Aug. 22, 2009
The Letter
A Letter Written By A Suspicious Young Mother Helps Solve Her Own Murder
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Julie and Mark Jensen (CBS)
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Play CBS Video Video The Letter: Mark Jensen Interrogation Initially, investigators thought suicide was a strong possibility in the 1998 death of Julie Jensen. But a letter she left behind gave them other ideas. Watch excerpts as police question her husband, Mark, about Julie's death.
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Video Julie's Letter Julie Jensen's brother Paul Griffin reads his sister's ominous letter, which was handed over to authorities after her death.
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Video A Brother's Musical Tribute Julie Jensen's brother Patrick Griffin produced an album as a tribute to his late sister. Hear him perform "Failing Virtues," from the album "Voices From Beyond," released by Papercup Publishing, BMI.
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In December 1998, police in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., were called to the Lake Shore Drive home of Mark and Julie Jensen. Inside, Mark had found his wife's body lying in her bed.
Initially, investigators thought suicide was a strong possibility. But a letter written by Julie before her death pointed police in a different direction.
Was the husband somehow involved in his wife's death, as the letter hints? Or did Julie poison herself and pen the letter to implicate Mark in a twisted plot gone wrong, as his parents allege?
Watch the full episode
Pleasant Prairie, Wis. is about an hour north of Chicago, on the western shores of Lake Michigan. It booms in the summertime, but when the Wisconsin winter settles in, the village becomes a cold, bleak place.
No one who lived there was quite prepared for what happened on Dec. 3, 1998.
Special prosecutor Bob Jambois, who at the time was the Kenosha County district attorney, remembers, "My pager went off. I got called to the scene. They told me, 'Well, the M.E. is saying it's probably natural causes but we have some questions, so you might want to come out there.'"
Jambois had a lot of questions about what he found inside the house. "Forty-year-old women don't drop dead for no reason," he explains.
Asked if he had considered that Julie might have committed suicide, Jambois tells correspondent Erin Moriarty, "We absolutely considered that, right from the beginning."
Julie's brothers, Paul, Patrick, Mike, and Larry Griffin, were shocked by the news.
Mark also struggled to explain his wife's sudden death. "He appeared somewhat shaken. And he was rambling on about some drugs that she had taken recently, Ambien and Paxil. And talking about some kind of a drug interaction," Julie's brother Paul remembers.
"Mark was an emotional basket case. He was in tears. He could hardly stand up. He didn't know what to say or he didn't know how to talk," Mark's father, Dan Jensen, remembers.
Mark had been with Julie for 20 years, since they had been high school sweethearts. They started college together, too, but Julie dropped out just one semester short of a degree in nursing.
"She did great with all the book work and everything. She had difficulty because she got very close to the patients. And emotionally she couldn't take it," Paul explains.
What drew Julie to Mark, say her brothers, was his drive: he was a young stockbroker, and on the move.
On April 13, 1984, the night before Mark and Julie got married, Julie's mother June suddenly passed out. "Our mother collapsed at the wedding rehearsal. And we didn't know what the problem was. And as it turned out she was under alcohol withdrawal. So it was very, very disappointing for Julie," Paul explains.
"She told me her mother had ruined everything that was important to her in her life. And if she had a wedding, her mother was going to ruin that, too. And of course, she did," Mark's mother Florence tells Moriarty.
It was the first time that the Jensens realized that Julie's mother was battling alcoholism and depression.
Florence says Julie was afraid she'd end up like her mother. "As she got older, she could feel that she was becoming more like her mother and I'm sure her episodes of depression were part of that," she says.
Shortly after Mark and Julie's first child David was born in 1991, their marriage was rocked by the revelation that Julie had had an affair with another man.
Julie filed for divorce but changed her mind after she and Mark went to counseling. They had another son, Doug, in 1995, but the marriage was strained. By fall of 1998, Mark began telling friends that his wife was depressed
Julie went to see her family doctor, who prescribed an antidepressant. Two days later, she was dead.
