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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Tuesday, January 24, 2012. It begins like any other workday.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Jane leaves the house around 5.30 in the morning, headed
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: for her office in downtown Detroit. On the drive home
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: that evening, according to Bob, she calls him. She sounds fine.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: She says she'll be home in about 20 minutes. Around
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: 6 o'clock, she pulls into the garage on Middlesex Road.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: She is 56 years old. A trip to visit her
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: sister Julie in Chattanooga is already planned for that weekend.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: What happened inside that garage is known mainly through the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: words of Joe Gent, and his account would change again
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and again. But in its central version, it goes like this.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Bob and Joe are in the garage, pretending to move boxes,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: so they'll be standing there when Jane walks in. She arrives.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Bob pulls a gun. He tells Joe to take care
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of it. Do it now. Joe throws Jane to the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: ground and strangles her. He stomps on her neck. Jane
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: fights back. Her fingernails break in the struggle. And according
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: to Gent, Bob stands over her body and says, quote,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean it. The two men
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: load Jane's body into the backseat of her own black
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Mercedes SUV. Gent drives it to Detroit's east side and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: leaves it in an alley near Pinewood Avenue in a
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: neighborhood of abandoned houses and dumped trash. Her purse and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: her car key are left inside. The contents of the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: purse spilled across the front passenger floor. Bob tells a
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: different story. He says he spent the evening working at
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: his properties and at the Hard Luck Lounge. where a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: witness later reported seeing him meet a man who looked
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: like Gent around 7.30. He says he got home around 8,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: found Jane and her Mercedes gone, and assumed she was
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: off running an errand. Around 11 at night, after hours
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of unanswered calls, he reports her missing. The next morning, Wednesday,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the 25th, around 7, a tow truck driver comes to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: haul away a black Mercedes from an alley. And in
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the back seat, he finds Jane. The detective who arrives
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: at the scene, Mike Narducci of the Grosse Pointe Park Police,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: notices something right away. This doesn't look like a robbery.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: The purse is right there. The key is right there.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: It looks, he thinks, as if the body was brought
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to that alley. He's right. And what happens next is
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: almost unbearable to picture. That same day, Bob calls Rachel
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Gillette and asks her to come to the house. She refuses.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: He also makes calls to be sure neither she nor
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Janet Lehman will contact him directly. That evening, hundreds gather
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: at Grosse Pointe South High School for a candlelight vigil.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Bob attends but does not speak. Rachel is there, too.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: On January 26, the autopsy confirms what everyone feared. Strangulation.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Jane's windpipe had been crushed. She had extensive bruising on
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: her upper body and on the left side of her
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: face and neck. The medical examiner's physician would later testify
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: that her death was slow and painful. And on January 27th,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the very day Bob and Rachel were supposed to close
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: on their new house, Bob agrees to take a polygraph.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: While he's at the station, police search his home. That night,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the police chief publicly names Bob a person of interest,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the only one. Two days later, police describe his polygraph
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: results and statements as inconsistent. Then comes a twist. Bob's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: own attorneys hand police a letter listing people who might
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: be dangerous to him and his family. One of the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: names on that list is Joe Gent. Police bring Joe in.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He denies everything. January 31, 2012. And that very same day,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Joe Gent walks into the Grosse Pointe Park police station
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and asks to speak with investigators. He tells them that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Bob asked him to kill Jane. He says he refused
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: at first. Then Bob threatened him. If I didn't do it,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I was a dead man. Bob had a deadline, Joe said,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and needed it done before then. The payment... In this
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: first version was $ 2, 000 and an old Cadillac. But police
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: don't arrest him. A confession alone isn't enough to charge anyone.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: They need corroboration. And then, Bob's hidden life starts to surface.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: People who knew Master Bob recognize him on the news
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: and call the police. By February 2nd, news outlets are
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: reporting on the dungeon beneath the Hard Luck Lounge. And Bob?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Bob keeps talking. On February 4th, he declares publicly, I
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: did not kill my wife. He gives interviews to Detroit
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: TV stations. He appears on ABC's Good Morning America with
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: his daughter beside him. Jessie holds her father's hand and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: says there is no way he killed her mother. In
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: one interview, Bob admits, for the first time, to the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: affair with Rachel Gillette, but insists he never intended to
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: leave Jane. His lawyer tells reporters the couple had an
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: open marriage and dismisses Gent's story as cheap pulp fiction.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Jane's family rejects the open marriage claim completely. On March 3rd,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Joe Gent is arrested in Mount Clemens. Two days later,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: he's charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy. His DNA has
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: been found under Jane's broken fingernail. Police search Rachel Gillette's home,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: but then a setback. Jane's clothing, which should have gone
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to the state police crime lab, had been released to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a funeral home, and it's missing. Bob still hasn't been charged.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But with Gent sitting in jail awaiting a hearing, Bob
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: makes a decisive mistake. On June 8th, he approaches Steve Tobar,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: an appliance store owner who also knows Gent, and asks
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: if he knows anyone who could take care of a problem.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Tobar goes straight to the police and agrees to wear
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a wire. Over the next two and a half weeks,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the two men meet several times. Bob even pats him down,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: looking for a wire. But on the recordings, Bob agrees
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to pay $ 20, 000 to have Joe Gent killed inside the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Wayne County Jail before Gent's competency hearing. He pays $ 2, 000
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: as a down payment and signs a receipt. June 25, 2012.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Around 6 in the evening, police arrest Bob at his
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Mack Avenue building, directly above the dungeon. He's held on
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a $ 15 million bond. In October, Bob pleads guilty to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: solicitation of murder. At sentencing in December, he tells the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: court he's truly and humbly sorry and has no one
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: to blame but himself. He gets 80 months to 20 years.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: The assistant prosecutor, Robert Moran, tells the court something that matters.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: This plot, he says... was not about vengeance. It was
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: about silencing a witness. That same month, Joe Gent pleads
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: guilty to second-degree murder and agrees to testify. In February 2013,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: he's sentenced to 17 to 28 years. Jane's sister Julie
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: reads a statement saying the family believes Gent had no
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: motive of his own and that he'd been coerced. In
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the spring of 2013, Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy charges
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Bob with first-degree murder, conspiracy, solicitation of murder, suborning perjury,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: witness intimidation, and obstruction of justice. At the preliminary exam,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Judge Kenneth King calls the case way too bizarre and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: orders Bob to stand trial. But then, just weeks before trial,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the prosecution loses its only eyewitness. Joe Gent announces he
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: will not testify. No weapon tying Bob to the strangling.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: No forensic trace of his hands on Jane. No eyewitness.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: The prosecution is going into a murder trial with a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: hole where the centerpiece should be.