On November 9, 1993, Jane Ellen Neumann, a wife and mother of three, was found de*ad in her home in Hudson, Wisconsin. She had been shot.
She d*ied on November 22, 1993, just before 6 p.m., according to her husband Jim. He came home from work and found his wife’s body lying face-up on the carpet in their basement TV room.
9-1-1 asked Jim what she d*ied from, and he said, “Her whole head is gone.”
An autopsy later showed that Jane d*ied from a “intraoral gunshot wound.”
Intraoral gunshot wounds are usually found in people who have committed suicide, not mu*rder, but police couldn’t find a gun anywhere in the house.
After being questioned again about his wife’s de*ath, Jim changed his story. He said that he had found her de*ad by su*icide and had thrown away the gun and the suicide note to protect her honor.
It was years before the police found the shotgun Jim says he threw into the St. Croix River, but they never did.
In the end, Jim went to jail for getting in the way of an investigation, but Jane’s de*ath was ruled a suicide, and her case was closed.
But Jane’s family didn’t believe that she had killed herself and kept looking into their daughter’s d*eath on their own.
When Jane’s parents looked into her de*ath, they found out some disturbing things about her life and marriage.
First, Jane’s mother found out that Jim had dropped off Molly, the family dog, at the St. Croix animal shelter not long before Jane di*ed. When the person asked him why he was giving up the animal, he wrote “Owner passed away” on the paperwork.
Several women also told Jane’s family that Jim had made s*exual advances toward them while they were married, which they didn’t want.
In the event that Jane d*ied, Jim would also get $116,000 from a life insurance policy. Even though the policy didn’t cover suicide, that coverage had run out four days before she d*ied.
The family of Jane also found another medical examiner to look over the results of the autopsy.
At the time, Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen was the medical examiner for Milwaukee County. He was sure that Jane’s de*ath was most likely not suicide but mu*rder.
Dr. Jentzen also said that the case materials were shown to three other board-certified forensic pathologists in his office so that they could talk about them. All three agreed that the de*ath was likely the result of mu*rder.
Her actions and interactions that day also didn’t show that she was planning to kill herself. Before she got home, she went to TJ Maxx to exchange her broken purse. She had been busy making plans for the Thanksgiving holiday. Along with her body, her brand-new purse was sitting on the couch. She was still wearing her coat and shoes from outside.
Finally, Jane did not own a gun, and her family was sure she had never even touched one in her life.
Jim finally went to court in June 1997, almost four years after Jane d*ied.
Jim was sued by Jane’s family in civil court to get money for their grandson, who had been left without a mother.
Jim was found to be responsible for Jane’s de*ath, and the judge ordered him to pay his son $482,903.26 in compensation.
“Homicide” was written on Jane’s dea*th certificate, but no one has ever been charged with or convicted of mur*dering her.
