Bashara Trial: Defense Questions Handling Of Evidence By Police
DETROIT (CBS Detroit) - A tension-filled day at the Bob Bashara trial with arguments and even a juror being chastised. The case is starting to wind down with the defense ready to call their next-to-last witness.
It was nearly an hour of questioning for Grosse Pointe Park Police Detective Michael Narduzzi, reports WWJ's Marie Osborne, much of which centered around the clothes that Jane Bashara was wearing the night she was murdered.
The clothes she was wearing were never processed for evidence.
Narduzzi told the jury the clothes were sent to the funeral home because Detroit police never requested them.
Defense attorney Lillian Diallo asked if they investigated any other possible suspects.
"In two days," said Diallo, "Robert Bashara became a suspect in this case, correct?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the detective.
"And Mrs. Bashara is killed in 2012 and we know two days later you are looking at the husband. Correct?
"Correct," he replied.
"His name is put out there in the media, correct?"
"It was," he stated.
Diallo got Narduzzi to admit that his department was not prepared for the size and the scope of the Bashara murder investigation.
At one point a heated exchange between one of the prosecutors and a member of the police department was recalled.
Lisa Lindsey asked ... "more than one occasion did I indicate to you (Narduzzi) 'I know you are overwhelmed, but it's time to put on your big girl panties and do the work (yelling) didn't I not say that to both you and Captain ... ?
"I think you said 'big boy pants,'" testified Narduzzi.
Bob Bashara is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation of murder in the 2012 death of his wife, Jane. Authorities say she was beaten and strangled in the couple's home and before her body was left inside her SUV in a Detroit alley.
Joseph Gentz, a handyman who confessed he killed Jane Bashara under Bob Bashara's orders, is in prison for second-degree murder.
In the trial, Bashara maintains his innocence, though handyman Joe Gentz pleaded guilty and was sentenced to up to 28 years in prison for killing Jane Bashara. Gentz was allegedly approached by Bashara to be the hit man who killed his wife.
Jane Bashara, the 56-year-old Grosse Pointe mother of two, and a DTE marketing executive, was found strangled to death in the back of her Mercedes-Benz SUV in a Detroit alley on January 25, 2012.
After Jane's body was discovered, Gentz turned himself in to police.
Bob Bashara pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder for trying to hire a hitman to kill Joseph Gentz, the handyman found guilty of killing Jane Bashara.
Prosecutors allege Bashara wanted his wife out of the way so he could carry on a BDSM (BDSM stands for bondage, discipline and sadomasochism) relationship with two women. Bashara was allegedly the owner of a sex dungeon who held elaborate master-slave parties with others in the same lifestyle.
