Bob Bashara Wipes Away Tears As Medical Examiner Details Wife's Fatal Injuries
DETROIT (WWJ) - The Grosse Pointe Park man accused of hiring a contract killer to take out his wife briefly showed some emotion when the slain woman's brutal injuries were detailed in court.
Bob Bashara, 56, wiped away tears Tuesday as Wayne County Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz explained that Jane Bashara's windpipe was fractured, her most severe injury.
"In this particular case, this lady was strangled," Diaz told the court as jurors looked at graphic autopsy photos.
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.
While the jury looked intently at the Jane Bashara's autopsy photos, which were not visible to anyone else in the courtroom, Diaz detailed other injuries, including "inflicted blunt trauma" on several locations on her head. Diaz said she also had a large abrasion on the left side of face and large abrasion on left side of neck.
As Diaz spoke, Bob Bashara shook his head and continued to shed tears.
Also testifying Tuesday was Detroit Police Homicide Investigator Moises Jimenez, who responded to the scene after Jane Bashara's body was found.
Jimenez said it is extremely rare, a one in a million chance, to find an expensive car abandoned in the city with the keys still inside. But that wasn't the most unusual thing about the crime scene.
"It's a one in a chance in 3,000 that you're going to actually have her pills, her phone, her keys, her checkbook, laid out and displayed like it was staged," he said. The items were all located on the front passenger floor of Jane Bashara's vehicle.
Prosecutors allege Bob Bashara wanted his wife out of the way so he could carry on a BDSM relationship with two women. He was allegedly the owner of a sex dungeon who held elaborate master-slave parties with others in the same lifestyle.
Bob Bashara, who denies any role in his wife's murder, is currently serving out another sentence after he pleaded guilty to having tried to have Gentz killed in jail.
