Bashara case to be featured on Dateline episode Friday
The murder of Mount Clemens native Jane Bashara at her Grosse Pointe home and conviction of her husband are subject of a twohour Dateline episode Friday night.
The episode on NBC-TV (Channel 4), called, “Sex, Lies & Murder,” will feature “new details and interviews about the prominent family’s dark secrets,” including an old interview with Bob Bashara.
“When Jane Bashara is found dead in her SUV, the investigation into her murder reveals a tangled web of sex and lies,” Dateline says in a synopsis. “The two-hour broadcast also features the informant who helped the FBI expose a hit-for-hire plot in the case, all caught on tape, speaking out for the first time.”
In addition to the 2012 interview with Bashara, the episode will include interviews with Grosse Pointe Park Detective Mike Narduzzi, Jane Bashara’s friend Kim Towar, key witness and furniture store owner Steve Tibaudo and former Wayne County Circuit Judge Vonda Evans, who presided over the case, among others.
Bashara died in prison at 62 last Aug. 17 more than five years after he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 2012 first-degree, premeditated murder of his long-time wife Jane, 56. Her body was found by a tow-truck driver in her Mercedes-Benz SUV parked in an east-side Detroit alley.
Bashara was convicted following a trial. Handyman Joseph Gentz, 57, formerly of Warren and St. Clair Shores, pleaded guilty to seconddegree murder for committing the strangulation in the garage at the Bashara home at Bashara’s bequest. He is currently serving 17 to 25 years in prison, with his earliest release date scheduled for 2029.
Bashara, a landlord and Rotary Club president, killed Jane for her life insurance and to maintain a mistress. It was learned he was known as “Master Bob” and engaged in a hidden lifestyle in bondage and sex domination, and had sex dungeon under a bar called the Hard Luck Lounge in Grosse Pointe.
His murder and other convictions in connection with the case were affirmed in 2017 by the state Court of Appeals.
Bashara claimed innocence throughout the case.
“I will never stop fighting for justice and truth until my hands are raw, blood comes from my eyes and I take my last breath,” Bashara said in court in 2015.
The case has been subject of multiple books and television shows.
Bob Bashara was the son of George, a state appeals court judge and member of the Board of Governors at Wayne State University.
Jane, whose maiden name was Engelbrecht, was a senior marketing manager of an energy consulting firm after working many years as an executive at Detroit Edison. She was also a community volunteer.
The couple had two children and were active at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Grosse Pointe Woods, where a labyrinth called “Jane’s Walk GP” was built and dedicated to her in 2015.
The episode is scheduled to air at 9 p.m.