jane was a daughter, a sister.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a mother, a professional, a volunteer who built her whole
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: life around the people she loved, and she was killed
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in the one place she should have been safest. The
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: case of Jane Beshara is a reminder that the most
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: dangerous secrets are often kept closest to home. If this
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: case stayed with you, subscribe and turn on notifications so
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: you don't miss the next one. And tell us in
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the comments, which question in this case do you think
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: was never truly answered? Thank you for listening.