With no obvious signs of injury and an inconclusive autopsy, the cause of Julie's death could not be determined.
Her brother Patrick says it's "not possible" that Julie had taken her own life. Julie had never talked about suicide and she didn't leave a suicide note, but, as it turns out, she did leave a letter.
Produced by Peter Henderson and Linda Martin
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See all 38 CommentsI find it bizarre that she could honestly feel that she was in danger, that she truly feared for her life, yet did not take any measures to protect herself - if only to ensure that she would be around to be there for her boys. If she was in a rational, sound state of mind she would have listened to the neighbors that tried to help her or she would have confided in her brothers who would have insisted that she not continue to live there.
It was clear that she WANTED to be there, that she wanted people to worry about her without taking any steps to ensure her safety. She made sure that she told people who would testify on her behalf about her "fears". She wrote a letter to seal her husband's fate.
We did not see a discussion as to whether that post-it note was really her husband's note. We did not see handwriting analysis of that note, nor did we hear his explanation of what it was for if it was proven to really be his note. That note side-by-side with the letter were the ultimate pieces of evidence that the jury used to make their decision.
I do not know if the jury were actually qualified to make this decision if this is the main basis of their thought process.
If Julie was truly depressed (as she seemed to be) and knew about the affair, this is a most-effective way for her to punish her husband and ensure that he would suffer tremendously (whether he was convicted or not).
What's more, if she really wanted to be there for her sons like she claimed in the letter ('I would never commit suicide because of my sons'), I am convinced that she would have taken refuge away from someone she feared: if she honestly feared him! And she would have taken her sons. And she would not have ingested food or drink that she herself did not buy and prepare.
I fear the justice system may have incarcerated an innocent man.
WARNING: WOMEN WHO PERCEIVE THEIR HUSBAND MAY POISON THEM EAT OUT EVERY MEAL AND ONLY DRINK FROM A BOTTLE FROM WHICH YOU HAVE BROKEN THE SEAL OR "MOVE OUT" UNTIL YOU DON''T THINK THIS ANYMORE. I HOPE MY SISTER KNOWS I LOVE AND RESPECT HER ENOUGH TO MAKE ME THE FIRST ONE SHE WOULD CALL IF PRESENTED WITH JULIE HENSEN''S TYPE EVIDENCE.
I cant believe they actually interviewed Dan Jensen on this show. He has such a shady background that there is no way you can believe a single word he says.
The part that surprises me the most is how convinced everyone else is - one way or the other - there''s a reason this case was published on 48 hours "mystery"
The part that surprises me the most is how convinced everyone else is - one way or the other - there''s a reason this case was published on 48 hours "mystery"
The part that surprises me the most is how convinced everyone else is - one way or the other - there''s a reason this case was published on 48 hours "mystery"
The part that surprises me the most is how convinced everyone else is - one way or the other - there''s a reason this was published on 48 hours "mystery"
What''s really sad is how in the end, Mark had obviously turned Julie''s sons against her through the years. The note they had read mentioned their "birth mother" Julie. She was their MOTHER, period, and would still be alive had it not been for their cold-hearted father.
To answer your question, you can always google it and you''ll get loads of information.... that''s the thing with anything these days......
But trust me, Jensen is where he belongs, with or without the letter. He was cold and heartless. A complete loser who really got leniency for what he did.When you murder somebody, you don''t go around bragging it to other people.... the jailhouse snitch could not be lying, as his account of the story matched the forensics (wife''s face was smeared to the side). As if he could have made that up. Please, spare me!
I don''t think the entire letter was read during the episode. You can view the unabridged reading of the sons'' letter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ668aYH5BY
Julie Jensen''s family has a website which includes a source-annotated timeline of the events leading up to her death and highlights some of the events at trial-- could be a helpful resource in learning more about the case: http://www.oursisterjulie.com./Julie/Timeline.html
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O.J. was judged by a jury of his peers.
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